Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/544

 532 CHRISTIANITY model of moral perfection being neither actual nor possible. Even if there could have been a perfect agreement about an ideal existing only in thought, it would have had but little power upon the common mind. It could not have been sufficiently definite and clear for practical purposes. What, therefore, was ne- cessary to constitute a perfect man no one could positively affirm. Certainly, there was in all the speculations of the philosophers no approach to the Christian idea of what man should be. There was in this circumstance a sort of necessity that the idea should be em- bodied in an individual person of the human species ; otherwise it could never be fixed definitely in the general mind as the end of all its practical aims. Had Christianity done nothing more than to exhibit such a human character as that of Christ, still in presenting to the comprehension of all that living image of what human nature should be, it would have accomplished more in the way of teach- ing virtue than all the other moral systems of the world. All that can be done by the power of an idea has been done by the mere existence of such a person as Christ. The moral character of all Christian nations is pre- cisely what their various attempts to attain to the excellence of this model have made it. No individual has equalled the normal type of humanity; nor has the whole school of his disciples collectively attained to the virtues of its founder. What other example is there in the history of mankind where the single founder of a school has been able to hold such a preeminence over the collective attainments of all his various disciples for successive ages? If human nature was designed, not for a sep- arate and independent existence, but for an existence in most intimate connection with Divinity ; if it was to be enlightened, guided, influenced, and moulded by the latter, by hav- ing a vital and uninterrupted spiritual union with it. and finding its true destination and well-being only in that state, a life not only from God, but in God, then there is nothing that exemplifies all this in such absolute per- fection as the life of Jesus. Here we behold " the Model Man " in his union with God "I in them, and thou in me." If Christ, besides all his other redeeming acts, has in his life as a man exhibited the just relations between humanity and Divinity by keeping them always in union and harmony, he has made this grand, this most marvellous exhibition for the benefit of human nature at large ; and having been accomplished once, it needs not to be re- peated. In respect to the fitting time or place for such an exhibition, it may not be becom- ing for mortals to attempt to judge. But, as we have the divine method before us, it is neither irreverent nor presumptuous to search for the evidences of its wisdom. If it is an event to occur but once, it would seem natural that it should take place in some focal point of the world's history. That it should succeed a period of the highest pagan culture, so as to show what mere human culture could not do, and should make its appearance in a nation the most favored in respect to religious knowl- edge, so that. the heavenly plant might be put into a prepared soil, the most perfect revela- tion of God be made to those who already knew most of God, would seem to be both reasonable and appropriate. In this way, it would take up the great problem of the desti- nation of human nature 'and of human society in that stage of its solution where the world under the most favorable circumstances, as it respects both pagans and Jews, had left it. No doubt, as the western borders of Asia, where the three tides of Asiatic, African, and European civilization met, presented a suitable theatre for the introduction of Christianity, so the period that closed ancient history, and opened the way for a new and very different history in ages to come, may be supposed to enter largely into that assemblage of circum- stances which marked the " fulness of time." The greatness of the Christian religion consists in the energy with which it actually impresses that type of character found in Christ upon a great mass of human beings of different coun- tries, and in different ages of the world. This is its greatest peculiarity, viewed as a practi- cal system. Here it stands confessedly alone. Such a power it could not exert unless there was a reality both in Christ's character and in its causal relation to ours. He must have had a divine life in himself, and have been the source of a similar life in his followers. Other founders of religious systems are teachers, au- thors of institutions, of organizations ; or, un- der mythical forms, they present symbols of what is supposed to be divine. Not one of them, as a historical personage, holds the rela- tion of a vital source, or even of a prototype of all that he expects or desires to see pro- duced in others. Even what Moses was in himself was not a matter of vital importance ; little comparatively depended on that. He was not in his own person the standard of what he taught ; much less was his spirit the source of religion. Like other good men, he Kointed to something higher and better than imself. But Christ was himself all that he wished his disciples to be ; and the reproduc- tion of himself in them individually by a spirit- ual energy was the chief aim of his religion, and his success in this undertaking is its chief glory. From this conception of Christianity, and of its founder, which may be regarded as a theoret- ical view, let us advance to a historical estimate of the exalted character of Christ. In what light did he view himself, and in what attitude did he present himself to the world ? As the exalted personage in whom were fulfilled all the predictions of the ancient prophets in respect to the Messiah, and in whom was realized in a substantial and perfect form all that was shadowed forth in the types of the Jewish ritual and law. He regarded himself as the