04 — The Human Character

Chapter 4 THE HUMAN CHARACTER OF CHRIST GLORIOUS

We have already seen that, in his divine character, the Son of God is every way equal to the divine Father, "glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders." Since, however, he possessed a human as well as a divine nature, so did he possess a distinct and purely human character. What was it? and wherein consisted its true glory? These inquiries it is not possible for us fully to answer. We cannot portray the perfect character of the man Christ Jesus. We are imperfect and sinning men, and encompassed by imperfect and sinning men. It is no easy matter, burdened as it is by the heavy consciousness of its own, and unrelieved as it is by its associations with human wickedness, for the mind of man to conceive much less describe a character that is spotless. The efforts of the most instructive and ablest writers, on this topic, are a failure, as all efforts of a like kind must be. There is no theme, unless it be the infinite love of God, on which we feel ourselves so utterly at a loss to speak worthily as this. We can affirm that the character of Christ is a sinless and perfect character; but much more needs to be said, and more than we can utter, in order to illustrate and impress this comprehensive truth. It has depths we cannot fathom, heights we cannot climb, and truths so luminous that our eyes are dazzled in looking at them. A sinless intellect and a perfect heart are the only true interpreters of a perfect character. It has often been said that great and good men go through the world without being understood; and this is emphatically true of him who "is the First-born among many brethren." The age in which Jesus lived did not understand him. His own apostles did not understand him; and required " the Spirit of Truth," to dictate to them the little they have recorded concerning their Divine Master; and though they have recorded enough for all the purposes of a supernatural revelation, they themselves were deeply sensible of the deficiencies and baldness of the record. The most instructive of the Evangelists, at the close of his gospel makes the acknowledgment, that " there are also many other things, which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."

We would look around us, and into the history of the past, for some bright models of human excellence, to assist in this illustration. But we have nothing to guide us save the one great original. When the celebrated Zeuxis painted the Grecian Helen for the temple of Juno, he selected five of the fairest women, and copied all that was most beautiful in the form of each. It is no pagan temple, and no pagan deity that we honor; nor is it by any assemblage of human excellencies that we would fain contribute to some just conception of his loveliness who is " fairer than the sous of men." To group them all, and in their highest adornment and perfection, could only present them as faint resemblances to him who is the great model and archetype of goodness, and to whose reflected beauty the great and good of every age owe all their excellence. Our method shall be, in the first place, to furnish some general outline of his excellence; and in the next place, a brief specification of those particular characteristics which constituted his great worthiness. In presenting SOME GENERAL OUTLINE EXCELLENCE, it may not be forgotten that he was " made under the law." We speak not now of the mediatorial law, which he obeyed unto the death; nor of the ceremonial law of the Jews; but of the Moral Law as summarily contained in the Ten Commandments. This is the great and only standard of human character. He is a perfect man who, without intermission, obeys this law of God with all the strength and ardor he is capable of exercising. We do not know of what degrees of holiness the mind of man is capable. But we see it now in the man Christ Jesus in all its richness. The most general and at the same time the most exact description of his character, is that he perfectly obeyed the law of God extending as it does to every thought, word, and deed. In his inward emotions, and his outward conduct, he was not recreant to any one of its precepts or prohibitions. He felt the obligation of governing his conduct by this great and unerring rule of action. It is pleasant to hear him speak as he so often does of the authority of God as the great Lawgiver; of "the will of the Father;" of the "commandment which he received from God;" always averring that " he came, not to do his own will, but the will of the Father who sent him." There was infinite disparity between himself as the Son of Mary, and himself as the great Lawgiver of the universe; a disparity as great as between the Creator and the creature; nor did he ever allow himself to call in question God’s right to command and his own obligation to obey. In his divine nature, he claimed equality with God; in his human nature, there were no such equal terms with his Maker. " My father," said he, " is greater than I." God’s supremacy was absolute; he would not set aside even the least requisition of his law, but received with thankfulness and obeyed with promptitude all the intimations of his Father’s will. He stopped not to inquire into the reasons of any particular command; God’s will was reason; it was enough for him that God had spoken. His whole intelligence and heart united in this voluntary homage to the supreme and indestructible authority of the all-wise and all-perfect Lawgiver. God’s will, with him, was above everything else. He felt the obligation and fulfilled it; he fulfilled it spiritually, and he fulfilled it to the letter; he fulfilled it affirmatively, doing what the Law requires, and he fulfilled it negatively, abstaining from what the Law forbids. The sum and substance of the law is contained in the two precepts, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." In the character of Christ, the love of God was ever supreme and ever constant. He could not love God more fervently or more constantly than he did. His intellectual and active powers had their limits, but to the full extent of them he loved. He had no other, he knew no other God. There was not an idol in his heart, nor an idolatrous thought or desire. When we read his biography, the delightful impression everywhere comes upon us, that he enjoyed a constant sense of God’s presence. God was in all his thoughts; nor did such a sin ever lurk in his bosom as forgetfulness of his Father in heaven. His affections toward him were affections of love in all its sweet combinations of esteem, attachment, gratitude and joy, and so cheerfully indulged, that communion with him was his great solace and comfort, and the hiding of his face was the bitterest ingredient ever mingled in his cup. He had but one heart, and that heart was God’s — a whole heart; a pure heart; a heart never debased by an unworthy thought; a throne that was never usurped by a rival deity; a marble tablet, pure and burnished from its native quarry, on which was never engraven any tale of shame, and where suspicion never threw its doubtful shadow.

Here his religion began; it was heart-religion. He himself was an unsullied exemplification of that great truth which first fell from his own lips. " God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." He was no more a formalist than he was a dissembler; as ardent as he was honest, and as quick-sighted and jealous for his Father’s honor, as though he felt himself to be its only guardian and vindicator. None, so much as he, ever delighted themselves in the diligent study of the divine nature and glory, or so much enjoyed the divine love. His affections, toward God were eminently filial. He was the only begotten Son, who "lay in the bosom of the Father;" the everlasting arms were his refuge and his home. His first and best thoughts, his first and warmest affections, his most delighted admiration, his most peaceful confidence and profound reverence were attracted toward his Father which is in heaven. Nor is it a small matter that he was so scrupulously observant of all the institutions of religion. Men sometimes trifle with them because they originate with mere positive laws, and have respect to outward observances. We have not so learned Christ. His heartfelt respect for all the divine institutions was not less remarkable than his respect for their author. It is written concerning him, "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." When John demurred at baptizing him on account of his superiority to ordinances, his language was, " Suffer it to be so now; for thus it behooveth us to fulfil all righteousness." He had vast concerns committed to his trust, more important than the urgent necessities of poverty, the exacting demands of wealth and fashion, and the weighty responsibilities of kings and cabinets; but they never interfered with his reverence for the Sabbath and the sanctuary. Nor was this a superstitious reverence: for he taught his disciples, both by precept and example, that whenever positive institutions come in collision with moral duties, "God will have mercy and not sacrifice." In the social relations of human life, he was the bright and finished pattern of excellence. There is no relation, whether superior or subordinate, the obligations of which did not find in his example a living and most persuasive sanction. He neither overlooked nor trifled with any social claim; nor did he take refuge in any "higher law," in order to shield himself from " rendering to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor." There were manifold abuses, and palpable wrongs in the government under which he lived; but his refuge was not in revolt, nor in inciting the spirit of revolt. His maxim was, " Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s." No one was ever so well qualified to question the wisdom and authority of the government, and to sit in judgment upon its laws; and never was one more cautious in refraining from all such interference. He did not look for infallible laws among fallible men. He lived in a world where men are governed by their passions; nor would he, either by precept or example, give countenance to the ambitious, the bold, the discontented, or the disloyal. The history of our race would have been far more mournful than it is but for his uniform and stringent example on a subject of such deep interest both to the church and the world.

If we descend to other relations, we find everywhere the same blameless deportment. He reverenced age, encouraged youth, took childhood in his arms, and pressed infancy to his bosom. He honored the ascendancy of talent, while he rebuked its pride; he gave wealth its influence, while he exposed its snares and vanity; he acknowledged the eminence of rank, while he did not spare men in high places who abused their trust. That wonderful framework of human society, arranged and put together with so much wisdom, where the strong cannot do without the weak, nor the weak without the strong, and where the sympathy is so universal, that if one member suffer all the members suffer with it; found in him an advocate so intelligent and unfaltering, that the Socialists who watched for his halting, went confounded from his presence, and "durst not ask him any more questions." He honored his parents, and under circumstances when parental authority seemed to countervail the dictates of conscience: even when in the Temple about his heavenly Father’s work, at the bidding of Joseph and Mary he " came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them." His filial obedience is a most beautiful gem in the bright crown of his human excellencies; it shines even in the midst of his sufferings. Those touching words uttered when hanging on the cross and by which he commended his mother to the care of the disciple whom he loved, were like apples of gold in pictures of silver. Notwithstanding all that the deistical writers of the last century have alleged against the unsocial character of Christianity and its chilling influence upon the friendships and attachments of private life; never was one more capable of strong and tender attachments, or manifested them more than he. So far from dis-social, there never was a more luminous and beautiful exemplification of the social virtues. High as his calling was, he did not separate himself from his fellow-men, but lived among them, and as one of them. He was a guest at their festive boards, and a mourner at their funerals. His first miracle was to change water into wine at the marriage in Cana of Galilee; and almost his last words were the expressions of effective sympathy for her who gave him birth, and for her comfort when he himself was deposited in the tomb. He was communicative where wisdom demanded it; and where wisdom demanded it, he was cautious and reserved. He founded no monasteries, and gave no instructions for the orders of Christian knighthood, of the sisters of the Sacred Heart. He was a spotless man, not of the world, but everywhere in the world, as he meant his followers should be.

Dis-social! was there ever a greater slander upon the character of Christ than this? Who does not see that love, gratitude, tenderness, private friendship, and even patriotism found in him a faultless advocate? Where is the man on the page of history who preserved so pure and inviolate, yet so kindly and amiably to the last, the laws of social intercourse? If to love as he loved, and live among men as he lived among them, be indications of a dis-social and repulsive spirit; where shall we go to find that which is social and attractive? Those interesting scenes in which he is beheld washing the feet of his disciples and in which the disciple whom he loved leaned on his bosom evince a sensibility and tenderness which no mere didactic lessons could convey. Would you see him taking part in the sorrows of those who were endeared to him; retire with him to the village of Bethany, and there read the words: " Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." It was an humble village, and they were humble persons. But it was there, away from the tumult of the world, and in the quiet, sweet intercourse of private friendship, that he forgot the strife of the city, the malignity of his enemies, and found the solace his loving heart sought after. What tenderness and love were there! I know not where to look for such another example of human dignity, propriety and affection combined. " Having loved his own, he loved them unto the end." Well may the church exclaim, " This is my Beloved, and this is my friend, O ye daughters of Jerusalem!" And was he not forgiving toward his enemies? Let this inquiry be answered by that ever-memorable prayer uttered for men whom his curses might have swept from the earth, and uttered amid infuriate malignity and bitter revilings, " Father, forgive them; they know not what they do!" There is no relation of human life, in which he was not as far above the thought of wrong or negligence, as the heavens are above the earth. He was a " man, in all points as we are;" yet with every thought and imagination sanctified, every sense controlled, every word seasoned with grace, every association hallowed, every enticement to sin resisted, and avoiding the appearance of evil. He was content with his destined allotment; " though the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, and the Son of man had not where to lay his head." There was no rashness, nor want of wisdom in his intercourse with men. His truth was never questioned, his honesty and honor never tarnished. " No guile was found in his mouth." When you read his life, you will be impressed with the cautious agreement between the words of his lips, and the thoughts of his heart. There was no coloring in his statements; no unguarded expression, and no suppression of the truth. Where the whole truth ought to be spoken, he spoke it fully, and without concealment; freely and without fear; clearly, and without obscuring it; sincerely and kindly, and for proper ends.

Unfounded assumptions, evil surmisings, careless misconstructions, unlawful detractions, artful flattery and malignant slander are human, but they are not like Christ. Nor did he know one covetous desire. He had no grief that others were rich; no mortified pride because he was poor; no envy, no disquietude, no inordinate wish, no corroding anxiety, and none of those sinful passions which arise from a corrupt and rebellious heart. The " commandment is exceeding broad;" but he was obedient to the whole law. Even the vile traitor who delivered him to the hands of his enemies, was constrained to confess, " I have betrayed innocent blood." He alone of all the children of Adam need not confess himself a sinner. Not a single trace of sin can be detected in his whole history; even succinctly written as it is by the Evangelists, it is the most wondrous biography in the world.

If we mistake not, this general view of his excellence will be the more appreciated if we pass, in the next place, to a brief delineation of those PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS IN WHICH THIS EXCELLENCE STOOD SPECIALLY PROMINENT. There are graces and virtues which distinguish this unblotted excellence, and which, like the angel standing in the sun, gives the sun itself a super-added brilliancy.

One of these was his active benevolence. His character was an energetic and effective character. His mind and heart and hands were not only perfectly consecrated, but brought into action, and perpetually contributing to enlighten the ignorance, alleviate the sorrows, purify the character, and ennoble the destiny of his fellow-men. During his short life of thirty years upon this earth, he achieved more for man, and cheered more hearts than the accumulated philanthropy of six thousand years. His whole spirit was directed to this end. His peculiar character is most emphatically written in the words, " He went about doing good." It was an art he had studied well, and it was the care and business of every day. He aimed to be harmless, but he had higher aims. The infinite God was his example; he was perfect as his Father in heaven was perfect. Wherever he went he wrapped himself in the mantle of that love, the very fold and hem of which were a refuge for the wants and woes of men. He came, "not to be ministered unto, but to minister;" and never was man so intent on this delightful service as he. He possessed an intensity of character as far above other men as his active benevolence was above theirs. His emotions were strong; his object engrossed all his faculties, and stirred up the very depths of his soul. The love of doing good was a flame not only perpetually burning in his bosom, but with intense radiance. All his thoughts, all his life, were at the bidding of this high impulse. The world thought him a madman. He did not seek occasion to be singular, but he could not avoid it. He stood alone, and men wondered at him. So intent, so dominant was his purpose, that he made the first and the last end of his existence to labor for God and man.

If we would have adequate impressions of this feature of his character, we must better understand such declarations as these: " I delight to do thy will, O God; yea, thy law is within my heart." " I must work the work of him who sent me while it is day; the night cometh in which no man can work." I have meat to eat which ye know not of; my meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and finish his work." He would have failed in his object but for his pure and ardent zeal in doing good. It was not one department of human wretchedness to which his mind was directed, but every department. It was not restricted to any particular class of human society, but extended to all classes, comprehending all the evils of suffering humanity, sympathizing with its griefs, and not overlooking its perplexities and cares. Whether they were the diseases of the body, the sorrows of the mind,or the embarrassments of the outward estate, not one of the miseries to which sin subjects fallen man escaped his notice. The vilest of the race had an advocate in the tenderness of his compassion; nor did his detestation of their sins shut up his compassion toward them as sinners. He did not wait for opportunities to do good, but went in search of them. When men were far from him he sought them, and when they could not ascend to him, he descended to them. He often went so far out of his way, in order to express his kindness, that his disciples wondered at his course; while the event showed that his object in so doing was to give sight to the blind, vigor to the lame, cleansing to the leper, hearing to the deaf, to raise the dead to life. Or perhaps it was to cause some widow’s heart to sing for joy, or to convince and enlighten some lost sinner as he sat upon the well. With most affecting condescension, he sought the society of the benighted, the self-righteous, the self-deceived, and even infidel men. Their sufferings were the magnet which drew him forth from his retirement; while with winning wisdom and discernment, did he attract them within the sphere of his influence. Nothing could hinder or weary him; if he was persecuted in one place, he went to another. His own inexhaustible benevolence furnished the impulse to pursue, without relaxation, and with immovable constancy, this career of mercy. He did not seek to be great, but he sought to be useful. All places, all society, from Bethlehem to Calvary, were witnesses of his benevolent spirit and beneficent life. There is something truly affecting in this feature of his character. It appears to us more than human; yet he was human, in whose bosom this unequaled spirit dwelt. It belonged not to earth, was never found on earth, except as exemplified by Mary’s Son. Heaven was its native dwelling-place, yet had it this one tabernacle in the heart of Jesus of Nazareth.

Another of these particular characteristics was his perfect self-denial. It was to the last degree important to the objects of his mission, that it should be seen and confessed that he had no mercenary aims. If wealth, or honor, or power had been the ruling principle of his conduct, he would not have differed from men, who have been the founders of false religions. It is no marvel that the Scriptures bring his character to the test of a self-denying and self-sacrificing spirit; because this is the true test. There is reality and strength in moral virtue, when it will cheerfully do and suffer for the principles of rectitude.

How much of this sterling excellence is found in the best of men, let their conduct declare. How little compared with that which shines in the life of Christ. The more attentively we read his history, the more we shall be convinced that his life was one of incessant self-denial. He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with griefs; when he deserved to have been the happiest of the race and the most beloved. He bore the weight of scorn and obloquy, when he deserved the highest honors. He was poor and abject; he was as great a sufferer as a sinless man could become; yet was it for the good of others, and not his own. These sacrifices were necessary for other reasons; but were they not necessary in order to bring out his perfectly holy and transparent character? We should never have known his true excellence but for those depths of darkness and sorrow when it shone with such matchless beauty. He did not teach a self-denying religion without practicing it; nor an humble and self-abasing religion, a religion that crucifies the world with its affections and lusts, without exemplifying it everywhere and always, from the manger to the cross. He acted out his own principles, and carried his self-denial as far as self-denial can be carried. It was not for himself that he lived, it was not for himself that he wept; it was not his own sorrows that he bore, when, at the close of a long life of sacrifices, he terminated his course by that great act of self-denial, that last sacrifice, which human knowledge knows not, human imagination cannot conceive. Pure, innocent, without spot, he freely renounced all and delivered up himself the victim of God’s justice and man’s cruelty, asking nothing for himself and gaining nothing but the gratification of his self-denying Iove. He asked, indeed, that men should become his followers, and love him, but he never bribed their love; and when he left them, bequeathed them no earthly inheritance, but the peace of God which passeth all understanding, and the cross on which he hung.

Men of a supremely selfish mind, and who offer incense on the altars of pride, ambition, and pleasure, know nothing of this noble characteristic of Jesus Christ. Those who have never learned to sacrifice their own weal for the relief of others’ woes; who have never renounced their own comforts from love to the miserable; whose time, and labor, and repose, and pride, and pleasure, and gold have been devoted only to themselves; cannot sympathize with the moral greatness that throws such a lustre around the man who taught and exemplified the religion of the cross.

Another characteristic was his meekness and humility. There are not wanting some beautiful specimens of meekness and lowliness in those who have named his name in different ages of the world. The Apostle John was his most beloved disciple and friend, for nothing so much as his resemblance, in this feature of his character, to his divine Master. The Mary who came behind him weeping, and washed his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, expressed a spirit more lovely than she would have expressed if she had decked his head with a crown. Moses was styled the " meekest man on the face of the earth," because he maintained his gentleness amid so much that tried and provoked his heaven-born and humble mind. But these holy persons were servants, and their meekness and humility, the cringing spirit of slaves compared with that softness, and mildness, and gentleness of Christ which all his adversaries could never gainsay, or resist. There was not an emotion in his bosom that savored of anger or rashness. Injury, reproach, and provocation assailed him in every form and degree; while the only protestation he made against them was his mild and unresisting gentleness. Denounced as impostor, stigmatized as the enemy of Caesar and a conspirator against the government, ridiculed as a wine-bibber and a friend of publicans and sinners, charged with being a madman and possessed of the devil, seized by the hands of violence, convicted by perjured witnesses, scoffed at, spit upon, buffeted, scourged, and nailed to the bloody tree; his whole course of conduct betrayed not one complaining, or angry thought. He was not capable of a thought for which conscience could reproach him. He knew well how to stand forth the protector of others, and to shield his insulted and slandered excellence; but when his own person and character were assailed, he was speechless, and quietly left them in the hands of God. " He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth." When " he was reviled, he reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously." What beautiful consistency and harmony did this spirit to the more grand and elevated expressions of his excellence! He was lofty in his views; there was everything within him that elevated him above an unworthy action; yet pride and ambition had no lurking-place in that elevated mind; a haughty spirit found no aliment there, and no being. All this is far from man’s nature; but it was the uniform and beautiful spirit of the man Christ Jesus. He had virtues that were more brilliant; but none more lovely. Here his character shines in the very beauty of holiness. This was the most transparent gem in that bright diadem where every gem is transparent. He was a " perfectly meek and humble man." He of all his race was justified in saying, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." His whole life was the most persuasive and eloquent appeal in favor of this spirit; it was the most beautiful and sublime exhibition of it, while the difficulties and trials it encountered seemed only to make it more affecting.

Combined with these characteristics, he also possessed great moral courage. Meek and humble as he was, he was a stranger to weakness and timidity. Never was man so undaunted, and never was there such a demand for vigor of purpose, and promptness, and energy, and endurance. He was born for high and holy ends, and was early made acquainted with the purposes for which he came into the world. Nor did he ever take a changeable and unsteady view, nor a slight and cursory one of his great object. It was constantly upon his mind, and drew toward it all its vigor and fervency. There was no such thing as fear in his bosom, be the dangers that assailed him what they may. He was never intimidated from uttering what he ought to utter, and doing what was necessary for him to perform. If there are instances of his conduct which seem at first view, to savor of precipitancy, it is only because our minds fail to sympathize with a courage so exalted as his, and are not imbued, as his was, with the greatness of his aims, and his intuitive perceptions of what was right and fitting under the circumstances in which he was placed. He could sting the Jewish people with the most keen and lacerating reproaches; he could scourge the changers of money out of the temple; he could send a sarcastic thought through the conscience of the subtle Herod; but it was because such severity could no longer be withheld. " When the oldest and most presumptuous of his disciples would fain have dissuaded him from going up to Jerusalem, he could reply, " Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men;" and when his hour was come, and Judas delayed the execution of his fell design, his language to this arch traitor was, "What thou doest, do quickly!" There were a resolution and fortitude about him, which it does not seem possible that one so meek and lowly could possess. Nor did they fail to rise with every fresh demand upon them, however exacting, waking up and invigorating all his powers of body and mind, and stimulating him, now to action the most fearless, and now to endurance as brave and inflexible as Christianity. When the lamented Evarts was dying, he said to one who stood near him, " Be bold for Christ; there is nothing else worth being bold for!" Christ himself was the boldest of the bold. He was " Captain of our salvation," and it behooved him to be bold. They were fearful foes with whom he was contending, and he advanced to the contest with undaunted breast. They were stormy skies, and days and nights of peril; he was deserted and desolate; but he was ever steadfast, ever immovable. To these characteristics must be added a perfectly devotional and heavenly spirit. If ever there was a man of too heavenly a mind to be born for earth, and to dwell on earth, and engage in the toil and pursuits, and hallowed strife of earth, Jesus of Nazareth was that man. It is not enough to say that he lived above the world, and was a stranger and pilgrim here, and that his heart was fixed on heaven; he was the spirit of heaven itself, living and moving among men. A worldly mind was the rock on which the devil vainly conjectured he might be tempted to shipwreck the great enterprise with which he was entrusted. Artfully did he spread the snare early in the public career of the Son of man, by the offer of all the kingdoms of the world, if he would fall down and worship him; but the temptation passed over his mind " like the idle wind." When, in a more advanced stage of his progress, he became for once the idol of the people, and the multitude offered him the crown and the throne of David, he gave them to understand that crowns and thrones had no charms for his heavenly mind. He avowed before Pilate that he had royal claims, but that it was not the royalty of earth that he sought. He sought nothing from the world but his daily bread; nor would he allow himself to be any further embarrassed by its concerns than to treat this earth as the theater on which he was acting so mighty a part for eternity. He sought no other earthly home than that provided by the hand of charity. A home he had, but it was above, where his conversation was, and where he was so soon to go to provide a place for all his followers. His life was one of peculiar intercourse and near communion with God. Many a time did he rise up a great while before day, and retire to some selected mountain, or sequestered brook, or grove, there to enjoy solitary intercourse with his father in heaven. Whole nights he often employed in prayer. Forty days of fasting and prayer were his preparations for his public ministry. He loved to be alone with God. No employment, no society, no trials ever prevented his intercourse with God and heaven. He and his Father were one, if for nothing but the uninterrupted fellowship which existed between them. Things unseen and eternal were the things he looked at. He often spoke of them, and of the beauty and riches and glory of them, and of heavenly thrones and heavenly joys. With intense interest and delight, he spoke of them, and with pensive thoughts that they were at a distance, and with sweet anticipations that in a little while he should go to the Father.

If we would see the excellence of this wonderful man shining by its own light, we may intermingle with these general excellencies and these brilliant characteristics the thought that this perfect character was maintained with unbroken constancy from the commencement to the close of his career. He had no native sinfulness, but was born as sinless as he died. The law of Paradise which entailed the curse of original sin upon the race, did not affect him, because, though born of a woman, he had no paternal lineage. He was an infant without the selfishness of infancy, and with none of its exacting and tyrannical claims. Was there ever so beautiful a sight as the holy infant Jesus! He was a youth, without one taint of frowardness; a man without one stain of human depravity, from Bethlehem’s manger to Joseph’s tomb! An inhabitant of this fallen world, yet " holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners!" One who possessed man’s nature, yet who "did no sin!" Nothing diverted him from perfect rectitude; nothing discouraged him; nor was his progress broken by a faltering step. There was no coldness, no inconstancy; and his character shone the brighter as he drew toward the close of his mortal career. As he began, so he closed his work; and as he was about to close it, he could " lift up his eyes to heaven and say. Father, the hour is come; I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou hast given me to do!"

We are far from forming just conceptions of the character of the man Christ Jesus. Unspeakably below the reality is the faint picture we have exhibited. We love to contemplate human virtue even in its inferior forms. ’The history of man furnishes here and there a splendid exhibition of it, and while we do not extol the excellence less, we extol its author more. We mark it as a rare character, and a rare expression of Almighty grace. It is like a stream of water in a dry place, a green spot in the desert, a bright star twinkling on the dark cloud. The character of Christ has no such inequalities, and does not strike us by its occasional and novel excellencies. It is like a broad river steadily tending to the ocean, and making the desert bloom as it goes. It is like the moon walking across the heavens, and obscuring the stars by her brightness. The history of man would be barren of reproachless excellence, but for this one record. This one only moral phenomenon stood forth to the men of his age, stands forth to us, and will stand forth to all future time fresh and beautiful, ever retaining the novelty that attracts, and the beauty that charms. Penetrate into the history of the past; search the records where fame has preserved the names of the illustrious, or where private worth is embalmed in delightful memories; and between the Son of man and all other men there is such a distance, that the character of the best of our race is an indivisible point, a particle of vapor compared with this ocean of excellence. During the lapse of sixty centuries, and since the day of the first apostasy and the first promise, there is but this individual born of woman who could look his enemies in the face and say, " Which of you convinceth me of sin?" Nations have come into existence and passed away; millions crowded upon millions have been ushered into being and gone to their graves; patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, men and women largely baptized with the Holy Ghost, have shone as lights in the world, and now shine as the stars forever and ever. Heaven has been moved with love to man to make him holy, to inspire him with immortal hopes, and to urge him, not in vain, to aim at his high calling; but it was reserved for the Virgin’s Son to receive the Spirit without measure, and to become the only example of perfect excellence. What sublimity and beauty are here! What a halo of moral glory encircles the head that was once entwined with the wreath of shame! Christ is glorious; glorious as holiness, glorious as truth, glorious as love, glorious as joy, shining, beaming, and never ceasing to shine with a splendor that is unspeakable and full of glory.

We do not marvel that so many beautiful arguments have been founded on the perfect character of the man Christ Jesus, in favor of the truth of Christianity. We cannot be too thankful that there is this one perfect standard of true religion. We have no other; we profess not to appeal to any other. The world would never have known what true religion is, nor what it can achieve in the formation of character, until it was taught by the character of Christ. It is not fiction, for fiction never could have invented it; it is something which is embodied and realized in actual existence. Without any of the adventitious distinctions of earth, he possessed a splendor which eclipsed them all. Ten righteous men would have saved Sodom; nor does it surprise us to learn that the righteousness of this One Man Christ Jesus, saves from worse than the flames of Sodom, " a great multitude which no man can number." To what extent are we under obligation to imitate the example of Christ? There can be no doubt as to the answer that must be given to this question. The obligation is perfect; it never ceases; it is never violated without sin. There never was any reason why men should not be as holy as Christ, either in the nature of holiness, or their own nature; either in the binding force of the moral law, or the precepts, prohibitions, and spirit of the gospel. There is a cause for the imperfection of Christians, but there is no reason for it. The cause is their own sinful nature and love of wickedness; and this, so far from excusing them, makes the matter worse, and leaves them self-condemned. Men complain that God is a hard master for requiring them to yield a perfect compliance to his law, because the thing is impossible. We grant that it is impossible; to deny this fact were the grossest ignorance and the wildest fanaticism. But why is it impossible? If their hearts were right, it would not be impossible. If their state of mind were such as Christ’s, it would not be impossible. Let us therefore lay our hand upon our mouth. But do we expect perfectly to imitate the Saviour’s character, or that it will ever be perfectly imitated in the present world? It is indeed a melancholy truth that we despair of equaling such excellence; we shall fall far short of it, until " we see him as he is." Yet we may not overlook this bright example, as though we were strangers to it, and were never impressed, and charmed, and humbled by its beauty. Christ is everything to the Christian, as the foundation of his hopes, and the source of supply for all his spiritual necessities. Nor is he less precious as his example. The injunction is still inscribed on the sacred page, "Let the same mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." It is not enough to contemplate his example merely for the purpose of admiring it, and of exciting within our bosom something like the transports of Christian enthusiasm. It is not enough to contemplate it merely for the purpose of seeing how far we come short of it. Rather should we contemplate it with the earnest desire, and prayer, and effort ourselves to attain to a purer and loftier devotion to our heavenly Father’s will. Where is our Christianity if we have none of the spirit of our divine Master? Where is it, if we imbibe not more and yet more of his spirit? How else shall we know that " when he shall appear we shall be like him," unless what we now behold of him progressively transforms into his image?

Let us bring these general inquiries more closely home to our own bosoms. What Christian can allow himself in indifference to the claims of the God of heaven, when the Son of man was so exquisitely alive to them? What Christian will give way to the spirit of murmuring and complaint, when he sees the Saviour of men so uniformly putting his will into the hands of God to be moulded according to his own? Who will be negligent in his observance of the Sabbath, when the Lord of the Sabbath was so punctilious in its observance? Who will not be circumspect in all the social relations, when he protected them with such purity and care? Who will allow himself to become intoxicated in the pursuit of wealth and fame, when his Lord and Master had not where to lay his head, and when, the more he surveyed the " pomps and vanities" of time, the more did they disappear and sink away beneath him? See him in all his lowliness and poverty, and then say, of how much worth is all the glitter of the world? Who can be satisfied to revel in all the pride of life, when he thinks of him who consented to be numbered with malefactors? Who will cherish angry passions and a revengeful bosom, when he could look with such love upon his murderers? What shall be said of the Christian who refuses one drop of that bitter cup which Jesus drank to the dregs? What will the listless, inactive Christian think of himself when he thinks of him who went about doing good, and never wearied of his work? Who will be prayerless when Christ was the man of prayer? Who will rest contented to travel thus tardily towards heaven, when his pilgrimage was so bright and rapid Humbling inquiries are these, both to the writer and the reader. Christianity does indeed live in our world, but it has never been fully exemplified since Christ ascended from the Mount of Olives. Just conceive of a score of Christians like Jesus Christ within this single city, and how would this moral wilderness blossom! If we love Christ, we shall love to imitate his example; and the more we love him, the more we shall love to imitate it. What he said to his early disciples he says to us, " Follow thou me." Mark his footsteps, Christian, and follow him. A single word to those who are not Christians. Would that there were not so many of this unhappy and guilty character! Yet, who would not be a Christian, if it only were to tread in the steps of Christ? To what more elevated and amiable character, to what hopes more precious, what associations more desirable, what higher usefulness, and brighter and more enduring glory can fallen man aspire; than to receive the truth and confess the name of Christ, bear his image, follow his example, promote his glory, and enter into his joy?