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character in realms never touched by the rest. Take for example the matter of character. All that you can possibly say that is strictly ethical and good about the greatest of men can be said about Christ. He was kind and lov ing, tender and strong, giving Him self to the interests o f His fellows. But this is not the remarkable thing about His character. The startling thing about Christ is that He was never more conscious of having done or said anything that was wrong. He challenged men to convict Him of sin. Men have tried very hard in modern days to find a flaw in His ethics, but they have made a sorry failure of it. This fact of His sinlessness is quite as great a miracle as is the way He came into the history o f the race. Prof. G. A. Johnson Roys has writ ten a most interesting book on “ The Universality of Jesus.” This also is a unique feature of His life and speaks of a new order in the race. He is the most masculine and strongest of men, yet, He embodies in His life and char acter all the finest in woman’s life. He was born in a little land in Asia of one o f the most distinct and sepa rate people the world has ever known. There never was a people in all the history of the race that were more peculiarly themselves. They have mingled with practically all the na tions o f the earth, but no nation has ever been found equal to the task of wholly assimilating them. Notwith standing that He was born of that race ||-a Hebrew of the Hebrews— it is practically impossible for us to think of Him as a Hebrew. He responds to all that is highest and best in every race and cannot be limited to any na tion. Here again His: universality is challenging as it stands out in con trast to all the great men of history. Moses and Paul were Hebrews, Lu
ther was a German, and Knox was a Scot, Cromwell was an Englishman, and Lincoln an American, but Jesus of Nazareth belongs to the human race. As Napoleon well said, “ Jesus Christ has succeeded in making of every human soul an appendage of His own.” This fact has not only made Him unique in His life and char acter as lived in the first century, but also in His influence upon all the cen turies. This alone is enough to sepa rate Him from all men. It is also true that instead of our modern study in comparative religion and kindred stud ies obscuring His uniqueness they have brought it out in more striking lines than it has been seen since the day o f Paul. It is harder for men to-day t6 ex plain the life and influence of Jesus as the life and influence of a mere man than it was for our fathers to defend His deity—along the old apologetic lines. Prof. Loofs o f the University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, in his book, “What is the Truth About Jesus Christ ?” after examining the very lat est that scholars have to say about Christ and the problem He forces upon human thought, says: “ It would be attempting impossible things if we tried to understand the historical per son of Christ.” Why ? Because it is a mystery with depths beyond the grasp of the human mind. The mys tery lies in the fact that “ God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.” Prof. Loofs further says that “No Science can prevent us from saying: the historical Jesus is the same as the Christ of faith, i. e., the Christ who was a man, but also the beginner of a new mankind, and the Christ in whose face we behold the glory of God, our Saviour and our Lord.” “He that believeth on Him shall not be put to shame,” for to believe on Him is eternal life.
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