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have a crotchet of my own which I beg leave to reserve." "I would like to see Judas Iscariot," continued Lamb. "I would fain see the face of him who having dipped his hand in the same dish with the Son of Man, could afterwards betray Him.”

"There is only one person I could ever think of after this," continued Lamb, "but without mentioning a name that once put on a semblance of mortality. If Shakespeare was to come into this room, we should all rise up to meet him; but if that person was to come into it, we should all fall down and try to kiss the hem of His garment.'

That tribute is the universal tribute to Jesus Christ by well-nigh all the great masters of thought and life through nineteen centuries of European civilization. Whether they agree in doctrinal interpretation of Him or not they do unite in proclaiming the eternal supremacy of His matchless personality. William Ellery Channing said, "His character is entirely removed from human comprehension." Jean Paul, "He is the purest among the mighty and the mightiest among the pure." Sabatier, the broad-visioned French theologian gave this insight into the habit of his life, "When wearied of life and knowing not where to turn, I go to Jesus of Nazareth because in Him alone do I find optimism without frivolity and seriousness without despair.”

This supreme and universal tribute, was it from what He was, from what He did, or both? This shall be the purpose of inquiry at this time. In this day when long accepted political, scientific and social

traditions and customs are being overturned it is no wonder that the institutions and doctrines of religion have had to pass through the storm of the strong winds of criticism. Now it is well for us to take our bearings and we shall find that not one hair of vital doctrine has been injured; though some things that might have been thought necessary have only shown themselves to be a kind of surviving appendix.

It is of vital import to consider the relation of Christ to the Christian enterprise.

First note the magnitude of the Christian enterprise.

The work accomplished in three short years of a young man's life seemed so stupendous that an admiring biographer in concluding what we would call "An appreciation" said, overwhelmed with the greatness of the subject of his sketch, that if everything that He did were written down that he supposed even the world itself could not contain the books. But this Man was not bothered about writing books on paper either about His teachings, or Himself. Unlike Rousseau or Augustine, He had no time for confessions, autobiography, or written statements of His ideas. He was too busy impressing Himself on His generation. He stooped down and wrote upon the sand, but stooping He wrote Himself into men's hearts. And they became living epistles read of all men.

He was a tremendous worker. He realized that His time was short. "I must work the works of

Him that sent Me for the night cometh when no man can work." This was the kind of an estimate that He placed on His own work: "Go your way and tell John the things that you do both see and hear; the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the lepers are cleansed, the poor have good tidings preached unto them."

The enthusiastic historian doubted if the world itself could hold the record of what He did in those brief years. What would he think if he could behold the record through two thousand years? Sooner could the thin colonies of the Atlantic seaboard have imagined the rich heritage of the America of today. Because others could not see the possibility of the future, on September 9, 1850, William H. Seward in the Senate of the United States called upon Senators who hesitated in the vote for the admission of California to the Union to understand that "The unity of our empire hangs on the decision of this day."

But the wildest imagination could not have pictured the things that have flowed from the life of Christ during nineteen centuries. Like a beneficent river, that influence has gone through the parched regions of human life, causing love to God, love to man, purity of heart and right conduct to have an ever increasing dominion among men. Examine and see His mighty works.

If it had not been for Jesus where would be our civilization? If it had not been for Him it is safe to say it never would have been at all. This is not

an extravagant statement. The world had seen splendid civilizations before He was born. Memphis and Thebes and Babylon left a trail of glory whose sunset hues were still visible in His day, but they were smitten of death none the less truly. Jewry, Greece, Rome, had attained lofty heights in religion, in culture, in government, but the deathrattle was in the throat of each when He was born. For the Jew religion had become narrower and narrower until it was a mere piece of empty ritual; for the Greek the worship of mere physical beauty was universal; the gods themselves were the incarnation of human vices as well as virtues; among the Romans men had ceased to believe in the gods and worshipped Cæsar. This was but the outward symbol of the decay and rottenness at the very heart where used to be virility and strength. There could be no hope for civilization in the future unless the breath of heaven should be breathed upon these dry bones. And the needed impulse came in the young man who stepped from His tiny home in the Galilean hills and incarnated in Himself his message of God, of purity, of truth, and of love. Civilization lives just so long as red blood pulses through three main arteries of the mind, of the heart, and of the conduct of men. These are the very avenues through which Jesus manifested His works. Jesus Christ is the mighty heart of humanity forever pumping lifestreams of righteousness, of truth, and of love through the corporate body of human association. When the heart ceases its work the organism dies.

No matter how perfect the physique, no matter how piercing the intellect, when the heart ceases the strong man is seen no more at his work. No matter how great the culture, no matter how costly the display of luxury and comfort, when its heart ceases civilization is ready for its funeral. Christ's heart of righteousness, truth, and love is the only source and mainstay of our civilization, and yet we prate about the growth of our cities and industries, and our commercial prosperity! So once did Athens and Carthage.

"God of our fathers, known of old,

Lord of our far-flung battle line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine-
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!

"Far-called our navies melt away

On dune and headland sinks the fire

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget."

If it had not been for Jesus we should not have our civilization, and for the reason that we should lack life-blood in the very channels where it is essential.

If it had not been for Jesus, what would be the flow that marks the volume of moral rectitude?

His teachings quiver with moral strength as does the aspen with the very presence of its native air; His teachings are clothed with moral beauty as

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