to- 
 
 The Carpenter's Son 
 The Leader of Men 
 
 A Christmas Preparation Sermon 
 by 
 
 Jenkin Lloyd Jones 
 
 .» » • » 
 
 » » * 
 • . • • • . • 
 
 • » • » * 
 
 
 
 Unity Publishing Company 
 Chicago, 1904 
 
By W.C. GANNETT and JENKIN LLOYD JONES 
 
 THE FAITH THAT MAKES FAITHFUL Silk 
 
 cloth $ .75 
 
 Paper. ... . . ..'. . ; 25 
 
 By JENKIN LLOYD JONES 
 
 JESS : Bits of Wayside Gospel 1.50 
 
 A SEARCH FOR AN INFIDEL; Bits of Wayside 
 
 Gospel (Second Series) 1.50 
 
 The two volumes 2.50 
 
 NUGGETS FROM A WELSH MINE 1.00 
 
 ADVICE TO GIRLS. From John Ruskin, 
 with Lenten Sermon by Jenkin Lloyd 
 
 Jones 35 
 
 Three copies for 1.00 
 
 THE DYING MESSAGE OF PARACELSUS. 
 
 From Robert Browning. With Intro- 
 ductory and Explanatory Additions. 
 With Cover Decorations in Fifteenth 
 
 Century Style .50 
 
 Three copies for 1.00 
 
 UNITY PUBLISHING CO., 
 
 ••* ; "• 5£59 L&ngley .'Avenue, 
 
 • - • 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 Microsoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/carpenterssonleaOOjonerich 
 
THE CARPENTER'S SON— THE 
 LEADER OF MEN. 
 
 A CHRISTMAS PREPARATION SERMON BY JENKIN LLOYD 
 JONES, DELIVERED IN ALL SOULS CHURCH, CHI- 
 CAGO, SUNDAY, DECEMBER II, I904. 
 
 And the Word became -flesh, and dwelt among us 
 and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten 
 from the Father. ■. — John 1 114. 
 
 I am compelled to think of Jesus of Nazareth as 
 an epoch-marking soul, an era-forming spirit, a char- 
 acter in whom the light of an illustrious race and a 
 holy ancestry was focalized, a personality from which 
 radiated that subtle, creative power of the spirit which 
 defies all analysis, which baffles definition, which over- 
 flows all words. 
 
 Outside the realm of religion we sometimes try to 
 indicate this power by the word "genius;" within the 
 realms of religion it is called "inspiration," "revela- 
 tion," "incarnation," the words varying with the stand- 
 point of the speaker. Whatever it is, I am compelled 
 to think of him as one who won the right of pre-emin- 
 ence in the world's history ; one to whom it was given 
 to be. the source of a religious movement beyond his 
 seeking and in very many respects different from his 
 thinking. He was a man destined to be enveloped in 
 a mystic mantle of myth, legend and dogma which a 
 loving constituency wove out of the poetry that belongs 
 to the common heart of man. 
 
 This man is best understood and most truly measured 
 by the comparative method. He is best studied when 
 placed among his giant companions — Moses, Zoroas- 
 ter, Confucius, Buddha, Sokrates and Mohammed. 
 All of these, like him, in due time were submerged by 
 the adoration of those who loved them, concealed by 
 the love-growth of loyal followers. All these souls 
 
 4257 1 r 
 
are inexplicable^ as indeed is the soul of Shakespeare, 
 Newton, Lincoln;'- JndeWd the mystery deepens around 
 every baVe; ;o!r whom the Nazarene said, "Of such is 
 the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 I love to think of Jesus as a man whose daily con- 
 versation was rich with a "veined humanity." Frag- 
 ments of that conversation now constitute the immeas- 
 urable treasures of the gospel story, the undying 
 maxims of righteousness, and the beckoning standards 
 of the spiritual life. I know that this testimony of 
 history, this chorus of redeemed souls, this elevated- 
 humanity that testifies to his power, has been to the 
 great majority of his followers and lovers adequate 
 evidence of his Deity; this fruit, say they, is such as 
 becomes a God and not a man. 
 
 But I love to think of this man as one whose divinity 
 is testified to by his human tears, by his affections for 
 the lowly, by his sympathy with the bruised and the 
 broken. I love to think that it was a man's heart 
 that went out to distracted, sin-stained women, to un- 
 tutored fishermen, and to innocent children whose art- 
 less prattle was to him the parables of heaven. I love 
 to think that his divinity came to him through the holy 
 generation of such a father and mother as made re- 
 generation unnecessary. Independent of ecclesiastical 
 formulas, relieved from the traditional accretions of an 
 uncritical age and an unscientific theology, I find him 
 a peasant-prophet whose inherent excellence pierces the 
 darkness that envelops a remote age, an obscure loca- 
 tion, and the untutored neighbors who first met him 
 with suspicion and indignation and then surrendered 
 to him their ungrudging love, their uncalculated appre- 
 ciation. 
 
 In short, I am compelled to think that this Light 
 of Souls, this saving and redeeming spirit, was the 
 loved and loving child of Joseph, the carpenter, and 
 the loyal wife, Mary. I believe this, notwithstanding 
 the stories of immaculate conceptions, star-guided magi, 
 choiring angels and adoring shepherds that gathered 
 around the birth-night. In the light of comparative 
 study, all this is the beautiful poetry that unconsciously 
 springs from the untutored heart of after-generations, 
 
the growth of which is no more mystic than is the 
 growth of the lily from seeds the birds have carried and 
 the winds have planted. The conditions of holy birth 
 and high generation are too subtle for human analysis. 
 The ways of history are the ways of God, and his 
 ways are beyond finding out. 
 
 Sokrates was the son of a stone-cutter ; Buddha was 
 born in a palace; but cradled in kingly palace, the 
 humble home of an artisan, or born where the cattle 
 were, the same obscurity envelops the origin. All this 
 obscurity does not disprove the glowing fact that a 
 spirit thus cradled did grow into truth-telling, right- 
 seeking, man-loving power. The abject worship and 
 the unlimited rhetoric imbedded in the adoration of 
 subsequent ages testify to the sublime reality. 
 
 Said William Hunt, the great philosopher artist of 
 Boston, "Michael Angelo was a soul so great that sub- 
 sequent generations have given us no man large enough 
 to understand him. ,, The truest thing we can say 
 about the homely face of Abraham Lincoln is that the 
 care-taking lines which make so benignant that face 
 were furrowed by a spirit so large that no one of us is 
 yet fully able to understand him. We shout his name, 
 we prattle his praises, but when it comes to the matter 
 of measurements, the word "man" no more bounds his 
 power than does the word "God." Some center to 
 either we may indicate, but the circumference of both 
 alike are lost beyond the outermost reach of our ken. 
 Indeed, take the variest babe crooning at a loving 
 mother's breast, and 
 
 "Draw who can the mystic line, 
 Which is human, which divine." 
 
 I read with pleasure the battle hymn in the Book 
 of Joshua that sings of the sun standing still upon 
 Gibeon and of the moon standing still over the Val- 
 ley of Ajalon that the chosen people might complete 
 their conquest ; but- 1 cannot accept this poem as his- 
 tory or allow it to confuse my sense of the divine con- 
 tinuity and the great impartiality of holy law. 
 
 There is unspeakable interest in the primitive crea- 
 tion hymn we find in Genesis, but that must not dis- 
 
turb my faith in the record of the rocks and my interest 
 in the science of geology or astronomy. 
 
 The birth and cradle legends of Buddha are fra- 
 grant as a flower garden, but in rejecting them as his- 
 tory I am guilty of no irreverence and my denials 
 savor of no profanity. 
 
 So with this carpenter's son : I remember that all 
 these gospel narratives are but the inadequate and 
 sometimes incoherent transcription of traditions 
 gathered from the loving but oftentimes fantastic re- 
 production of the imaginations and recollections of im- 
 perfect and untrained minds from fifty to one hundred 
 and fifty years after the fertile life had been closed 
 on Calvary. I remember that the alleged genealogies 
 of this Nazarene are obviously imperfect, fanciful, even 
 grotesque. These very fancies, or those like them, 
 were in the world before the founder of Christianity 
 was born, and the one throws light upon the other. 
 
 And so I must go back of legend and miracle, below 
 the myth and tradition, and find more adequate founda- 
 tions for the reverence of the world and a higher claim 
 for my own interest in and loyalty to the road-side 
 texts and lake-side parables which were dropped into 
 the fertile soil of the human heart where they germina- 
 ted, bloomed and bore fruit. I know that the peasant 
 was soon lost in the Savior, and that Jesus, who was 
 indeed the Son of God, as was his carpenter father 
 before him, soon became the Christ, or God the Son ; 
 a confusion easily explained by the student of psychol- 
 ogy; a confusion that was not all a mistake, but there 
 comes a time when the confusion is damaging. Did not 
 he say, "Know ye not that ye are the children of God, 
 and the spirit of God dwelleth in you?" 
 
 Mr. Crooker, in his recent book on "The Supremacy 
 of Jesus," estimates that there are some two hundred 
 sayings and twenty-five parables of Jesus found in the 
 New Testament. These sayings and parables of Je- 
 sus Thomas TerTerson arranged into one consistent 
 whole, according to his own judgment, and he was 
 delighted to find it a hand-book of morals of superla- 
 tive value. The Congress of the United States has re- 
 cently done itself the credit of officially printing a fac- 
 
simile reproduction of this manuscript book of Thomas 
 Jefferson, which now constitutes one of the treasures 
 of the Congressional library. 
 
 Now when Jefferson eliminated the miraculous and 
 the fabulous and the more or less distorted estimates 
 of his inadequate biographers, he was offering no in- 
 dignity to the Christ of history,still less to the Jesus of 
 the gospel. He was but discriminating in the interest of 
 the gold ; laying hold of what is most distinctive, bring- 
 ing into view the imperishable. Christendom has had a 
 finer instinct than the theologians of Christendom; 
 for the common people in the Christian church have al- 
 ways loved the parables more than the miracles, al- 
 though the theologians have based their arguments on 
 the miracles. The story of the Good Samaritan has 
 had a power beyond the story of the senseless blight- 
 ing of the fig tree; the ages have loved to think of 
 Jesus talking with the woman at the well more than 
 they have loved to think of him as manufacturing wine 
 at Cana. No man is so orthodox but that he reads 
 more often the Sermon on the Mount than he does the 
 story of the drowning of the pigs. 
 
 In rejecting the incredible birth stories, the authority 
 of the Golden Rule is reaffirmed. The early story of 
 religions everywhere has plenty of unfathered children. 
 The saints and sages of the older world, as a rule, have 
 come into the world heralded by super-mundane signs, 
 over preternatural roads, according to the devout tra- 
 ditions of their grateful followers. The old-world lit- 
 erature is full of miracles, many of them as beautiful 
 and tender as those of the New Testament, but the 
 beautitudes are scarce; the divine charity which was 
 also God-like justice, such as soothed the Magdalen and 
 said to the erring, "Neither do I condemn thee ; go 
 sin no more," is as exceptional as it is inspiring. It is 
 between the miracle lines of the New Testament that 
 we discover the man Jesus who "went about doing 
 good." 
 
 But do you turn away from Bible texts and point 
 to the facts of history? Very well. Call the splendid 
 roll of martyrs, the white-robed line of saints ; offer the 
 majestic cathedrals, the great pictures, sublime music, 
 
the dauntless crusaders . who now in. physical arma- 
 ment and again in the more invulnerable armament of 
 the spirit, went forth, reckless of danger, regardless of 
 cost, to rescue the world from heathen hands or to 
 gather souls into the fold of Christ; account the com- 
 plex activities of missionary societies, reformatories,, 
 hospitals, schools, charities, churches, as indisputable 
 eviaence that only a God-man could be the adequate 
 source and inspiration of such. Do you urge that 
 all these prove that a God rather than a man must 
 have wrought all this? 
 
 Yea, verily, it is the work of God, but the work of 
 God through man, the Divine who tabernacles in 
 the human. 
 
 There are other great religious systems in the 
 world. Buddha conquered greater tyrannies, over- 
 came more arrogant pride, broke down the iron walls 
 of caste, made pitiful great sections of humanity, and 
 is today revered bv more souls than take upon them- 
 selves the name of the Christ. 
 
 Buddhism and Christianity hold no monopoly of 
 moral wealth. Humilitv, love and self-sacrifice, though 
 so little understood, so grudeinglv practiced, these 
 have world-wide foundations. There are many world- 
 conquering traditions. Rome under Pagan banners 
 once came near possessing the world; the drum-beat 
 of England is today heard around the globe; certainly 
 that of itself is not adequate proof of the peculiar 
 partiality of God to Anglo-Saxon prowess. 
 
 Not all of Christendom is of Jesus; its theology is 
 more of Paul than of the Nazarene, and the time has 
 been when the sword, which Jesus condemned, played 
 an important part in the triumphs of Christen- 
 dom. Today the ecclesiasticism in which Jesus would 
 have no delight, dominates perhaps the larger sections 
 of Christendom, and this ecclesiasticism, though not 
 of the Christ, is unquestionably an element in his- 
 toric Christendom. 
 
 Jesus ought to be held only partially responsible for 
 Christendom : from him comes one stream, albeit the 
 purest and dearest, into that mighty tide fed from 
 manv tributaries. His contribution is not the marvels 
 
of the Christian faith, but the simplicity of Christian 
 morals. The divine achievements in the Pantheons 
 of the older world, the post-biblical miracles of the 
 Christian church make dim and small the miracles of 
 the New Testament. But the benignities of the beati- 
 tudes were refreshing utterances in their day, and suc- 
 ceeding ages have not over-reached the self-sacrif\cing 
 love, the divine patience, the wide charity, the sublime 
 morality of this son of the carpenter. Science, travel, 
 commerce, learning, criticism, have broken down 
 many a peculiar claim of Christian theology, but all 
 of them unite in glorifying the humanities of the New 
 Testament. 
 
 The enthusiasm of the Master finds in Matthew 
 Arnold a champion as unqualified as in Savonarola, 
 and the beatitudes are reflected as joyfully and grate- 
 fullv in the pages of Emerson as in the sermons nf 
 Tohn Wesley. The Man of Nazareth abides while 
 bishops and synods, preachers and deacons, bewail the 
 decline of faith and the waning of Christian doctrine 
 
 All that John Fiske wrote and did was in his mind 
 but the wise training of a master workman for what 
 he hoped would be his magnum opus, a study of Je- 
 sus of Nazareth and the founding of Christianity, an 
 adequate study of which, to his thought, was possible 
 only to one who felt the deep human foundations of 
 the Man of Nazareth. Such a studv would find Jesus 
 a mighty factor in human history. Christianity a prod- 
 uct of nature, law-environed, and on that account an 
 emanation from God. Such a study must start out 
 with the assumption that 
 
 "The litanies of nations came 
 Like the volcano's tongue of flame, 
 Up from the burning core below 
 The canticles of love and woe." 
 
 Such studies indeed justify the poet's vision, for 
 England's abbeys do take their place "with Andes and 
 with Ararat." 
 
 But do you turn from text and from history and 
 appeal to psychology? Do you urge that the soul hath 
 need of a supernatural Savior ; that the sinner demands 
 a mediator: that the heart hungers for some divine 
 
expiation, a heaven-sent Redeemer ; that the blood of 
 the innocent must needs wash away the stains of the 
 guilty ? 
 
 Of course this appeal to the soul must be answered 
 by each soul for itself. I may not speak for others, 
 but for myself I ask for no mediation between me and 
 the sunlight. My heart rejoices in the thought of the 
 infinitely near. The thought of God is my sufficient 
 creed. 
 
 That is a poor father whose face is dreaded by his 
 child, even in moments of its direst disgrace. No face 
 can be so full of tenderness as the face of infinite love. 
 The eternal justice must be the ultimate resting place 
 of the sin-smitten. As I hope for peace, I ask for 
 nothing less and for nothing more than justice. I have 
 nothing more acceptable to offer to the Divine than 
 the manliness that will not seek even his presence in 
 roundabout ways, though it be by way of Jerusalem 
 or over the top of Calvary. The thought of the Christ 
 as a God sent out of heaven, and caught back to 
 heaven, who by some supernatural procedure may 
 snatch my soul as a brand from the burning, does not 
 satisfy my thought ; it lacks the rhythm of the universe, 
 the harmony of justice. As for myself, there is saving 
 power in the thought of a humanity that reaches from 
 Judas to Jesus. 
 
 "I will look unto the hills from whence cometh my 
 strength." We valley-dwellers may look up towards 
 mountain heights that are more inspiring than the 
 ranges of the Himalayas — the mountain peaks of soul, 
 the prophetic ranges where we catch glimpses of So- 
 cratic heights, Sakya-Muni peaks and Nazarene table- 
 lands ; and there is a pathway from each of these to 
 the humblest human heart. From the valley where 
 we are to the rarest tablelands of God, there is a path' 
 on which human feet have trod and may still travel. 
 
 This conception of Jesus fills me with the ambition 
 of an Alpine climber. I turn away from the theo- 
 logical Christ that I may lay hold of the man Jesus ; 
 that I may face dangers as he did ; stand censure as he 
 could ; endure defeat like him ; triumph over death 
 and be glad in my adversity. I love to believe that he 
 
 10 
 
did as a man nineteen centuries ago in Judea that 
 which I as a man may, aye, ought to dare do today 
 in Chicago. I love to think that as God used his hu- 
 man hands to heal and to soothe in no miraculous 
 fashion, there are such uses in store for my hands. 
 As I see his eyes filled with tears as he stands with 
 Mary and Martha by the open grave, I find unsus- 
 pected depths in the wells of sympathy in my own 
 soul. I believe in the splendid manhood of Jesus 
 because I believe in the latent manhood in your soul 
 and mine. In ennobling the man I revere his father — 
 God. Believing in the integrity of Jesus, I substan- 
 tiate my faith in the integrity of the universe, which 
 works well without intervention or interruption by any 
 order-disturbing power on earth or in heaven. With 
 Emerson, I believe in that heaven my soul forecasts, 
 the heaven revealed in the "shining laws that are to 
 round into full circle and complete grace, linking the 
 law of gravitation with purity of heart, making ought 
 and duty one thing with science, with beauty, and with 
 joy." 
 
 I believe that this thought of a humanitarian Jesus, 
 a carpenter's son as a leader of men, gives to religion a 
 broader and deeper foundation than any Christianity 
 that the world has yet known ; it makes for a religion 
 that soothes the heart as well as satisfies the head. 
 It gives a religion that is its own evidence. Who can 
 fathom the power of personality? It goes deeper 
 than any external record and it suggests a power more 
 pervasive, more searching than that found in the creeds 
 or the contributions of Christendom. 
 
 And yet I realize that the old question is unan- 
 swered. Wherein lie the elements of Jesus' power? 
 What constitutes the secret of his leadership? 
 
 Light eludes us when we would confine and analyze 
 it.; love laughs at our definitions as it does at bolts 
 and bars. A personality is great, not by virtue of its 
 peculiarities, but by virtue of its more splendid em- 
 bodiment of the universalities. But this we know — 
 that the two sovereign words in the vocabulary of 
 Jesus were "Love" and "Hone." He ministered to 
 the sick and discouraged. He soothed the maniac 
 
 11 
 
and lifted up the prostrate. Perhaps in these days the 
 verities of hope are more distrusted than even the 
 claims of love. Jesus had tremendous expectations; 
 the one inheritance that filled his soul was the Mes- 
 sianic expectation ; the one agitation of. his day that 
 absorbed him was that which gave a restless anticipa- 
 tion. He believed mightily in the future, not as 
 some glory-rimmed heaven after death, but as a con- 
 quering kingdom of love and justice. Jesus took large 
 stock in tomorrow; he laughed at the prudence that 
 never dares, the mock righteousness of the ledger that 
 presumes to balance the books and pay all accounts 
 up to date. He knew that the prudence of commerce, 
 the thrift of trade, the exclusive pride of the syna- 
 gogue, must be broken through with a larger hope 
 and a diviner enterprise. He believed there was to 
 be a day after today and recognized his obligation to 
 it; he acknowledged the de.bt which can never be paid 
 to the past and which is paid only by enlarging the re- 
 sources of the future. Life, to Jesus, was an open 
 account; he was a forward looker; he was honest 
 enough to recognize his obligations to the unborn. 
 Perhaps this adventurous spirit in the realms of 
 morals, even more than his heart of love, has made him 
 the superlative leader of men. 
 
 , Perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of the 
 movement that has taken his name is represented by 
 the word "missionary" — "one who is sent." "Go ye 
 into all the world and preach the gospel to every crea- 
 ture," is the bugle call sounded so long ago, and the 
 blast has echoed inspiringly throughout nineteen cen- 
 turies. The spirit that prompted it is a prompting 
 spirit still ; the need that made commanding the call 
 then is imperative now. Now as then, there is a tyr- 
 anny worse than any shackles that ever chafed the 
 ankles of the slave, and that tyrannv reaches into our 
 homes and into the church. It is the tyranny of cus- 
 tom, of style, of fashion, of cost, the tvranny of en- 
 gagements that bind us to our meaner, cheaper selves : 
 the tvranny of the social intercourse that enslaves and 
 dwarfs the spirit; the tyranny of dogma; the tyranny 
 of fear. 
 
 12 
 
Go forth and preach the gospel of freedom'? rescue 
 those who are drifting into imbecility as they float about 
 seeking the most popular preaching, the softest cush- 
 ioned pew, the place where there is most fashion, the 
 company that calls for the least courage and is satisfied 
 with the least intelligence. Go forth and preach to 
 such. Go demonstrate the freedom that is possible to 
 them, if you would know the power of Jesus. He 
 gives us something to live for, nay, better, something 
 worth dying for; something that is worth investing in. 
 
 What the world most needs is the faith of Jesus, not 
 a faith in Christ. The faith of Jesus suggests some- 
 thing to attain ; it indicates a measure of living, a 
 standard of loving", a demand upon our lives and our 
 purses. The faith in Christ may suggest credal 
 fences, theological test-lines, something in the name 
 of which we cast reproach upon the sincere and point 
 the door to inquiring souls. The faith of Jesus bids 
 lis 
 
 "Go put your creed into your deed 
 Nor speak with double tongue. 
 
 "For sea and land don't understand, 
 
 Nor skies without a frown 
 See rights for which the one hand fights 
 
 By the other cloven down. 
 
 "Be just at home; then write your scroll 
 
 Of honor o'er the sea, 
 And bid the broad Atlantic roll 
 
 A ferry of the free. 
 
 "And, henceforth, there shall be no chain, 
 
 Save underneath the sea 
 The wires shall murmur through the main 
 
 Sweet songs of liberty. 
 
 "The conscious stars accord above, 
 
 The waters wild below, 
 And under, through the cable wove, 
 1 Her fiery errands go. 
 
 "For he that worketh high and wise, 
 
 Nor pauses in his plan, 
 Will take the sun out of the skies 
 
 Ere freedom out of man." 
 
 Would you follow Jesus? Push on! Climb, dare, 
 and die daring. 
 
 13 
 
"Wlry'caile'st. thou me good, for there is none good 
 save one — the Father." Would you follow Jesus? 
 Behave yourself and go to work. Out of high ad- 
 venture, self-denial, oblivion of the past and faith in 
 the future, build for yourself unconsciously the char- 
 acter that is Jesus-like. "Tell the truth?" That is 
 easy. Be the truth. Be generous with what a gen- 
 erous universe has bountifully bestowed upon you for 
 immediate investment; now is the accepted hour. 
 Tomorrow is not yours. Today is the only day that 
 is yours. 
 
 "Love your enemies?" you say. Yes, but complete 
 your text. "Do good to them that hate you; pray 
 for those that despitefully use you." 
 
 Would you be of the household of Jesus? Have 
 fellowship with the bad ; not for the badness' sake, but 
 for the good that is tragically encrusted there. Weep 
 not chiefly for the starving children of the slums in 
 the back alleys of Jerusalem (there were not many 
 such), but for the thoughtless, shivering egotists who 
 beneath their wide phvlacteries "mock heaven with 
 high-sounding pravers." As it was in Jerusalem so is 
 it in Chicago. The dissipated live on the avenues, 
 the perishing on the boulevards. 
 
 Dare you call Jesus "Master?" Then, like him, be- 
 lieve in the unbeliever, have a hope for the hopeless, 
 belong to the church of the unchurched; escape from 
 your narrowness ; act from principle and not from pru- 
 dence; divest yourself of all accumulation that holds 
 you down with a complacency that makes you blind 
 not only to the good you ought to do, but to the good 
 you can do. "If thou wouldst be perfect, go sell that 
 thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have 
 treasure in heaven." 
 
 Do you ask me if I am a "Christian?" I do not 
 know. Are you? If any one is inclined to give me 
 that high name, with the spiritual and ethical connota- 
 tion in mind, I am complimented and will try to 
 merit it. But whenever it is used as a herding 
 song, when Christians are gathered together like 
 sheep in the pen, by themselves, when it becomes the 
 
 14 
 
pencil on the leg of the compass that mark's the'.circum- 
 ference of fellowship, — as I honor the great Naza- 
 rene leader I refuse the word and deny its limitations 
 and promptly go outside where the son of the carpenter 
 went before me. 
 
 I once wore the name "Unitarian" because I loved 
 the hint of unity involved in the name. I now prefer 
 not to wear it for the same reason, — because there 
 is a brotherhood that is mine which the name does not 
 and cannot include. Any word that overlooks or 
 repels the seekers after goodness, — aye, even those 
 who miss goodness and suffer the penalty thereof, is 
 too small a word to represent that procession of 
 which the carpenter's son is a sublime leader. In 
 him the Word became flesh. In so far, then, as I am 
 a man, I am of his household. Through the power of 
 his nobility he became the Son of God. In so far as 
 I partake of that nobility, I also am a son of God. He 
 delighted in the phrase "the Son of Man," which he 
 used many times. In the fullness of this title, he occa- 
 sionally ventured to call himself the Son of God. 
 
 "Man I am and man would be, Love, merest man and nothing 
 
 more. 
 Bid me seem no other! Eagles boast of pinions — let them 
 
 soar! 
 I may put forth angel 's plumage, once unmanned, but not 
 
 before. 
 
 "Now on earth, to stand suffices, — nay, if kneeling serves, to 
 
 kneel : 
 Here yon front me, here I find the all of heaven that earth 
 can feel. ' ' 
 
Into the woods my Master went, 
 
 Clean forspent, forspent. 
 
 Into the woods my Master came, 
 
 Forspent with love and shame. 
 
 But the olives they were not blind to Him, 
 
 The little gray leaves were kind to Him: 
 
 The thorn-tree had a mind to Him 
 
 When into the woods He came. 
 
 Out of the woods my Master went, 
 
 And he was well content. 
 
 Out of the woods my Master came, 
 
 Content with death and shame. 
 
 When Death and Shame would woo Him last, 
 
 From under the trees they drew Him last: 
 
 'Twas on a tree they slew Him — last 
 
 When out of the woods He came. 
 
 — Sidney Lanier. 
 
Caylord Bros. 
 
 Makers 
 
 Syracuse, N. Y. 
 
 PAT. JAN. 21. 1900 
 
 yc \o) 
 
 ""^"£££5^-5? 
 
 "■& BERKELEY 
 
 LIBRARY