I am afraid that some of us do not like the word Saviour as people think we ought to. There seems to be something about the way many people use the word Saviour which makes it seem as if it had been dropped off over the edge of the world—of a real world, of a man's world.
I do not believe that Christ spent five minutes in His whole life in feeling like a Saviour. He would have felt hurt if He had found any one saying He was a Saviour in the tone people often use. He wanted people to feel as if they were like Him. And the way He served them was by making them feel that they were.
I do not believe that Thomas Jefferson, if he were here to-day, would object to a hero, or aristocrat, a special expert or a genius in expressing crowds, if he lived and wrought in this spirit.
The final objection that people commonly make to heroes or to men of marked and special vision or courage is that they are not good for people, because people put them on pedestals and worship them. They look up at them wistfully. And then they look down on themselves.
But I have never seen a hero on a pedestal.
It is only the Carlyle kind of hero who could ever be put on a pedestal, or who would stay there if put there.
And Carlyle—with all honour be it said—never quite knew what a hero was. A hero is either a gentleman, or a philosopher, or an inventor.
The gentleman—on a pedestal—feels hurt and slips down.
The philosopher laughs.