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 Miracle-Worker; 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 selfconfidence of the prophet, he never dared to suggest himself as the centre of a new society. He declared truth, but he suppressed himself. Neither Moses, Elijah, nor John the Baptist ever imagined that by creating a general and passionate sense of loyalty to themselves they could change the whole structure of society round about them. But Jesus did

imagine this, and boldly suggested Himself as the source and authority of a new life out of which a new world would spring.

We have already mentioned the great name of Socrates. Few writers on the life of Jesus have been able to avoid the parallel suggested by the life of Socrates, nor is there any good reason why they should, since the resemblance between Socrates and Christ is in many ways remarkable. We find in Socrates a noble jealousy for truth such as Christ would have ardently approved. We see Socrates calling disciples round him, even as Christ did; explaining truth to them with an infinite patience, enabling them to realize that to know the truth is the only freedom; himself meanwhile bearing indignity and scorn, poverty and hardship, with the complete philosophic indifference of one to whom the only real life is the life of the spirit. But there the parallel ends, except in so far as the death of Socrates reveals those Divine qualities of fidelity and courage which make all martyrs one. Socrates never said, "Follow me." He valued loyalty to the ideas he formulated, but passionate allegiance to himself he neither desired nor demanded. Christ, on the contrary, demands not so much intellectual conviction as personal loyalty. He never speaks of truth after the impersonal manner of Socrates; "I am the Truth," is His great formula. The counsels of Christ upon life and conduct greatly transcend in cogency and truth all that has come to us from the noblest philosophic minds of Greece and Rome, and he who follows these counsels can hardly fail to attain a high level of philosophic peace and virtue. But Christianity is not primarily a philosophy, and its real bond is not so much truths held in common as a common loyalty to its Divine author. Its initiatory rite is love: "Simon Peter, lovest thou Me?" Its bond of unity is love: "I am in the Father, and ye in Me: He