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cause of Truth, he saw with the clearest pronhotic vision, that a glorious and everlasting dominion must be his. He trusted not, he needed not to trust to perishing paper and parchment to perpetuate his name and influence in the world, for he was writing out his laws upon the living tables of the heart, in his own life-blood. He knew that by drinking the bitter cup of death-by submitting to that fearful baptism, he was immortalizing his power; he was making an appeal to the sympathies of the human soul, which could not be in vain. Those steps of suffering, which to all other eyes seemed to lead down into utter darkness, in his illuminated vision were seen to be a glorified ascent to the right hand of Eternal Power.

Again. Listen to that most remarkable language of his upon the occasion of his last visit to Jerusalem, shortly before his death. "The hour is come that the son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." To those who heard these words they could scarcely have been intelligible. And yet we may perceive a deep and natural meaning here. The glory with which his mind was engrossed was the pure moral glory of an entire self sacrifice. It was as evidently necessary in his view that he should suffer and die as he was about to do, as that the seed should be buried in the earth and undergo that natural, familiar, but mysterious change by which it is converted into a fruit-bearing plant. The process of vegetation was not more natural to his mind, than the

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dark and painful method by which he was to be glorified, and the triumph of his religion-the establishment of his kingdom consummated.

Once more. Let me remind you of that remarkable declaration of his, uttered just after Judas had left him, to go and execute his traitorous purpose. The depar ture of Judas upon this base errand naturally enough caused Jesus to feel most vividly that the great crisis was at hand, that in a very little while his fate would be fulfilled. Does he shrink at the dark prospect thus brought distinctly before him? Oh no! he beholds in it only the manifestation of his glory and the glory of God. "Now is the Son of man glorified," he exclaims, “and God is glorified in him." The elevation of his mind and his language could not have been more remarkable, if a visible spectacle of the wide spread of his religion had at that moment been accorded him. This is to me the stupendous wonder. He not only knew that he must die, but it is shown beyond all doubt that he knew his death would be the instrument of his signal success, that' by dying as he was about to die he would be glorified as no other ever had been, and God would be glorified in him. Here is a depth and extent of inspiration to which the whole world can bring no parallel. This it is that attests him as the first and greatest of Prophets. And then too how astonishing is it that, possessing this extraordinary knowledge, he was not elated by it, nor the balance of his mind in the slightest degree disturbed. still the most patient, the meekest of beings.

He was

There is

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nothing excited, nothing hurried, nothing incoherent in his manner. The Present was not lost sight of in the near and familiar view of the vast Future. He was still the most practical of teachers.

CHAPTER XI.

THE MAGNANIMITY OF JESUS.

"To be tremblingly alive to gentle impressions, and yet to be able to preserve, when the prosecution of a design requires it, an immoveable heart, amidst the most imperious causes of subduing emotion, is perhaps not an impossible constitution of mind, but it must be the rarest endowment of humanity."-FOSTER-Essays.

I BEG leave here to admonish the reader, that I do not aim at anything like completeness in the representation I have undertaken of the character of Jesus Christ. To prove the honesty of this disavowal, it is not necessary that I should indulge in any of those expressions of selfdisparagement, by which one so seldom convinces others, and so often deceives himself. It is enough to say that since, after the lapse of eighteen hundred years, the moral significance of the life of Jesus remains unexhausted, I do not believe that it is now to be fathomed at a glance, even

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by the best and wisest. Nay, after a period of equal length a thousand times told, I am persuaded the treasures of moral life, truth, and beauty, hidden in Jesus Christ, will remain absolutely inexhaustible. The least of the things of God in the humblest department of his universe presents an infinite variety of aspects, and opens an unfathomable depth for contemplation. It is not therefore to be for a moment supposed that, within any definite space, the character of Jesus will be so understood and appreciated, that little will remain to be told of it.

It would be easy enough to enumerate the virtues, and ascribe them all to him in a mass; to heap upon him the phraseology of panegyric, and then fancy that we have completed his portrait. But the effect of his character has been injured by nothing, scarcely, so much as by the loose and indiscriminate manner in which it has been described. It has been divested of all vitality, by the general and unqualified language of praise, and converted into a dim and lifeless abstraction, a feeble personification of Virtue. It seems to have been thought that extravagance is impossible when Jesus Christ is the theme. And yet it may almost be questioned, whether those who have lavished upon him the loftiest terms of commendation, going the length of literally deifying him, have even caught a glimpse of his real greatness. It may be-I have no doubt that it is-beyond the power of language to do him justice. Still we are extravagant when we speak of him in terms that exceed our own distinct impressions, and allow ourselves to deal in vague gene

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ralities; and the effect cannot but be injurious. It is very difficult, I know, to avoid falling into an exaggerated tone, when the heart has been touched in the slightest degree by pure moral beauty. I cannot flatter myself that I have wholly escaped this difficulty, I can only say that I endeavour anxiously to guard against it, and to justify the expressions of my reverence for Jesus by numerous and decisive facts, being chiefly desirous to see clearly so far as I see, and recognising discrimination as of the first importance.

I have entitled this chapter, The Magnanimity of Jesus.' The true greatness of his mind has already been shown in his use of the extraordinary gifts with which he was endowed, and in the calm and steady confidence with which he cherished a lofty purpose. I wish to pursue the illustration of this quality, because it is so uniformly disclosed through the whole tenour of these narratives of his life. In all the relations in which he is placed-under all the circumstances detailed, the same noble being appears, and, on the part of the historians, all is related quietly, unostentatiously, unconsciously.

For the most expressive manifestations of the mental and moral greatness of Jesus, I do not refer to those precepts of his, in which he inculcates universal charity and benevolence, the forgiveness of injuries and the overcoming of evil with good. The verbal lessons which he gave of these virtues are doubtless emphatic and eloquent. Still in no case are the words of an individual, taken by themselves, a decisive index of his spirit. It is possible to ex