says in his "Life of Christ:" "We must place Jesus in the first of this great family of the true sons of God." And again he says: "The palm is his, who has been powerful both in words and in deeds, who has discerned the good, and at the price of his blood has made it triumph. Jesus from this double point of view is without equal; his glory remains entire and will ever be renewed."

Thou seemest human and divine,

The highest, holiest manhood thou,

is the estimate of Tennyson.

Sidney Lanier in his "Crystal" calls the long roll of true and noble men-Shakespeare, Homer, Socrates, Buddha, and down to Tennyson; with each name he couples "some sweet forgiveness of their errors rich," but not so of Christ. Here Lanier adds his voice to the verdict of the world in calling Christ the one perfect man.

But thee, but thee, O sovereign Seer of time,
But thee, O poets' Poet, wisdom's Tongue,
But thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love,
O perfect life, in perfect labor writ,

O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest-
What if or yet, what mole, what flaw, what lapse,
What least defect or shadow of defect,

What rumor tattled by an enemy,

Of inference loose, what lack of grace

Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's,

O what amiss may I forgive in thee,

Jesus, good Paragon, thou crystal Christ.

STUDY X. HELPING MEN SOLVE DIFFICULTIES ABOUT CHRIST.

"At that season Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes; yea, Father, for so it was well pleasing in thy sight. All things have been delivered unto me of my Father: and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him." (Matt. xi. 25-27.)

PART 2. CHRIST'S CONSCIOUSNESS OF SONSHIP.

HAVING set forth the perfect manhood of Jesus, my student friend finally said: "But even a perfect man could not be the center of a religion." To this I willingly assented, and went on to take the next step. Did Jesus claim to be more than a man?

As early as the age of twelve Jesus began to feel that stirring within his soul which made him conscious of a unique relationship to the Heavenly Father. This consciousness grew day by day and found expression in almost every discourse. The Scripture lesson for to-day sets forth clearly that Jesus believed himself in his relation to God to be more than a man. This is more strikingly represented throughout the Gospel of John. The conscious sonship is for Jesus the supreme reality of his life-it enters into his every act, it dominates every conception. To leave it out or ignore it makes his life practically unintelligible, and at the same time makes it impossible to explain why the disciples were so sure that this sense of sonship was for Jesus the supreme and governing reality. If there is anything of truth in history, we must believe that Jesus and all his followers were absolutely sure that he was uniquely related to God.

Growing out of this relationship, Jesus believed that his mission was to make God known as a Father. God throughout the centuries had been attempting to reveal himself to men, and Jesus felt that he was the final and complete revelation. "Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father." "It is the knowledge of God," says Harnack, "that makes the sphere of the Divine sonship. Jesus is convinced that he knows God in a way in which no other one ever knew him before, and he knows it is his vocation to communicate this knowledge of God to others by word and by deed.”

The proof that he was right is found in the fact that his conception of God is to-day (nineteen hundred years later) the highest and truest conception of God that men have found. So far as any man can see into life, there is no element left out of Christ's picture of God which any human could wish to see there. A Christlike God has come to be the highest ideal of the human race.

The very God! think Abib; dost thou think?
So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too-
So, through the thunder comes a human voice,
Saying, "O heart I made, a heart beats here!
Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself!
Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine,
But love I gave thee, with myself to love,
And thou must love me, who have died for thee.
-Browning's "An Epistle."

STUDY X. HELPING MEN SOLVE DIFFICULTIES ABOUT CHRIST.

"Now Jesus stood before the governor: and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest. And when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing. Then saith Pilate unto him, Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee? And he gave him no answer, not even to one word; insomuch that the governor marveled greatly." (Matt. xxvii. 11-14.)

PART 3. WAS CHRIST AN IMPOSTOR, A CRAZY MAN, OR WHAT HE THOUGHT HIMSELF TO BE?

BUT my troubled student was not yet satisfied. He asked if Jesus might not conceivably be an impostor, or if not, might he not be a crazy or deluded man?

To the first there were two answers. If Christ were an impostor pure and simple, he would surely have recanted in time to save his life. Men do not play a rôle that brings death just for the sake of the rôle. But Christ protested to the end, as all Scripture references indicate, that he was the Son of God. Not only so, but if Christ were an impostor, we would at once be faced with the problem of explaining his character. Every student of character knows very well that a man's thoughts determine his moral life. A man cannot profess one thing and believe another without suffering the consequences. Hypocrisy eats like a canker at a man's soul, and sooner or later the hollowness of that soul shows in outward life. Victor Hugo in his "Toilers of the Sea" tells us that "Hypocrisy transforms and engenders its own hideous deformity." Everyday observation tells us this is true. No life can be founded on a lie and still be beautiful. But Christ's life was absolutely beautiful, the most perfect the world has ever seen. We cannot, therefore, conceive of bis being an impostor. Psychologically this possibility is rul

out.

"Could it not be possible that Christ was deceived?” said my student. Let us see. Men are mistaken about some things in life and still have balanced character. But are men who labor under an all-absorbing delusion men of poise and balance? We think not. When a man becomes dominated by a delusion which makes up his very life he becomes erratic, unbalanced, lacking in calm. Buddha, though calm, lost his true perspective and cast to the winds the sacred ties of home and set forth a kind of system which no man in a normal life could live. Buddhism is abnormal, an abortion. Mohammed became mad for power. And so it goes with the men who have been dominated by a great delusion. But Christ was the calmest, the most perfectly poised, the sanest man the world has ever seen. At times they called him crazy, not because he was erratic, but because he was so unselfish, so calm in the midst of turmoil, so self-possessed in the midst of danger, that men thought he surely could not understand what went on about him. Any man who reads the story of the Gospels must be amazed at the serenity of a life cast into the midst of such unrest. This calmness does not betoken craziness or delusion. Neither could this picture have been painted by any save those who had an original. It was too foreign to the seething, turbulent feelings of the Jews of his time. It must have been a true picture.

Nor can we conceive of the splendid message Christ gave coming from a crazy man. We have seen in other studies that he gave us the final standard of morals. We have seen that our conception of God comes to its final consummation in Jesus Christ, we have seen that it has sent forth men into the world to live brotherly lives. Is it conceivable that the highest conception for all time could come from a crazy man? This seems impossible.

The only explanation is that Christ was what he claimed he was, the very Son of God, the complete revelation of the Father.