What has been set forth concerning the power of the teachings of Jesus to stir and stimulate and enlighten the conscience; what has been said of his own character and life as incarnating, and thereby expounding, making clear and enforcing, his doctrine; what has been suggested concerning the absolute universality of his character, making him brother to every human being and therefore as much to one as to another, all this brings us to speak briefly of a wonderful but very common fact of daily observation and experience, a fact that cannot be dissevered from the character, nature, and personality of Jesus himself: the effect of his doctrines and of himself upon men.
It is not meant that all who are called Christians show these results; that all who are Christians show all these results; that any man or woman who ever was called Christian has shown all the results possible to humanity as the natural sequence of receiving fully the doctrine of Jesus and living up to it. No more than I will plead for counterfeit coins; no more than I would say that all coins that have pure gold in them are of full weight and without alloy of baser metal. But this I do say: we do find, and always find, in those who receive and obey the teachings of Jesus the results he pointed out as following their reception; that the results follow in proportion to the thoroughness with which these teachings are observed; that those who best keep them become most like him, the one blameless and perfect Man.
We will not enter into any theological discussions; we do not touch the metaphysics of the subject; but this may be affirmed roundly and without qualification: those who believe and receive and obey his words are not only changed in their manner of life, they are, so far as we can have any means of judging men, changed in their spirit of life. So it does come to pass in those who keep his words; old things become new, not only in the sphere of action, but also in the sphere of thinking, feeling, willing.
As it seems to me, there can be nothing in this world harder to do than to change, not men’s external lives merely, but men themselves. Changing men’s hearts is like making worlds.
Who else who ever taught, lived, or died, does this? Does this while among men? Does this, being for nearly two thousand years gone out of the sight and hearing of men? But Jesus works this miracle now, and in men of all races and conditions, civilized and savage, learned and unlearned. And their number is as the sands by the sea-shore and as the stars of heaven for multitude.
Candid thinkers in accounting for Jesus—in characterizing and classifying him—must take account of the effects produced in human character, as well as in human lives, and in human lives because in human character.
The men of science tell us we must take account of facts in forming our conclusions; and they are right. It was Jesus who taught this principle long before Bacon; “By their fruits ye shall know them.” In studying Jesus we must take account of those facts in human life which seem to be connected with him.
We have spoken of the change in character—call it by any name or none—that follows obedience to Jesus. In this connection there is another most wonderful thing to be considered. What I am to mention now is, on the mere grounds of common sense and worldly reasoning, the most marvelous and inexplicable of all facts observed among men in relation to any being not with them in visible, tangible form; I refer to the matchless love his true disciples feel toward him, not as a teacher, but as a person.
None can deny it. Who, if Jesus was only a man, can explain it?