and the grave. To see a ghost, and to be sure that we saw it, would be proof positive, we think, of a world of life beyond the illusion of the grave. Death would then be meaningless to us, extinction incredible, annihilation an absurd impossibility. And we think, further, that one such solemn experience as this would be efficacious to change our whole scheme of conduct with a thoroughness which all the wisdom of the philosophers and the prophets could not achieve. Christ contradicts the truth of these familiar speculations, and declares them illusions. He who will not hear Moses and the prophets would not believe though one rose from the dead. The man who cannot or will not attain to goodness under the normal conditions of human life would never do so under abnormal conditions. In course of time the most acute impression of terror wears off; or if it be often repeated, it is with an ever-lessening impression, till at last it ranks with the normal, and as such is easily despised. This was a train of thought which Christ often applied to His miracles. He saw that as men became used to them they became indifferent to them, and even forgot them. Hence He refuses to base His claim on miracles. He leaves men to think what they will of them; the greater question is what they think of Him? When, therefore, theology demands an absolute faith in miracles as the first condition of faith in Christ, it is acting in direct opposition to His spirit. If we only believe in Christ because of the miracles which He wrought, we do not really believe at all. He Himself encourages us to put miracles in a subsidiary relation to Himself; for it is not as a miracle-worker that Jesus has won the hearts of humanity, but as the Lover of Souls, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

The case may be summed up thus, then. There can be no doubt that Jesus believed that He wrought

miracles, and that this belief was shared by His disciples, His friends, and even by His enemies. The reports of these astounding acts are conditioned by the mental characteristics of the time. They vary in credibility, and we are at liberty to distinguish the degree of credibility in each. They differ from the common acts of the necromancer, and even the miraculous acts of the prophets, in this-that they were never wrought for selfish or revengeful, but always for benignant ends. They fit into the scheme of Christ's mission by illustrating His own unselfishness and benignity of spirit, and hence were of potent service in promoting His authority over men. On the other hand, He Himself always treated them as subsidiary to His main work, which was to save and redeem the souls of men. Their accidental character strengthens the conviction of their authenticity. Their abiding value is that they illustrate the temper of Christ, and through Christ the temper of God toward man. Finally, where they are most confounding to the reason, we have to remember that we have a most imperfect apprehension of the personality of Christ, and are therefore unable to judge the effects of that overwhelming personality upon others.

These considerations must guide us, and always be in our minds as we now follow the story of Jesus to its tragic and sublime close. With His return from Jerusalem to Capernaum, the full scheme of His ministry is developed. He henceforth treads a path more lofty than was ever scaled by mortal. His life abounds in incidents such as are found in no other human life. To great multitudes He is known to the end only as the MiracleWorker; to an elect few, whose numbers slowly multiply, as He Himself desires to be known-a Redeemer in whose hands lay the spiritual destinies of the world.

CHAPTER X

THE NEW SOCIETY

WE now find Jesus fully launched upon His career as a Man with a Mission. His whole time and strength are henceforth absorbed in continual public teachings and acts of mercy, which often leave Him no leisure so much as to eat. His wanderings from town to town obey no definite programme, although they are governed by a general preference for the shores of Galilee. When we remember how vast has been the influence of these busy years upon the fortunes of the world, it is surprising to find how circumscribed was the geographical area of Christ's ministry. Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Magdala, towns closely identified with some of His most remarkable words and acts, lie closely together in the northern reach of the Lake of Galilee. Tiberias, the only surviving town upon the lake, He is supposed never to have entered; although it must be confessed that the reasons given for this tradition are entirely inadequate. The little town of Nain, lying close to the older town of Endor, between Mount Tabor on the north and the mountains of Gilboa on the south, Christ entered but once, and this was the nearest approach to the great plain of Esdraelon, famous for its associations with Gideon and Saul, Elijah and Ahab, and some of the more momentous of Israelitish battles. In the last year

of His life He penetrates northward as far as the Roman town of Cæsarea Philippi and Mount Hermon, which was undoubtedly the Mount of Transfiguration; but the great city of Damascus, plainly visible from the slopes of Hermon, the oldest city in the world, which was metropolitan even in the time of Abraham, Christ never visited. He appears at one time to have made a brief missionary journey to the northern seaward towns, including Sidon and Tyre, but the important southern towns of Joppa and Gaza were unvisited. Samaria and Jericho He knew, for these were important cities easily accessible on the way to Jerusalem; but Bethlehem and Hebron, towns which lie but a little south of Jerusalem, the first of which was full of sacred associations, are not named in the record of the Gospel ministry. The entire area thus defined is about one hundred miles from north to south, with a breadth rarely exceeding twenty or thirty miles; yet in this narrow theatre the greatest events in human history were transacted.

The greatest event of all in these years was the establishment of what may be called the New Society. We have seen that immediately on His return from the baptism at Jordan, Jesus began to call disciples, which was an act entirely in accord with Jewish precedent. It was a common thing for a famous Rabbi to surround himself with neophytes, whom he instructed in his own peculiar tenets; but we soon find Jesus greatly enlarging this process, and giving it an entirely new definition and significance. If one were asked to state what single feature in the career of Christ is so distinct and original as to separate Him from all other teachers, no doubt a variety of replies would suggest themselves to the mind. One might name His enthusiasm for humanity, another His complete devotion to truth, and yet another the manner of His death. But each of

these replies would soon be found inadequate, because we should readily discover similar features in the careers of other great teachers and reformers. Buddha also was distinguished by an intense love of humanity, Socrates by an invincible devotion to truth, and many martyrs have endured a painful death with an equal courage and tranquillity. We have to look deeper, and we find the only adequate answer to the question in this singular feature of Christ's ministry, that He founded a New Society with Himself as Centre. His true Gospel was not in anything He said; it was Himself. The most divinely original of all His acts and teachings was contained in a single phrase "Follow Me." In uttering this phrase He established within the life of the world His own life, as a new centre of gravity and cohesion, and He thus made personal loyalty to Himself the vital force which was to transform the whole organism of Society.

We may measure the audacity of this act by a few quite obvious comparisons. Thus, for example, in saying, "Follow Me," Jesus said what no Hebrew prophet had dared to say. The prophet was a personage of unique authority and influence, who was capable of exercising a vital control over the national destinies. He was peculiar to Hebrew history, and was indeed born out of the moral intensity of the Hebrew race. His supreme mission was to bring human society into conformity to the will of God. He appeared at intervals, coming now from the court and the Temple, now from the sheepfold and the desert, but always securing an authority and reverence such as kings seldom knew. He was prepared to set himself, and often did set himself, in solitary antagonism against a whole nation-arraigning, judging, and condemning it. But sublime as was the self-confidence of the prophet, he never dared to suggest himself as the centre of a new society. He declared truth, but he