lUiumifij G.f 0 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. THOMAS HUGHES, Q. C, AUTHOR OF "TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS," ETC. RY N JNIVBRSITY OF . CALIFORNIA. / BOSTON: HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY. €f)Z WHbtviitst fhctii, Camfcrfafle. 1880. hhs- RIVEESIDE, CAMBRIDGE : STEBEOTYPED AND PRINTED H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. /'/'/(> & NOTE. The greater part of the following pages appeared originally in " Good Words," and are now republished with the permission of the proprietors of that magazine. T. H. CONTENTS. ♦ INTRODUCTORY. PAGB The Motive op the Book 1 PART I. The Holt Land a. d. 30 — The Battle Field op the Great Captain 8 PART H. The Tests of Manliness 17 PART m. Christ's Boyhood 35 PART IV. The Call op Christ 61 PART V. Christ's Ministry. Act I » ... 77 Viii CONTENTS. PART VL FAGX Chbist's Ministbt. Act II 95 PART vn. Chbist's Ministbt. Act HI 110 PART VIII. The Last Act 126 Conclusion 137 UN IVEtt&ITY OF CALIFORNIA. V THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. INTRODUCTORY. THE MOTIVE OE THE BOOK. Some time ago, when I was considering what method it would be best to adopt in Sunday -afternoon readings with a small class in the Working Men's College, I re- ceived a communication which helped me to come to a decision. It came in the form of a proposal for a new association, to be called " The Christian Guild." The pro- moters were persons living in our north- ern towns, some of which had lately gained a bad reputation for savage assaults and crimes of violence. My correspondents be- lieved that some organized effort ought to be made to meet this evil, and that there was nothing in existence which would serve 2 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. their purpose. The Young Men's Christian Associations had increased of late, indeed, in numbers, but had failed to reach the class which most needed Christian influ- ences. There was a wide-spread feeling, they said, that these associations — valu- able as they allowed them to be in many ways — did not cultivate individual manli- ness in their members, and that this defect was closely connected with their open pro- fession of Christianity. They had separ- ated their members too much from the ordi- nary habits and life of young men ; and had set before them a wrong standard, which taught, not that they were to live in the world and subdue it to their Master, but were to withdraw from it as much as possible. Therefore they would found their new " Christian Guild " on quite other princi- ples. They aimed, indeed, at something like a revival of the muscular Christianity of twenty-five years ago, organized for mis- sionary work in the great northern towns. INTRODUCTORY. 3 The members of the Guild must be first of all Christians, but selected as far as possi- ble for some act of physical courage or prowess. It was proposed that the medal of the Royal Humane Society, or the cham- pionship of a town or district in running, wrestling, rowing, or other athletic exer- cise, should qualify at once for membership. These first members were to form the root, as it were, out of which branches of the Guild were to grow — one, they hoped, in every great centre of population. Each branch, if properly supported, might attract the most vigorous and energetic young men of its district, and so by degrees give a higher tone to the sports and occupations which absorb the spare time and energies of young Englishmen. I did not see my way to joining any such movement, which, indeed, never seemed at all hopeful to me ; nor do I know whether anything more has been done in the mat- ter. But the proposal set me thinking on the state of things amongst us which the 4 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. Christian Guild was intended to meet. I was obliged to admit that my own experi- ence, now stretching over a quarter of a century in London, agreed to some extent with that of my northern correspondents Here, too, this same feeling exists, or it may be this same prejudice, as to " Young Men's Christian Associations " amongst the class from which their members are for the most part taken. Their tone and influence are said to lack manliness, and the want of manliness is attributed to their avowed pro- fession of Christianity. If you pursue the inquiry, you will often come upon a distinct belief that this weakness is inherent in our English religion ; that our Christianity does appeal and must appeal habitually and mainly to men's fears — to that in them which is timid and shrinking, rather than to that which is courageous and outspoken. This strange delusion is often alleged as the cause of the want of power* and attrac- tion in these associations. I do not myself at all share this opinion INTRODUCTORY. 5 as to the Young Men's Christian Associa- tions, for, so far as I have had the means of judging, they seem to me, especially in the last few years, to have been doing ex- cellent service, though they work in a nar- row groove. But whether this be so or not is a matter of comparative indiffer- ence, and the controversy may safely be left to settle itself. But the underlying belief in the rising generation that Christianity is really responsible for this supposed weak- ness in its disciples, is one which ought not to be so treated. The conscience of every man recognizes courage as the foundation of manliness, and manliness as the perfec- tion of human character, and if Christian- ity runs counter to conscience in this mat- ter, or indeed in any other, Christianity will go to the wall. But does it ? On the contrary, is not perfection of character — " Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect," per- fection to be reached by moral effort in the faithful following of our Lord's life on 6 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. earth — the final aim which the Christian religion sets before individual men ; and constant contact and conflict with evil of all kinds the necessary condition of that moral effort, and the means adopted by our Master, in the world in which we live, and for which He died ? In that strife, then, the first requisite is courage or manfulness, gained through conflict with evil, — for without such conflict there can be no per- fection of character, the end for which Christ says we were sent into this world. But was Christ's own character perfect in this respect, — not only in charity, meek- ness, purity, long-suffering, but in courage ? If not, can He be anything more than the highest and best of men, even if He were that; can He be the Son of God in any sense except that in which all men are sons ? This was the question which was forced on me at the time by the proposals of the Christian Guild, and it gave me the hint I was in search of as to the method of our INTRODUCTORY. 7 Sunday readings. We followed it up as well as we could through the events re- corded in the gospels, applying the test at every stage of the drama. The results are collected in the following papers. PART I. THE HOLY LAND A. D. 30 — THE BATTLE FIELD OE THE GREAT CAPTAIN. u Phoenicia and Palestine were sometimes annexed to and sometimes separated from the jurisdiction of Syria. The for- mer was a narrow and rocky coast ; the latter was a territory scarcely superior to Wales in fertility or extent ! Yet Phoe- nicia and Palestine will ever live in the memory of mankind, since America as well as Europe has received letters from the one and religion from the other." — Gibbon, chap. i. In order to approach our subject with any chance of making the central figure clear to ourselves, and getting out of the atmosphere of unreality in which our ordi- nary religious training is too apt to leave us, we must make an effort to understand the condition and the surroundings of life in Palestine when our Lord appeared in it as a leader and teacher. Take first the southern portion, the scene of the opening and closing days of His min- THE HOLY LAND A. D. 30. 9 istry, and of periodical visits during those three years. While He was* still a boy un- der ten years of age the Romans had de- posed Herod Archelaus, and had annexed Judaea, which was from thenceforth ruled as a province of the Empire by a Roman procurator. The rebellion of Judas of Ga- mala, which followed shortly afterwards, was a fierce protest of the Jews against the imperial taxation and the yoke of Rome. It was suppressed in the stern, Roman fash- ion, and from that time till the commence- ment of Christ's public ministry Jerusalem and the surrounding country were on the verge of revolt, a constant source of anxiety to the Roman procurators, and held down with difficulty by the heavy hand of the le- gions which garrisoned them. All that was best and worst in the Jew- ish character and history combined to ren- der the Roman yoke intolerably galling to the nation. The peculiar position of Jeru- salem — a sort of Mecca to the tribes ac- knowledging the Mosaic law — made Syria 10 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. the most dangerous of all the Roman prov- inces. To that city enormous crowds of pil- grims, of the most stiff-necked and fanatical of all races, flocked three times at least in every year, bringing with them offerings and tribute for the temple and its guar- dians, on a scale which must have made the hierarchy at Jerusalem formidable even to the world's master, by their mere command of wealth. But this would be the least of the causes of anxiety to the Roman governor, as he spent year after year face to face with these terrible leaders of a terrible people. These high priests and rulers of the Jews were indeed quite another kind of adver- saries from the leaders, secular or religious, of any of those conquered countries which the Romans were wont to treat with con- temptuous toleration. They still represent- ed living traditions of the glory and sanc- tity of their nation, and of Jerusalem, and exercised still a power over that nation which the most resolute and ruthless of Ro- TEE HOLY LAND A. D. 30. H man procurators did not care wantonly to brave. At the same time the yoke of high priest and scribe and pharisee was even heavier on the necks of their own people than that of the Roman. They had built up a huge superstructure of traditions and ceremonies round the law of Moses, which they held up to the people as more sacred and bind- ing than the law itself. This superstruct- ure was their special charge. This was, according to them, the great national in- heritance, the most valuable portion of the covenant which God had made with their fathers. To them, as leaders of their na- tion, — a select, priestly, and learned caste, — this precious inheritance had been com- mitted. Outside that caste, the dim multi- tude, " the people which knoweth not the law," were despised while they obeyed, ac- cursed as soon as they showed any sign of disobedience. Such being the state of Ju- dsea, it would not be easy to name in all history a less hopeful place for the reform- 12 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. ing mission of a young carpenter, a stran- ger from a despised province, one entirely outside the ruling caste, though of the royal race, and who had no position what- ever in any rabbinical school. In Galilee the surroundings were slight- ly different, but scarcely more promising. Herod Antipas, the weakest of that tyrant family, the seducer of his brother's wife, the fawner on Caesar, the spendthrift op- pressor of the people of his tetrarchy, still ruled in name over the country, but with Roman garrisons in the cities and strong- holds. Face to face with him, and exercis- ing an imperium in imperio throughout Gal- ilee, were the same priestly caste, though far less formidable to the civil power, and to the people, than in the southern prov- ince. Along the western coast of the Sea of Galilee, the chief scene of our Lord's northern ministry, lay a net- work of towns densely inhabited, and containing a large admixture of Gentile traders. This infus- ion of foreign blood, the want of any such THE HOLY LAND A. D. 30. 13 religious centre as Jerusalem, and the con- tempt with which the southern Jews re* garded their provincial brethren of Galilee, had no doubt loosened to some extent the yoke of the priests and scribes and law- yers in that province. But even here their traditionary power over the masses of the people was very great, and the conse- quences of defying their authority as penal, though the • penalty might be neither so swift or so certain, as in Jerusalem itself. Such was the society into which Christ came. It is not easy to find a parallel case in the modern world, but perhaps the nearest exists in a portion of our own empire. The condition of parts of India in our day re- sembles in some respects that of Palestine in the year A. D. 30. In the Mahratta country, princes, not of the native dynasty, but the descendants of foreign courtiers (like the Idumsean Herods), are reigning. British residents at their courts, hated and feared, but practically all-powerful as Ro- 14 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. man procurators, answer to the officers and garrisons of Rome in Palestine. The peo- ple are in bondage to a priestly caste scarce- ly less heavy than that which weighed on the Judaean and Galilean peasantry. If the Mahrattas were Mohammedans, and Mecca were situate in the territory of Scin- diah or Holkar; if the influence of twelve centuries of Christian training could be wiped out of the English character, and the stubborn and fierce nature of the Jew sub- stituted for that of the Mahratta ; a village reformer amongst them, whose preaching outraged the Brahmins, threatened the dy- nasties, and disturbed the English residents, would start under somewhat similar condi- tions to those which surrounded Christ when He commenced his ministry. In one respect, and one only, the time seemed propitious. The mind and heart of the nation was full of the expectation of a coming Messiah— a King who should break every yoke from off the necks of his peo- ple, and should rule over the nations, sit- THE HOLY LAND A. D. 30. ^ /* 15 < ting on the throne of David. ^The^ii/ensity' 'Y/y, of this expectation had, in the opening da^fey . of his ministry, drawn crowds into the wil- ^ tyj derness beyond Jordan from all parts of Judaea and Galilee, at the summons of a preacher who had caught up the last ca- dence of the song of their last great prophet, and was proclaiming that both the deliver- ance and the kingdom which they were looking for were at hand. In those crowds who flocked to hear John the Baptist there were doubtless some even amongst the priests and scribes, and many amongst the poor Jewish and Galilean peasantry, who felt that there was a heavier yoke upon them than that of Rome or of Herod An- tipas. But the record of the next three years shows too clearly that even these were wholly unprepared for any other than a kingdom of this world, and a temporal throne to be set up in the holy city. And so, from the first, Christ had to con- tend not only against the whole of the es- tablished powers of Palestine, but against 16 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. the highest aspirations of the best of his countrymen. These very Messianic hopes, in fact, proved the greatest stumbling-block in his path. Those who entertained them most vividly had the greatest difficulty in accepting the carpenter's son as the prom- ised Deliverer. A few days only before the end He had sorrowfully to warn the most intimate and loving of his compan- ions and disciples, u Ye know not what spirit ye are of." We must endeavor to keep these exter- nal conditions and surroundings of the life of a Galilean peasant in the reigns of Au- gustus and Tiberius Caesar in our minds, if we really wish honestly to understand and appreciate the work done by one of them in those three short years, or the character of the doer of it. PART II. THE TESTS OF MANLINESS. " Obvius in palatio Julius Atticus speculator, cruentum gladium ostentans, occisum a se Othonem, exclamavit; et Galba, 'Commilito,' inquit, ' quis jussit? ' insigni animo ad coercendam militarem licentiam, minantibus iutrepidus, ad- versus blandientes incorruptus." — Tacit. Hist., lib. i., cap. XXXV. One other precaution we must take at the outset of our inquiry, and that is, to settle for ourselves, without diverging into useless metaphysics, what we mean by "manliness, manfulness, courage." My friends of the Christian Guild seemed to assume that these words all have the same meaning, and denote the same qualities. Now, is this so? I think not, if we take the common use of the words. " Manliness and manfulness " are synonymous, but they embrace more than we ordinarily mean by the word " courage ; " for instance, tender- 18 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. ness, and though tfulness for others. They include that courage which lies at the root ■of all manliness, but is, in fact, only its lowest or rudest form. Indeed, we must admit that it is not exclusively a human quality at all, but one which we share with other animals, and which some of them — for instance, the bulldog and weasel — ex- hibit with a certainty and a thoroughness which is very rare amongst mankind. In what, then, does courage, in this ordi- nary sense of the word, consist ? First, in persistency, or the determination to have one's own way, coupled with contempt for safety and ease, and readiness to risk pain or death in getting one's own way. This is, let us readily admit, a valuable, even a noble quality, but an animal quality rather than a human or manly one, and obviously not that quality of which the promoters of the Christian Guild were in search. For I fear we cannot deny that this kind of cour- age is by no means incompatible with those savage or brutal habits of violence which THE TESTS OF MANLINESS. 19 the Guild was specially designed to put down and root out amongst our people. What they desired to cultivate was ob- viously, not animal, but manly, courage : and the fact that we are driven to use these epithets "animal" and "manly" to make our meaning clear, shows, I think, the ne- cessity of insisting on this distinction and keeping it well in mind. We should note, also, that the tests of the Guild were, with one exception, not really adapted as tests even of animal cour- age, much less of manliness. For they pro- posed that the possession of the Royal Humane Society's medal, or the badge of excellence in athletic games, should be the qualification for the first members. Now the possession of the medal does amount to primd faeie evidence, not only of animal courage but of manliness; for it can only be won by an act involving not only per- sistency and contempt of pain and danger, but self-sacrifice for the welfare of another. But proficiency in athletic games has no / 20 TEE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. such meaning, and is not necessarily a test even of animal courage, but only of mus- cular power and physical training. Even in those games which, to some extent, do afford a test of the persistency, and con- tempt for discomfort or pain, which con- stitute animal courage, — such as rowing, boxing, and wrestling, — it is of necessity a most unsatisfactory one. For instance, Nelson, — as courageous an Englishman as ever lived, who attacked a Polar bear with a handspike when he was a boy of fourteen, and told his captain, when he was scolded for it, that he did not know Mr. Fear, — with his slight frame and weak constitution, could never have won a boat race, and in a match would have been hopelessly astern of any one of the crew of his own barge ; and the highest courage which ever animated a human body would not enable the owner of it, if he were himself untrained, to stand for five minutes against a trained wrestler or boxer. Athleticism is a good thing if kept in its THE TESTS OF MANLINESS. 21 place, but it has come to be very much over-praised and over-valued amongst us, as I think these proposals of the Christian Guild, for the attainment of their most admirable and needful aim, tend to show clearly enough, if proof were needed. We may say, then, I think, without doubt, that its promoters were not on the right scent, or likely to get what they were in search of by the methods they proposed to use. For after getting their Society of Athletes it might quite possibly turn out to be com- posed of persons deficient in real manliness. While, however, keeping this conclusion well in mind, we need not at all depreciate athleticism, which has in it much that is useful to society, and is indeed admirable enough in its own way. But as the next step in our inquiry, let us bear well in mind that athleticism is not what we mean here. True manliness is as likely to be found in a weak as in a strong body. Other things being equal, we may perhaps admit (though I should hesitate to do so) 22 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. that a man with a highly-trained and de- veloped body will be more courageous than a weak man. But we must take this cau- tion with us, that a great athlete may be a brute or a coward, while a truly manly man can be neither. Having got thus far, and satisfied our- selves what is not of the essence of manli- ness, though often assumed to be so (as by the promoters of the Christian Guild), let us see if we cannot get on another step, and ascertain what is of that essence. And here it may be useful to take a few well- known instances of courageous deeds and examine them ; because if we can find out any common quality in them we shall have lighted on something which is of the es- sence of, or inseparable from, that manli- ness which includes courage — that manli- ness of which we are in search. I will take two or three at hazard from a book in which they abound, and which was a great favorite here some years ago, as I hope it is still, I mean Napier's " Penin- THE TESTS OF MANLINESS. 23 sular War." At the end of the storming of Badajoz, after speaking of the officers, Napier goes on, " Who shall describe the springing valor of that Portuguese grena- dier who was killed the foremost man at Santa Maria? or the martial fury of that desperate rifleman, who, in his resolution to win, thrust himself beneath the chained sword blades, and then suffered the enemy to dash his head in pieces with the ends of their muskets." Again, at the Coa, " a north of Ireland man named Stewart, but jocularly called ; the Boy,' because of his youth, nineteen, and of his gigantic stature and strength, who had fought bravely and displayed great intelligence beyond the river, was one of the last men who came down to the bridge, but he would not pass. Turning round he regarded the French with a grim look, and spoke aloud as fol- lows : ' So this is the end of our brag. This is our first battle, and we retreat ! The boy Stewart will not live to hear that said.' Then striding forward in his giant 24 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. might lie fell furiously on the nearest ene- mies with the bayonet, refused the quarter they seemed desirous of granting, and died fighting in the midst of them." " Still more touching, more noble, more heroic, was the death of Sergeant Robert McQuade. During McLeod's rush this man, also from the north of Ireland, saw two men level their muskets on rests against a high gap in a bank, awaiting the uprise of an enemy. The present Adju- tant-general Brown, then a lad of sixteen, attempted to ascend at the fatal spot. Mc- Quade, himself only twenty-four years of age, pulled him back, saying, in a calm, decided tone, * You are too young, sir, to be killed,' and then offering his own person to the fire fell dead pierced with both balls." And, speaking of the British soldier gen- erally, he says in his preface, " What they were their successors now are. Witness the wreck of the Birkenhead, where four hundred men, at the call of their heroic offi- cers, Captains Wright and Girardot, calmly THE TESTS OF MANLINESS. 25 and without a murmur accepted death in a horrible form rather than endanger the women and children saved in the boats. The records of the world furnish no parallel to this self-devotion." Let us add to these two very recent examples of which we have all been reading in the last few months : the poor colliers who worked day and night at Pont-y-pridd, with their lives in their hands, to rescue their buried comrades ; and the gambler in St. Louis who went straight from the gaming-table into the fire, to the rescue of women and children, and died of the hurts after his third return from the flames. Looking, then, at these several cases, we find in each that resolution in the actors to have their way, contempt for ease, and readiness to risk pain or death, which we noted as the special characteristics of ani- mal courage, which we share with the bull- dog and weasel. So far all of them are alike. Can we get any further? Not much, if we take the 26 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. case of the rifleman who thrust his head tinder the sword-blades and allowed his brains to be knocked out sooner than draw it back, or that of "the boy Stewart." These are intense assertions of individual will and force, — avowals of the rough hard- handed man that he has that in him which enables him to defy pain and danger and death, — this and little or nothing more ; and no doubt a very valuable and admira- ble thing as it stands. But we feel, I think, at once, that there is something more in the act of Sergeant McQuade, and of the miners in Pont-y- pridd — something higher and more admi- rable. And it is not a mere question of degree, of more or less, in the quality of animal courage. The rifleman and "the boy Stewart " were each of them persistent to death, and no man can be more. The acts were, then, equally courageous, so far as persistency and scorn of danger and death are concerned. We must look else- where for the difference, for that which THE TESTS OF MANLINESS. 27 touches us more deeply in the case of Ser- geant McQuade than in that of " the boy- Stewart/ ' and can only find it in the mo- tive. At least it seems to me that the worth of the last lies mainly in the sub- limity of self-assertion, of the other in the sublimity of self-sacrifice. And this holds good again in the case of the Birkenhead. Captain Wright gave the word for the men to fall in on deck by companies, knowing that the sea below them was full of sharks, and that the ship could not possibly float till the boats came back ; and the men fell in, knowing this also, and stood at attention without utter- ing a word, till she heeled over and went down under them. And Napier, with all his delight in physical force and prowess, and his intense appreciation of the qualities which shine most brightly in the fiery ac- tion of battle, gives the palm to these When he writes, " The records of the world fur- nish no parallel to this self-devotion." He was no mean judge in such a case ; and, if 28 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST.. he is right, as I think he is, do we not get another side-light on our inquiry, and find that the highest temper of physical courage is not to be found, or perfected, in action but in repose ? All physical effort relieves the strain, and makes it easier to persist unto death, under the stimulus and excite- ment of the shock of battle, or of violent exertion of any kind, than when the effort has to be made with grounded arms. In other words, may we not say that in the face of danger self-restraint is after all the highest form of self-assertion, and a charac- teristic of manliness as distinguished from courage ? But we have only been looking hitherto at one small side of a great subject, at the courage which is tested in times of terror, on the battle-field, in the sinking ship, the poisoned mine, the blazing house. Such testing times come to few, and to these not often in their lives. But, on the other hand, the daily life of every one of us teems with occasions which will try the temper of THE TESTS OF MANLINESS. 29 our courage as searchingly, though not as terribly, as battle-field or fire or wreck. For we are born into a state of war ; with falsehood and disease and wrong and mis- ery, in a thousand forms, lying all around us, and the voice within calling on us to take our stand as men in the eternal battle against these. And in this life-long fight, to be waged by every one of us single-handed against a host of foes, the last requisite for a good fight, the last proof and test of our courage and manfulness, must be loyalty to truth — the most rare and difficult of all human qualities. For such loyalty, as it grows in perfection, asks ever more and more of us, and sets before us a standard of manliness always rising higher and higher. And this is the great lesson which we shall learn from Christ's life, the more earnestly and faithfully we study it. " For this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, to bear witness to the truth." To bear this witness against 30 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. avowed and open enemies is comparatively easy. But to bear it against those we love, against those whose judgment and opinions we respect, in defense or futherance of that which approves itself as true to our own in- most conscience, this is the last and abiding test of courage and of manliness. How nat- ural, nay, how inevitable it is, that we should fall into the habit of appreciating and judging things mainly by the standards in common use amongst those we respect and love. But these very standards are apt to break down with us when we are brought face to face with some question which takes us ever so little out of ourselves and our usual moods. At such times we are driven to admit in our hearts that we, and those we respect and love, have been looking at and judging things, not truthfully, and therefore not courageously and manfully, but conventionally. And then comes one of the most searching of all trials of courage and manliness, when a man or woman is called to stand by what approves itself to *v >A. ^ ras tests of MANzhi-Eae'.y 3i their consciences as true, and to protes^f/or / it through evil report and good repor%^/j » against all discouragement and opposition ' from those they love or respect. The sense of antagonism instead of rest, of distrust and alienation instead of approval and sym- pathy, which such times bring, is a test which tries the very heart and reins, and it is one which meets us at all ages, and in all conditions of life. Emerson's hero is the man who, u taking both reputation and life in his hand, will with perfect urbanity dare the gibbet and the mob, by the absolute truth of his speech and rectitude of his behavior." And, even in our peaceful and prosperous England, absolute truth of speech and rectitude of behavior will not fail to bring their fiery trials, if also in the end their exceeding great rewards. We may note, too, that in testing manli- ness as distinguished from courage, we shall have to reckon sooner or later with the idea of duty. Nelson's column stands in the most conspicuous site in all London, and 32 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. stands there with all men's approval, not because of his daring courage. Lord Peter- borough in a former generation, Lord Dun- donald in the one which succeeded, were at least as eminent for reckless and success- ful daring. But it is because the idea of devotion to duty is inseparably connected with Nelson's name in the minds of Eng- lishmen, that he has been lifted high above all his compeers in England's capital. In the throes of one of the terrible revo- lutions of the worst days of imperial Rome, — when probably the cruellest mob and most licentious soldiery of all time were raging round the palace of the Csesars, and the chances of an hour would decide whether Galba or Oth o should rule the world, the alternative being a violent death, — an of- ficer of the guard, one Julius Atticus, rushed into Galba's presence with a bloody sword, boasting that he had slain his rival, Otho. " My comrade, by whose order ? " was his only greeting from the old Pagan chief. And the story has come down through eigh- THE TESTS OF MANLINESS. 33 teen centuries, in the terse strong sentences of the great historian prefixed to this chap- ter, a test for all times. Comrade, who ordered thee ? whose will art thou doing ? It is the question which has to be asked of every fighting man, in whatever part of the great battle-field he comes to the front, and determines the man- liness of soldier, statesman, parson, of every strong man, and suffering woman. " Three roots bear up Dominion : knowledge, will, These two are strong ; but stronger still the third, Obedience : 'tis the great tap root, which still, Knit round the rock of Duty, is not stirred, Though storm and tempest spend their utmost skill.' I think that the more thoroughly we sift and search out this question the more surely we shall come to this as the conclusion of the whole matter. Tenacity of will, or will- fulness, lies at the root of all courage, but courage can only rise into true manliness when the will is surrendered ; and the more absolute the surrender of the will the more perfect will be the temper of our courage and the strength of our manliness. 34 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. " Strong Son of God, immortal Love," our laureate has pleaded, in the moment of his highest inspiration, " Our wills are ours to make them thine." And that strong Son of God to whom this cry has gone up in our day, and in all days, has left us the secret of his strength in the words, " I am come to do the will of my Father and your Father." PAET III. Christ's boyhood. " So close is glory to our dust, So near is God to man ; When duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can." — Emerson. One great difficulty meets the student of our Lord's life and character from what- ever side, and with whatever purpose, he may approach it. The whole authentic rec- ord of that life, up to the time of his bap- tism, when He was already thirty years old, is comprised in half-a-dozen sentences. All that we know is the story of his visit to Jerusalem at the age of twelve, when He was lost in the crush of the great feast, and his parents turned back to look for Him : " And it came to pass, that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting at the feet of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions. And all that heard 36 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. Him were astonished at his understanding and answers. And when they saw Him they were amazed, and his mother said unto Him, Son, why hast thou so dealt with us ? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And He said unto them, How is it that ye sought me ? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business? And they understood not this saying which He spake unto them. And He went down to Nazareth and was subject unto them." The silence of the evangelists as to all other details of his youth and early man- hood, except this one short incident, which belongs rather to his public than to his private life, is intended no doubt to fix our attention on the former, as that which most concerns us. At the same time it is impos- sible for those who will follow, as best they may, Christ's steps and teaching, setting before themselves that highest outcome and aim of it all, " be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect," not to turn often in thought to those early years of his in which CHRIST S BOYHOOD. 37 the weapons must have been forged, and the character formed and matured, for the mighty war. And it cannot be denied that, to such seekers, this short temple story is in many ways baffling, even discouraging. There is something at first sight, willful indeed, pos- sibly courageous, but not manly, in a boy of twelve staying behind his parents in a strange city without their knowledge or consent ; something thoughtless, almost un- gracious, in the words of reply to Mary's " thy father and I have sought thee sorrow- ing " — " How is it that ye sought me ? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business ? " (or " in my Father's courts," as the words are more truly trans- lated). The clue to this apparent divergence from the perfect manly life is given with rare insight and beauty in Mr. Holman Hunt's great picture. At any rate the face and attitude of the boy there seemed for the first time to make clear to me the 38 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. meaning of the recorded incident, and to cast a flood of light on those eighteen years of preparation which yet remained before He should be ready for his public work. The real meaning and scope of that work, in all its terrible majesty and suffering and grandeur, have just begun to dawn on the boy's mind. The first sight of Jeru- salem, and of the temple, has stirred new and strange thoughts within Him. The re- plies of the doctors to his eager question- ings have lighted up the consciousness which must have been dimly working in Him already, that he was not altogether like those around Him — the children with whom He was accustomed to play, the parents at whose knees He had been brought up. Many of us must have seen, all must have read of, instances of a call to their spirits being clearly recognized by very young children, and coloring and molding their whole after lives. We can scarcely say how early this awakening of a con- CHRIST 8 BOYHOOD. 39- sciousness of what he is, of what he is. meant to do, has come to this or that young child, but no one will question that it does so come in many instances long before the age of twelve. And so I think we may safely assume that when Christ came up for the first time to the feast which commemo- rated the great deliverance of his nation, the boy was already conscious of a voice within, calling Him to devote Himself to the work to which the God of his fathers had in like manner called in their turn, Moses, and Samuel, and David, and Elijah, and Judas Maccabseus, and all that grand roll of patriot prophets, and kings, and warriors, with whose names and doings He would be already familiar. Amidst all the pomp of the great festival He found the chosen people weighed down by a sterner and more degrading bondage than had be- fallen them in all their long annals. And all that He heard and saw in the holy city, amongst the crowds of worshippers, and the rabbis teaching in the temple courts — 40 TEE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. the first view of the holy hill of Sion, the joy of the whole earth — the strange con- trast of the eager traffic, the gross Mam- mon worship, the huge slaughtering of beasts with all the brutal accompaniments, with that universal longing and expecta- tion in those multitudes for the Messiah, who should lead and work out the final de- liverance and triumph of the people of God in that generation — must have stirred new questionings within Him, questionings whether that voice which He had been al- ready hearing in his own heart was not only a call, such as might come to any He- brew boy, but the call — whether amongst all that vast assembly He was not the one upon whom the supreme task must be laid, who must be the deliverer of this people, so certainly and eagerly looked for. To the young spirit before whose inward eye such a vision is opening all human ties would shrink back, and be for the moment forgotten. And, when recalled suddenly by the words of his mother, the half con- CHRIST'S BOYHOOD. 41 scions dreamy answer, " How is it that ye sought me ? Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's courts, about his business ? " loses all its apparent willfulness and abrupt- ness. And so, full of this new question and great wonder, He went home to the village in Galilee with his parents, and was sub- ject to them ; and the curtain falls for us on his boyhood and youth and early man- hood. But as nothing but what is most important, and necessary for understanding all of his life which we need for our own growth into his likeness, is told in these simple gospel narratives, it would seem that this vivid light is thrown on that first visit to Jerusalem because it was the crisis in our Lord's early life which bears most directly on his work for our race. If so, we must, I think, allow that the question once fairly presented to the boy's mind would never again have left it. Day by day it would have been coming back with increasing in- sistency, gathering power and weight. And 42 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. as He submitted it day by day to the God whom prophet and Psalmist had taught every child of the nation to look upon as " about his path and about his bed, and knowing every thought of his heart," the consciousness must have gained strength and power. As the habit of self-surrender and simple obedience to the voice within grew more perfect, and more a part of his very being, the call must have sounded more and more clearly. And, as He was in all things tempted like as we are, again and again must his human nature have shrunk back and tried every way of escape from this task, the call to which was haunting Him ; while every succeeding month and year of life must have disclosed to Him more and more of its peril and its hopelessness, as well as of its majesty. We have, then, to picture to ourselves this struggle and discipline going on for eighteen years — the call sounding contin- ually in his ears, and the boy, the youth, CHRIST S BOYHOOD. 43 the strong man, each in turn solicited by the special temptations of his age, and ris- ing clear above them through the strength of perfect obedience, the strength which comes from the daily fulfillment of daily du- ties — that " strength in the Lord " which St. Paul holds up to us as possible for every human being. Think over this long proba- tion, and satisf} 7 " yourselves whether it is easy, whether it is possible to form any higher ideal of perfect manliness. And without any morbid curiosity, and I think with profit, we may follow out the thoughts which this long period of quiet suggests. We know from the evangelists only this, that He remained in obscurity in a retired village of Galilee, and subject to his reputed father and mother. That He also remained in great seclusion while liv- ing the simple peasant life of Nazareth we may infer from the surprise, not unmixed with anger and alarm, of his own family, when, after his baptism, He began his pub- lic career amongst them. And yet, on that 44 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. day when He rose to speak in the syna- gogue, it is clear that the act was one which commended itself in the first instance to his family and neighbors. The eyes of all present were at once fixed on Him as on one who might be expected to stand in the scribe's place, from whom they might learn something, a Man who had a right to speak. Indeed, it is impossible to suppose that He could have lived in their midst from childhood to full manhood without attract- ing the attention, and stirring many ques- tionings in the minds, of all those with whom He was brought into contact. The stories in the Apocryphal Gospels of the ex- ercise of miraculous powers by Christ as a child and boy may be wholly disregarded ; but we may be sure that such a life as his, though lived in the utmost possible seclu- sion, must have impressed every one with whom He came in contact, from the scribe who taught the Scriptures in Nazareth to the children who sat by his side to learn, or met Him by chance in the vineyards or on CHRIST'S BOYHOOD. 45 the hill-sides. That He was diligent in using such means for study as were within his reach, if . it needed proof, would appear from his perfect familiarity with the laws and history of his country at the opening of his ministry. And the mysterious story of the crisis immediately following his baptism, in which He wrestled, as it were, face to face with the tempter and betrayer of man- kind, indicates to us the nature of the daily battle which He must have been waging, from his earliest infancy, or at any rate ever since his first visit to Jerusalem. No one can suppose for a moment that the trial came on Him for the first time after the great prophet to whom all the nation were flocking had owned Him as the coming Christ. That recognition removed, indeed, the last doubt from his mind, and gave Him the signal for which He had been patiently waiting, that the time was come and He must set forth from his retirement. But the assurance that the call would come at some time must have been growing on Him 46 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. in all those years, and so when it does come He is perfectly prepared. In his first public discourse in the syna- gogue of Nazareth we find Him at once an- nouncing the fulfillment of the hopes which all around Him were cherishing. He pro- claims, without any preface or hesitation, with the most perfect directness and confi- dence, the full gospel of the kingdom of heaven. "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand." He takes for the text of his first discourse the passage in Isaiah : " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor ; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliver- ance to the captive, the recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord," and proceeds to expound how "this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." And within the next few days He delivers his Sermon on the Mount, of which we have the full record, and in which we find the mean- CHRIST S BOYHOOD. 47 ing, and character, and principles of the kingdom, laid down once and for all. Mark, that there is no hesitation, no ambiguity, no doubt as to who He is, or what message He has to deliver. " I have not come to de- stroy, but to fulfill the law which my Father and your Father has given you, and which you have misunderstood. This which I am now unfolding to you is the meaning of that law, this is the will of my Father who is in heaven." Thus He springs at once, as it were, full-armed into the arena; and it is this thorough mastery of his own meaning and position from the first — this thorough in- sight into what He has to do, and the means by which it is to be done — upon which we should fix our thoughts if we want to understand, or to get any notion at all of, what must have been the training of those eighteen years. How had this perfect insight and confi- dence been reached? "This young peas- ant, preaching from a boat or on a hill-side, 48 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. sweeps aside at once the traditions of our most learned doctors, telling us that this, which we and our fathers have been taught, is not what the God of Israel intended in these commandments of his ; but that He, this young Man, can tell us what God did really intend. He assumes to speak to us as one having authority. Who gave Him this authority ? " These, we know, are the kind of questionings with which Christ was met at once, and over and over again. And they are most natural and necessary ques- tionings, and must have occurred to Him- self again and again, and been answered by Him to Himself, before He could have stood up to proclaim with the tone of abso- lute authority his good news to the village congregations in Galilee, or the crowds on the Mount, or by the lake. Who gave thee this authority ? We can only reverentially, and at a distance, picture to ourselves the discipline* and struggles by which the answer was reached, which enabled Him to go out without the slightest CHRIST S BOYHO&P. /-> 4&, t faltering or misgiving, and deliver ms/^JL /* and astounding message, the moment the^Y^i r sign came that the time had come, and that ^ ~C it was indeed He to whom the task was. entrusted. But the lines of that discipline, which in a measure is also the discipline of every one of us, are clearly enough indicated for us in the story of the temptation. In every subtle form this question must have been meeting the maturing Christ day after day. Art thou indeed the Son of God who is said to be coming to redeem this enslaved and degraded people, and with and beside them all the kingdoms of the world? Even if these prophets have not been dreaming and doting, art not Thou at least dreaming and doting ? At any rate if that is your claim put it to some test. Satisfy yourself, and show us, while satisfy- ing yourself, some proof of your title which we, too, can recognize. Here are all these material, visible things which, if your claim be true, must be subject to you. Show us 4 50 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. your power over some of them — the mean- est if you will, the common food which keeps men alive. There are spiritual invisi- ble forces too, which are supposed to be the ministers of God, and should therefore be under the control of his Son — give us some sign that you can guide or govern the least of them. Why pause or delay? Is the burden growing lighter on this people ? Is the Roman getting year by year less in- solent, the publican less fraudulent and ex- acting, the Pharisees and rulers less god- less, the people, your own kin amongst them, less degraded and less brutal ? You are a grown man, with the full powers of a man at any rate. Why are you idling here when your Father's work (if God be your Father) lies broadcast on every side, and no man standing forth to " the help of the Lord against the mighty," as our old seers used to rave ? I hope I may have been able to indicate to you, however imperfectly, the line of thought which will enable each of you for CHRIST S BOYHOOD. 51 * yourselves to follow out and realize, more or less, the power and manliness of the charac- ter of Christ implied in this patient waiting in obscurity and doubt through the years when most men are at full stretch, — wait- ing for the call which shall convince Him that the voice within has not been a lying voice, — and meantime making Himself all that God meant Him to be, without haste and without misgiving. In the time of preparation for the battle of life this is the true touchstone. Haste and distrust are the sure signs of weakness, if not of cowardice. Just in so far as they prevail in any life, even in the most heroic, the man fails, and his work will have to be done over again. In Christ's life up to the age of thirty there is not the slightest trace of such weakness, or cowardice. From all that we are told, and from all we can infer, He made no haste, and gave way to no doubt, waiting for God's mind, and pa- tiently preparing Himself for whatever his work might be. And so his work from 52 TEE MANLINESS OF CERIST. the first was perfect, and through his whole public life He never faltered or wavered, never had to withdraw or modify a word once spoken. And thus He stands, and will stand to the end of time, the true model of the courage and manliness of boy- hood and youth and early manhood. Before passing on to the public life of Christ, there is one point which has been raised, and upon which perhaps a few words should be said, although it does not directly bear upon our inquiry. I refer to the su- pernatural power which all Christians hold to have dwelt in Him, and to have been freely exercised within certain limits during his public career. Was He always con- scious of it ? And, if so, did He exercise it before his call and baptism ? Here we get not the slightest direct help from the gos- pel narratives, and (as has been already said) no reliance whatever can be placed on the apocryphal stories of his boyhood. We are therefore left to our own judgment and reason, and there must always be differ- CHRIST 8 BOYHOOD. 53 ences between the conclusions at which one man and another will arrive, however hon- estly each may search for the truth. To me, however, one or two matters seem to be clear enough. The first is, that He had only the same means as the rest of us of becoming conscious of his relation- ship to God. For, if this were not so, He is no example for us, He was not " tempted like as we are." Now the great difference between one man and another depends upon how these means are used; and, so far as they are used according to the mind and will of God, we gain mastery over our- selves and our surroundings. " As the world was plastic and fluid in the hands of God, so it is ever to so much of his attri- butes as we bring to it," may be a start- ling saying of Mr. Emerson's, but is one which commends itself to our experience and reason, if we only consult them hon- estly. Let us take the most obvious exam- ple of this law. Look at the relations of man to the brute creation. One of us shall 54 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. have no difficulty in making friends of beasts and birds, while another excites their dread and hate, so that even dogs will scarcely come near him. There is no need to go back to the traditions of the hermits in the Thebaid, or St. Francis of Assisi, for instances of the former class. We all know the story of Cowper and his three hares from his exquisite letters and poem, and most of you must have read, or heard of the terms on which Waterton lived with the birds and beasts in his Yorkshire home, and of Thoreau, unable to get rid of wild squirrels and birds who would come and live with him, or from a boat taking up fish, which lay quietly in his hand till he chose to put them back again into the stream. But I suppose there is scarcely one of us who has not himself seen such in- stances again and again, persons of whom the old words seemed literally true, " At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh; neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the earth. For thou shalt be in league CHRIST 8 BOYHOOD. 55 with the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee." I remember myself several such ; a boy who was friends even with rats, stoats, and snakes, and generally had one or other of them in his pockets ; a groom upon whose shoulders the pigeons used to settle, and nestle against his cheeks, whenever he went out into the stable-yard or field. Is there any reasonable way of accounting for this ? Only one, I think, which is, that those who have this power over, and attraction for, animals, have always felt towards them and treated them as their Maker intended — have unconsciously, perhaps, but still faith- fully, followed God's mind in their dealings with his creatures, and so have stood in true relations to them all', and have found the beasts of the field at peace with them. In the same way the stones of the field are in league with the geologist, the trees and flowers with the botanist, the compo- nent parts of earth and air with the chem- ist, just in so far as each, consciously or un- 56 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. consciously, follows God's methods with them — each part of his creation yielding up its secrets and its treasures to the open mind of the humble and patient, who is also at bottom always the most courageous, learner. And what is true of each of us beyond all question — what every man who walks with open eyes, and open heart, knows to be true of himself — must be true also of Christ. And so, though we may reject the stories of the clay birds, which He modeled as a child, taking wing and bursting into song round Him (as on a par with St. Francis's address to his sisters the swallows at Alvia, or the flocks in the Marches of Venice, who thereupon kept silence from their twitterings and songs till his sermon was finished), we cannot doubt that in pro- portion as Christ was more perfectly in sympathy with God's creation than any mediaBval saint, or modern naturalist, or man of science, He had more power than they with all created things from his earli- CHRIST S BOYHOOD. 57 est youth. Nor could it be otherwise with the hearts and wills of men. Over these we know that, from that time to this, He has exercised a supreme sway, infinitely more wonderful than that over birds and beasts, because of man's power of resistance to the will Christ came to teach and to do, which exists, so far as we can see, in no other part of creation. I think, then, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that He must have had all these powers from his childhood, that they must have been growing stronger from day to day, and He, at the same time, more and more conscious of possessing them, not to use on any impulse of curiosity or self-will, but only as the voice within prompted. And it seems the most convincing testi- mony to his perfect sonship, manifested in perfect obedience, that He should never have tested his powers during those thirty years as He did at once and with perfect confidence as soon as the call came. Had He done so his ministry must have com- 58 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. menced sooner ; that is to say, before the method was matured by which He was to reconstruct, and lift into a new atmosphere and on to a higher plane, the faith and life of his own nation and of the whole world. For it is impossible to suppose that the works which He did, and the words He spoke, at thirty — which at once threw all Galilee and Judaea into a ferment of hope and joy and doubt and anger — should have passed unnoticed had they been wrought and spoken when He was twenty. Here, as in all else, He waited for God's mind : and so, when the time for action came, worked with the power of God. And this waiting and preparation must have been the supreme trial of his faith. The holding this position must have been in those early years the holding of the very centre of the citadel of Man's soul (as Bunyan so quaintly terms it), against which the assaults of the tempter must have been delivered again and again while the gar- rison was in training for the victorious CHRIST S BOYHOOD. 59 march out into the open field of the great world, carrying forth the standard which shall never go back. And while it may be readily admitted that Christ wielded a dominion over all created things, as well as over man, which no other human being has ever approached, it seems to me to be going quite beyond what can t>e proved, or even fairly assumed, to speak of his miracles as supernatural, in the sense that no man has ever done, or can ever do, the like. The evidence is surely all the other way, and seems rather to indi- cate that if we could only have lived up to the standard which we acknowledge in our inmost hearts to be the true one, — could only have obeyed every motion and warning of the voice of God speaking in our hearts from the day when we first became con- scious of and could hear it, — if, in other words, our wills had from the first been dis- ciplined, like the will of Christ, so as to be in perfect accord with the will of God, — I see no reason to doubt that we, too, should 60 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. have gained the power and the courage to show signs, or, if you please, to work mir- acles, as Christ and his Apostles worked them. PART IV. THE CALL OF CHEIST. " Sound, thou trumpet of God ! come forth, great cause, to array us ! King and leader, appear! thy soldiers sorrowing seek thee." A. Clough. At last the good news for which they had been longing comes to the expecting nation. A voice is heard in the lonely- tracts beyond Jordan — the route along which the caravans of pilgrims from Gali- lee passed so often, to and from the feasts at Jerusalem — proclaiming that the king- dom of heaven is at hand. The news is soon carried to the capital, and from Jeru- salem and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan, the people go out to hear it ; and, when they have heard it, are baptized in crowds, eagerly claiming each for himself a place in this kingdom. It gathers strength till it moves rulers and 62 TEE MANLINESS OF CEBIST. priests, council and Sanhedrim, as well as the people who know not the law ; and pres- ently priests and Levites are sent out from Jerusalem to test messenger and message, and ask, u Who art thou ? What kingdom is this thou art proclaiming without our sanction ? " It spreads northward also, and the despised Galileans from lake shore and half pagan cities flock down to hear it for themselves, and the simplest and brav- est souls amongst them, such as Andrew and Simon Peter, to attach themselves to the preacher. From the highways and lake cities it pierces the Galilean valleys, and comes to the ears of Jesus, in the car- penter's cottage at Nazareth. He, too, is moved by the call, and starts for the Jordan, filled, we may be sure, with the hope that the time for action has come at last, that the God of Israel is again about to send deliverance to his people. May we not also fairly conjecture that, on his way to Bethabara, to claim his place in the national confession and uprising, He THE CALL OF CHRIST. 63 must have had moments of rejoicing that the chief part in the great drama seemed likely after all to be laid on another ? As a rule, the more thoroughly disciplined and fit a man may be for any really great work, the more conscious will he be of his own unfitness for it, the more distrustful of him- self, the more anxious not to thrust himself forward. It is only the zeal of the half-in- structed when the hour of a great deliver- ance has come at last — of those who have had a glimpse of the glory o f the goal, but have never known or counted the perils of the path which leads to it — which is ready with- the prompt response, " Yes — we can drink of the cup ; we can be baptized with the baptism." But in Christ, after the discipline of those long waiting years, there was no am- bition, no self-delusion. He had measured the way, and counted the cost, of lifting his own people and the world out of bondage to visible things and false gods, and bring- ing them to the only Father of their spirits, 64 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. into the true kingdom of their God. He must, indeed, have been well enough aware how infinitely more fit for the task He Himself was than any of his own brethren in the flesh, with whom He was living day by day, or of the men of Nazareth with whom He had been brought up. But He knew also that the same voice which had been speaking to him, the same wisdom which had been training him, must have been speaking to and training other humble and brave souls, wherever there were open hearts and ears, in the whole Jewish na- tion. As the humblest and most guileless of men He could not have assumed that no other Israelite had been able to render that perfect obedience of which He was Himself conscious. And so He may well have hur- ried to the Jordan in the hope of finding there, in this prophet of the wilderness, " Him who should come," the Messiah, the great deliverer — and of enlisting under his banner, and rendering Him true and loyal service, in the belief that, after all, He THE CALL OF CHRIST. 65 Himself might only be intended to aid, and hold up the hands of a greater than Him- self. For, we must remember that Christ could not have heard before He came to Bethabara that John had disclaimed the great title. It was not till the very day before his own arrival that the Baptist had told the questioners from Jerusalem, " I am not He." But if any such thought had crossed his mind, or hope filled his heart, on the way to the Baptist, it was soon dispelled, and He, left again in his own loneliness, now more clearly than ever before, face to face with the task, before which even the Son of God, appointed to it before the world was, might well quail, as it confronted Him in his frail human body. For John recognizes Him, singles Him out at once, proclaims to the bystanders, " This is He ! Behold the Lamb of God ! This is He who shall bap- tize with the fire of God's own Spirit. Here is the deliverer whom all our prophets have foretold. And by a mysterious out- 66 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. ward sign, as well as by the witness in his own heart and conscience, Christ is at once assured of the truth of the Baptist's words — that it is indeed He Himself and no other, and that his time has surely come. That He now thoroughly realized the fact for the first time, and was startled and severely tried by the confirmation of what He must have felt for years to be probable, is not only what we should look for from our own experiences, but seems the true inference from the gospel narratives. For 5 although as soon as the full truth breaks upon Him He accepts the mission and work to which God is calling Him, and speaks with authority to the Baptist, " Suffer it to be so now," yet the immediate effect of the call is to drive Him away into the wilder- ness, there in the deepest solitude to think over once again, and for the last time to wrestle with and master, the tremendous disclosure. And the story of the tempta- tion which immediately follows — so full of mystery and difficulty in many ways — is THE CALL OF CHRIST. 67 invaluable for the light which it casts, not only on this crisis of his life, but before and after — on the history of the world's re- demption, and the method by which that redemption is to be accomplished, the part which each individual man and woman is called to play in it. For Christ's whole life on earth was the assertion and example of true manliness — the setting forth in living act and word what man is meant to be, and how he should carry himself in this world of God's, — • one long campaign, in which " the temptation " stands out as the first great battle and vic- tory. The story has depths in it which we can never fathom, but also clear, sharp les- sons which he who runs may read, and no man can master too thoroughly. We must follow Him reverently into the wilderness, where He flies from the crowds who are pressing to the Baptist, and who to-morrow will be thronging around Him, if He goes back amongst them, after what the Baptist has said about Him to-day. 68 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. Day after day in the wilderness the strug- gle goes on in his heart. He is faint from insufficient food in those solitudes, and with bodily weakness the doubts grow in strength and persistence, and the tempter is always at his side, soliciting Him to end them once for all, by one act of self-assertion. All those questionings and misgivings as to his origin and mission which we have pictured to ourselves as haunting Him ever since his first visit to Jerusalem, are now, as it were, focussed. There are mocking voices whis- pering again as of old, but more scornfully and keenly, in his ear, " Are you really the Messiah, the Son of God, so long looked for ? What more proof have you to go upon than you have had for these many years, during which you have been living as a poor peasant in a Galilean village ? The word of this wild man of the wilderness ? He is your own cousin, and a powerful preacher, no doubt, but a wayward, willful man, clad and fed like a madman, who has been nurs- ing mad fancies from his boyhood, away THE CALL OF CHRIST. 69 from the holy city, the centre of national life and learning. This sign of a descend- ing dove, and a voice which no one has heard but yourself? Such signs come to many, — are never wanting when men are ready to deceive themselves, — and each man's fancy gives them a different mean- ing. But the words, and the sign, and the voice, you say, only meet a conviction which has been growing these thirty years in your own heart and conscience ? Well, then, at least for the sake of others if not for your own sake, put this conviction to the proof, here, at once, and make sure yourself, be- fore you go forth and deceive poor men, your brethren, to their ruin. You are fam- ishing here in the wilderness. This, at least, cannot be what God intends for his Son, who is to redeem the world. Exercise some control over the meanest part of your Father's kingdom. Command these stones to become bread, and see whether they will obey you. Cast yourself down from this height. If you are what you think, your 70 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. Father's angels will bear you up. Then, after they have borne you up, you may go on with some reasonable assurance that your claim is not a mere delusion, and that you will not be leading these poor men whom you call your brethren to misery and de- struction." And when neither long fasting and weak- ness, or natural doubt, distrust, impatience, or the most subtle suggestions of the tempt- er, can move his simple trust in his Father, or wring from Him one act of self-assertion, the enemy changes front and the assault comes from another quarter. " You may be right," the voices seem now to be saying ; " you may not be deceived, or dreaming, when you claim to be the Son of God, sent to redeem this fair world, which is now spread out before you in all its glory. That may be your origin, and that your work. But, living as you have done till now in a remote corner of a despised province, you have no experience or knowledge of the methods or powers which sway men, and THE CALL OF CHkl87f\ Jfl establish and maintain these kingaojins of /v the world, the glory of which you^are uoh> holding. These methods and powers have y ,,... Uu. BERKELEY NOV 7 2002 HOLD ON BOOK SENT ON ill MAY 1 6 ?007 U.C DtlRKEI FY YB 282 >++l. 37V nn