The Man of Galilee

by Atticus G. Haygood

It may well be that the influences that have conspired in shaping our lives—in making us what we are to-day—have in some way come to us from many thousands of lives. In a true sense Moses, David, Paul, Socrates, Plato, Augustine, Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, with many others—our parents and teachers above all—all these, and, it may be, myriads more unnamable, live in us to-day. This is what Froude meant when he wrote of Martin Luther, “No man of our times is what he would have been but for Luther.” This is true because Luther’s life so enters into the influences of our times that no man ever brought into relations with him could escape that influence.

And few have escaped it; none of the European nations, none of the nations that have been brought into any sort of relations with Christianity and the civilizations that have grown out of it; few, if any, of what we call heathen nations; for the influences of Luther’s life and doctrines are in the missionary movement of our times, that now promises to do for these nations what the coming of Christianity did for Europe, Eastern Asia, and Northern Africa in the first centuries of our era—so changed them as to make a new epoch in history; we might say, a new world.

What is true of such a man as Luther is true in a measure—less extensive it may be, less real it cannot be—of every life that has gone before us, and that has, in any way, entered into our own.

It would be easy to offer illustrations. Consider Francis Bacon—perhaps Roger Bacon still more—in relation to the scientific methods of our times. Think of Shakespeare, not in poetry only, but in all literature; or of Kant, Spinoza, Locke, in philosophy; Calvin, Wesley, and the rest, in theology and moral reforms. Or think of the artists and inventors, the great soldiers and statesmen. You may easily make out a very long list of names of human lives that, going before us, now live in us. The list will show names that stand for diverse and antagonistic elements; but all these enter into our lives, just as, to return to our illustration from the world of waters, the water pure from the clouds, sparkling in mountain springs, foul and reeking from swamps and all manner of ugly places, enters, it well may be, into the constituent elements of the dew-drop that reflects the sun upon each grass-blade in the fields.

It is nothing peculiar to the life of Jesus of Nazareth that his influence should abide in human history. Every human life, the humblest and unworthiest, so abides. But the influence of Jesus is different from that of other men. I am not now speaking of degree, but kind. As his method of thinking, of teaching; as the work he proposed to do and as the plans he adopted difference him from mere men, so does the history of the influence that flowed out from him into life and so made modern civilization, so does the character of his influence now difference him from men.

It would carry us too far for the design of these discussions to enter now into the subject of the relation of Jesus to the history of his era. Our calendar intimates the extent and power of that influence; we count time from his birth; this is 1889, A. D. That influence has entered into whatever has made the world of our times. The history of this influence is the history of the Christian era.

We will consider the influence of Jesus, as it may be a matter of observation and consciousness.

Consider the power of the teachings of Jesus upon the human conscience. This is to me a growing wonder. Other men’s words stimulate the conscience to a degree, but only when they echo his or approach harmony with them. This is so strangely true that no words of any teacher stir the conscience—except to protest—that antagonize and contradict Jesus. There is no risk of exaggeration or dogmatism here; it is perfectly safe and perfectly fair to say no doctrine of God or man, of rights and wrongs, that repudiates or denies what Jesus teaches, has any power over the human conscience. Other words and doctrines may quicken the intellect and dominate it; may excite the imagination and stir the emotions; but if they are contrary to his doctrines and his life they have no grasp upon the moral side of man.

It is easy to make the experiment and to make it conclusively. Read books that contradict his doctrines—that seek to overthrow them. If you read with candor I am not afraid for you to read what his fiercest enemies say. Take Voltaire, where he ridicules the Bible; Paine, in that very misnamed pamphlet, The Age of Reason; Hume, in his speculations concerning providence, miracles, inspiration, and the whole agnostic literature of our day. These writings do not take hold upon the conscience except as they may weaken or paralyze it; they do not strengthen any purpose to do right, confirm any sense of personal obligation, invigorate any will for right doing. Make the experiment with any words of men that contradict or repudiate Jesus, the lightest and weightiest, the silliest and subtlest; mere platform declamations or the sober scientific worship of materialism that knows no spirit—man, angel, or God. Do any of them stir our sense of obligation to high duty? Do any of them make our perception of duty clearer? Our love of virtue stronger? Our hatred of evil intenser? All who have made the experiment may answer for themselves.

I do not say that only the words of Jesus take hold upon the conscience; this would not be true. There are passages in Seneca, in Epictetus, in Socrates, in Plato, in Confucius, in the words of many ancient sages and modern teachers, that do stir the conscience. Your Shakespeare will furnish many illustrations. So will George Eliot, Hawthorne, and very many other writers. But these things I do say with perfect assurance: