This sublime person, who each day still presides over the destiny of the world, we may call divine, not in the sense that Jesus has absorbed all the divine, or has been adequate to it (to employ an expression of the schoolmen), but in the sense that Jesus is the one who has caused his fellow-men to make the greatest step toward the divine. Mankind in its totality offers an assemblage of low beings, selfish, and superior to the animal only in that its selfishness is more reflective. From the midst of this uniform mediocrity, there are pillars that rise toward the sky, and bear witness to a nobler destiny. Jesus is the highest of these pillars which show to man whence he comes, and whither he ought to tend. In him was condensed all that is good and elevated in our nature. He was not sinless; he has conquered the same passions that we combat; no angel of God comforted him, except his good conscience; no Satan tempted him, except that which each one bears in his heart. In the same way that many of his great qualities are lost to us, through the fault of his disciples, it is also probable that many of his faults have been concealed. But never has any one so much as he made the interests of humanity predominate in his life over the littlenesses of self-love. Unreservedly devoted to his mission, he subordinated everything to it to such a degree that, toward the end of his life, the universe no longer existed for him. It was by this access of heroic will that he conquered heaven. There never was a man, Cakya-Mouni perhaps excepted, who has to this degree trampled under foot, family, the joys of this world, and all temporal care. Jesus only lived for his Father and the divine mission which he believed himself destined to fulfill.
As to us, eternal children, powerless as we are, we who labor without reaping, and who will never see the fruit of that which we have sown, let us bow before these demi-gods. They were able to do that which we cannot do: to create, to affirm, to act. Will great originality be born again, or will the world content itself henceforth by following the ways opened by the bold creators of the ancient ages? We know not. But whatever may be the unexpected phenomena of the future, Jesus will not be surpassed. His worship will constantly renew its youth, the tale of his life will cause ceaseless tears, his sufferings will soften the best hearts; all the ages will proclaim that among the sons of men, there is none born who is greater than Jesus.
[THE END.]
Modern Library of the World's Best Books
COMPLETE LIST OF TITLES IN
THE MODERN LIBRARY
For convenience in ordering use number at right of title
* * * * *
ADAMS, HENRY The Education of Henry Adams 76
AIKEN, CONRAD A Comprehensive Anthology of
American Poetry 101
AIKEN, CONRAD 20th-Century American Poetry 127
ANDERSON, SHERWOOD Winesburg, Ohio 104
AQUINAS, ST. THOMAS Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas 259
ARISTOTLE Introduction to Aristotle 248
ARISTOTLE Politics 228
BALZAC Droll Stories 193
BALZAC Père Goriot and Eugénie Grandet 245
BEERBOHM, MAX Zuleika Dobson 116
BELLAMY, EDWARD Looking Backward 22
BENNETT, ARNOLD The Old Wives' Tale 184
BERGSON, HENRI Creative Evolution 231
BIERCE, AMBROSE In the Midst of Life 133
BOCCACCIO The Decameron 71
BRONTË, CHARLOTTE Jane Eyre 64
BRONTË, EMILY Wuthering Heights 106
BUCK, PEARL The Good Earth 15
BURK, JOHN N. The Life and Works of Beethoven 241
BURTON, RICHARD The Arabian Nights 201
BUTLER, SAMUEL Erewhon and Erewhon Revisited 136
BUTLER, SAMUEL The Way of All Flesh 13
BYRNE, DONN Messer Marco Polo 43
CALDWELL, ERSKINE God's Little Acre 51
CALDWELL, ERSKINE Tobacco Road 249
CANFIELD, DOROTHY The Deepening Stream 200
CARROLL, LEWIS Alice in Wonderland, etc. 79
CASANOVA, JACQUES Memoirs of Casanova 165
CELLINI, BENVENUTO Autobiography of Cellini 150
CERVANTES Don Quixote 174
CHAUCER The Canterbury Tales 161
COMMAGER, HENRY STEELE A Short History of the United States 235
CONFUCIUS The Wisdom of Confucius 7
CONRAD, JOSEPH Heart of Darkness
(In Great Modern Short Stories 168)
CONRAD, JOSEPH Lord Jim 186
CONRAD, JOSEPH Victory 186
CORNEILLE and RACINE Six Plays of Corneille and Racine 194
CORVO, FREDERICK BARON A History of the Borgias 192
CRANE, STEPHEN The Red Badge of Courage 130
CUMMINGS, E.E. The Enormous Room 214
DANA, RICHARD HENRY Two Years Before the Mast 236
DANTE The Divine Comedy 208
DAY, CLARENCE Life with Father 230
DEFOE, DANIEL Robinson Crusoe and A Journal of the
Plague Year 92
DEFOE, DANIEL Moll Flanders 122
DEWEY, JOHN Human Nature and Conduct 173
DICKENS, CHARLES A Tale of Two Cities 189
DICKENS, CHARLES David Copperfield 110
DICKENS, CHARLES Pickwick Papers 204
DICKINSON, EMILY Selected Poems of 25
DINESEN, ISAK Seven Gothic Tales 54
DOS PASSOS, JOHN Three Soldiers 205
DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR Crime and Punishment 199
DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR The Brothers Karamazov 151
DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR The Possessed 55
DOUGLAS, NORMAN South Wind 5
DOYLE, SIR ARTHUR CONAN The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock
Holmes 206
DREISER, THEODORE Sister Carrie 8
DUMAS, ALEXANDRE Camille 69
DUMAS, ALEXANDRE The Three Musketeers 143
DU MAURIER, DAPHNE Rebecca 227
DU MAURIER, GEORGE Peter Ibbetson 207
EDMAN, IRWIN The Philosophy of Plato 181
EDMAN, IRWIN The Philosophy of Santayana 224
ELLIS, HAVELOCK The Dance of Life 160
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO Essays and Other Writings 91
FAST, HOWARD The Unvanquished 239
FAULKNER, WILLIAM Sanctuary 61
FAULKNER, WILLIAM The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay
Dying 187
FIELDING, HENRY Joseph Andrews 117
FIELDING, HENRY Tom Jones 185
FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE Madame Bovary 28
FORESTER, C.S. The African Queen 102
FORSTER, E.M. A Passage to India 218
FRANCE, ANATOLE Penguin Island 210
FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN Autobiography, etc. 39
FROST, ROBERT The Poems of 242
GALSWORTHY, JOHN The Apple Tree
(In Great Modern Short Stories 168)
GAUTIER, THEOPHILE Mlle. De Maupin and
One of Cleopatra's Nights 53
GEORGE, HENRY Progress and Poverty 36
GODDEN, RUMER Black Narcissus 256
GOETHE Faust 177
GOETHE The Sorrows of Werther
(In Collected German Stories 108)
GOGOL, NIKOLAI Dead Souls 40
GRAVES, ROBERT I, Claudius 20
HAMMETT, DASHIELL The Maltese Falcon 45
HAMSUN, KNUT Growth of the Soil 12
HARDY, THOMAS Jude the Obscure 135
HARDY, THOMAS The Mayor of Casterbridge 17
HARDY, THOMAS The Return of the Native 121
HARDY, THOMAS Tess of the D'Urbervilles 72
HART AND KAUFMAN Six Plays by 233
HARTE, BRET The Best Stories of 250
HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL The Scarlet Letter 93
HELLMAN, LILLIAN Four Plays by 223
HEMINGWAY, ERNEST A Farewell to Arms 19
HEMINGWAY, ERNEST The Sun Also Rises 170
HEMON, LOUIS Maria Chapdelaine 10
HENRY, O. Best Short Stones of 4
HERODOTUS The Complete Works of 255
HERSEY, JOHN A Bell for Adano 16
HOMER The Iliad 166
HOMER The Odyssey 167
HORACE The Complete Works of 141
HUDSON, W.H. Green Mansions 89
HUDSON, W.H. The Purple Land 24
HUGHES, RICHARD A High Wind in Jamaica 112
HUGO, VICTOR The Hunchback of Notre Dame 35
HUXLEY, ALDOUS Antic Hay 209
HUXLEY, ALDOUS Point Counter Point 180
IBSEN, HENRIK A Doll's House, Ghosts, etc. 6
IRVING, WASHINGTON Selected Writings of Washington Irving
240
JACKSON, CHARLES The Lost Weekend 258
JAMES, HENRY The Portrait of a Lady 107
JAMES, HENRY The Turn of the Screw 169
JAMES, HENRY The Wings of the Dove 244
JAMES, WILLIAM The Philosophy of William James 114
JAMES, WILLIAM The Varieties of Religious Experience 70
JEFFERS, WILLIAM Roan Stallion; Tamar and Other
Poems 118
JEFFERSON, THOMAS The Life and Selected Writings of 234
JOYCE, JAMES Dubliners 124
JOYCE, JAMES A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man 145
KAUFMAN AND HART Six Plays by 233
KOESTLER, ARTHUR Darkness at Noon 74
KUPRIN, ALEXANDRE Yama 203
LAOTSE The Wisdom of 262
LARDNER, RING The Collected Short Stories of 211
LAWRENCE, D.H. The Rainbow 128
LAWRENCE, D.H. Sons and Lovers 109
LAWRENCE, D.H. Women in Love 68
LEWIS, SINCLAIR Arrowsmith 42
LEWIS, SINCLAIR Babbitt 162
LEWIS, SINCLAIR Dodsworth 252
LONGFELLOW, HENRY W. Poems 56
LOUYS, PIERRE Aphrodite 77
LUDWIG, EMIL Napoleon 95
MACHIAVELLI The Prince and The Discourses of
Machiavelli 65
MALRAUX, ANDRÉ Man's Fate 33
MANN, THOMAS Death in Venice
(In Collected German Stories 108)
MANSFIELD, KATHERINE The Garden Party 129
MARQUAND, JOHN P. The Late George Apley 182
MARX, KARL Capital and Other Writings 202
MAUGHAM, W. SOMERSET Of Human Bondage 176
MAUGHAM, W. SOMERSET The Moon and Sixpence 27
MAUPASSANT, GUY DE Best Short Stories 98
MAUROIS, ANDRÉ Disraeli 46
McFEE, WILLIAM Casuals of the Sea 195
MELVILLE, HERMAN Moby Dick 119
MEREDITH, GEORGE Diana of the Crossways 14
MEREDITH, GEORGE The Ordeal of Richard Feverel 134
MEREDITH, GEORGE The Egoist 253
MEREJKOWSKI, DMITRI The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci 138
MILTON, JOHN The Complete Poetry and Selected
Prose of John Milton 132
MISCELLANEOUS An Anthology of American Negro
Literature 163
An Anthology of Light Verse 48
Best Amer. Humorous Short Stories 87
Best Russian Short Stories, including
Bunin's The Gentleman from San
Francisco 18
Eight Famous Elizabethan Plays 94
Famous Ghost Stories 73
Five Great Modern Irish Plays 30
Four Famous Greek Plays 158
Fourteen Great Detective Stories 144
Great German Short Novels and
Stories 108
Great Modern Short Stories 168
Great Tales of the American West 238
Outline of Abnormal Psychology 152
Outline of Psychoanalysis 66
The Consolation of Philosophy 226
The Federalist 139
The Making of Man: An Outline of
Anthropology 149
The Making of Society: An Outline of
Sociology 183
The Poetry of Freedom 175
The Sex Problem in Modern Society 198
The Short Bible 57
Three Famous French Romances 85
Sapho, by Alphonse Daudet
Manon Lescaut, by Antoine Prevost
Carmen, by Prosper Merimee
MOLIERE Plays 78
MORLEY, CHRISTOPHER Parnassus on Wheels 190
NASH, OGDEN The Selected Verse of Ogden Nash 191
NEVINS, ALLAN A Short History of the United States 235
NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH Thus Spake Zarathustra 9
NOSTRADAMUS Oracles of 81
ODETS, CLIFFORD Six Plays of 67
O'NEILL, EUGENE The Emperor Jones, Anna Christie and
The Hairy Ape 146
O'NEILL, EUGENE The Long Voyage Home and Seven
Plays of the Sea 111
PALGRAVE, FRANCIS The Golden Treasury 232
PARKER, DOROTHY The Collected Short Stories of 123
PARKER, DOROTHY The Collected Poetry of 237
PASCAL, BLAISE Pensées and The Provincial Letters 164
PATER, WALTER Marius the Epicurean 90
PATER, WALTER The Renaissance 86
PAUL, ELLIOT The Life and Death of a Spanish
Town 225
PEARSON, EDMUND Studies in Murder 113
PEPYS, SAMUEL Samuel Pepys' Diary 103
PERELMAN, S.J. The Best of 247
PETRONIUS ARBITER The Satyricon 156
PLATO The Philosophy of Plato 181
PLATO The Republic 153
POE, EDGAR ALLAN Best Tales 82
POLO, MARCO The Travels of Marco Polo 196
POPE, ALEXANDER Selected Works of 257
PORTER, KATHERINE ANNE Flowering Judas 88
PROUST, MARCEL Swann's Way 59
PROUST, MARCEL Within a Budding Grove 172
PROUST, MARCEL The Guermantes Way 213
PROUST, MARCEL Cities of the Plain 220
PROUST, MARCEL The Captive 120
PROUST, MARCEL The Sweet Cheat Gone 260
RAWLINGS, MARJORIE KINNAN The Yearling 246
READE, CHARLES The Cloister and the Hearth 62
REED, JOHN Ten Days that Shook the World 215
RENAN, ERNEST The Life of Jesus 140
ROSTAND, EDMOND Cyrano de Bergerac 154
ROUSSEAU, JEAN JACQUES The Confessions of Jean Jacques
Rousseau 243
RUSSELL, BERTRAND Selected Papers of Bertrand Russell 137
SCHOPENHAUER The Philosophy of Schopenhauer 52
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM Tragedies, 1, 1A—complete, 2 vols.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM Comedies, 2, 2A—complete, 2 vols.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM Histories, 3 }
Histories, Poems, 3A } complete, 2 vols.
SHEEAN, VINCENT Personal History 32
SMOLLETT, TOBIAS Humphry Clinker 159
SNOW, EDGAR Red Star Over China 126
SPINOZA The Philosophy of Spinoza 60
STEINBECK, JOHN In Dubious Battle 115
STEINBECK, JOHN Of Mice and Men 29
STEINBECK, JOHN The Grapes of Wrath 148
STEINBECK, JOHN Tortilla Flat 216
STENDHAL The Red and the Black 157
STERNE, LAURENCE Tristram Shandy 147
STEWART, GEORGE R. Storm 254
STOKER, BRAM Dracula 31
STONE, IRVING Lust for Life 11
STOWE, HARRIET BEECHER Uncle Tom's Cabin 261
STRACHEY, LYTTON Eminent Victorians 212
SUETONIUS Lives of the Twelve Caesars 188
SWIFT, JONATHAN Gulliver's Travels, A Tale of a Tub, The
Battle of the Books 100
SWINBURNE, CHARLES Poems 23
SYMONDS, JOHN A. The Life of Michelangelo 49
TACITUS The Complete Works of 222
TCHEKOV, ANTON Short Stories 50
TCHEKOV, ANTON Sea Gull, Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters,
etc. 171
THACKERAY, WILLIAM Henry Esmond 80
THACKERAY, WILLIAM Vanity Fair 131
THOMPSON, FRANCIS Complete Poems 38
THOREAU, HENRY DAVID Walden and Other Writings 155
THUCYDIDES The Complete Writings of 58
TOLSTOY, LEO Anna Karenina 37
TOMLINSON, H.M. The Sea and the Jungle 99
TROLLOPE, ANTHONY Barchester Towers and The Warden 41
TROLLOPE, ANTHONY The Eustace Diamonds 251
TURGENEV, IVAN Fathers and Sons 21
VAN LOON, HENDRIK W. Ancient Man 105
VEBLEN, THORSTEIN The Theory of the Leisure Class 63
VIRGIL'S WORKS Including The Aeneid, Eclogues, and
Georgics 75
VOLTAIRE Candide 47
WALPOLE, HUGH Fortitude 178
WALTON, IZAAK The Compleat Angler 26
WEBB, MARY Precious Bane 219
WELLS, H.G. Tono Bungay 197
WHARTON, EDITH The Age of Innocence 229
WHITMAN, WALT Leaves of Grass 97
WILDE, OSCAR Dorian Gray, De Profundis 125
WILDE, OSCAR Poems and Fairy Tales 84
WILDE, OSCAR The Plays of Oscar Wilde 83
WOOLF, VIRGINIA Mrs. Dalloway 96
WOOLF, VIRGINIA To the Lighthouse 217
WRIGHT, RICHARD Native Son 221
YEATS, W.B. Irish Fairy and Folk Tales 44
YOUNG, G.F. The Medici 179
ZOLA, EMILE Nana 142
ZWEIG, STEFAN Amok (In Collected German Stories 108)