Moral Glory of Jesus Christ 69 peerless love and His truth, His holiness and His freest par don never clash; one never clouds the other. His firmness never degenerates into obstinacy, or His calmness into in difference. His gentleness never becomes weakness, nor' His elevation of soul forgetfulness of others. In His best ser vants virtues and graces are uneven and often clash. Paul had hours of weakness and even of petulance. He seems to have regretted that he called himself a Pharisee in the Jew ish Sanhedrin and appealed to that party for help, for in his address before the proconsul Felix he said, “Or let these same here say, if they found any evil doing in me, while I stood before the Council, except it be for this one voice, that I cried standing among them, Touching the resurrection of the dead I am called in question by you this day.” John the Apostle of love even wished to call down fire from heaven to consume the inhospitable Samaritans. And the Virgin mother must learn that even she cannot dictate to Him as to what He shall do or not do. In Jesus there is the most perfect balance, the most amazing equipoise of every faculty and grace and duty and power. In His whole life one day’s walk never contra dicts another, one hour’s service never clashes with another. While He shows He is master of nature’s tremendous forces, and the Lord of the unseen world, He turns aside and lays- His glory by to take little children in His arms and to bless them. While He must walk amid the snares His foes have privily spread for His feet, He is equal to every occasion, is in harmony with the requirements of every moment. “He never speaks where it would be better to keep silence, He never keeps silence where it would be better to speak; and He al ways leaves the arena of controversy a victor.” His unaf fected majesty, so wonderfully depicted in the Gospels, runs through His whole life, and is as manifest in the midst of poverty and scorn, at Gethsemane and Calvary, as on the Mount of Transfiguration and in the resurrection from the grave.
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