It is of him I come to speak to you to-day. My Father! my Friend! my Master! abide with me, and, in order that I may be worthy to speak of thee, speak thou thyself through these my lips!
Among all questions put by man to his own intellect, whether they be historical, scientific, philosophical, social, or religious, there is none of more gigantic importance than this: Who and what is Jesus Christ? He and his works have been for two thousand years the most notable reality of the universe; they have been inextricably mingled with the course of history, with the family and state relations of man to man, with literature, with poetry, with politics; they have been the unseen link that binds together all social problems; they have been the mainspring of those mysteries that are convulsing the present century, and which are fraught to some minds with terror and threatenings, while to others they suggest hope and salvation. They have been, without the slightest exaggeration, all things to all men, and it follows, therefore, that according to the bent of man’s judgment on Jesus Christ and his works, so will man’s whole nature lean, his intellect with his thoughts, his heart with its feelings, his life with its acts and its shortcomings, his soul with its eternal aspirations.
This is indeed, and beyond all contradiction, the main question of life—that question which, solve it which way you will, cannot fail to produce two radically different types of men, and to open up before us two paths, as far apart from each other through the coming eternity as they are widely separated in the realms of time.
But why do I insist upon the awful importance of this problem? Do you not understand it yourselves? Nay, do you not even bear witness to it by your presence here at this moment? Why are you gathered here—men of the most varied, perhaps the most contradictory, beliefs? Why are you crowded around this pulpit in anxious silence, breathless and motionless, perhaps vaguely troubled in mind? Why but because there is not one amongst you to whom the sacred name of Jesus is wholly indifferent or wholly meaningless! If to some this holy name is the constant object of their highest adoration and of their tenderest, I would fain say the most impassioned, love, to others it is the object of their most agonizing doubts, the spiritual sphinx whose riddle baffles and tortures all ages. And further yet, while this name is to some the synonym of a smothered curse or of a hatred as open as it is relentless, it contains for all men a question of vital importance, I might even say a question of life and death. My brethren, it is of him, who is both so marvellously loved and so marvellously hated, of him whose figure meets us at every turn of the past or the present, of him whom the future cannot uncrown, that I purpose speaking to you to-day.
Every cause which has produced an effect may be considered either in this effect or in itself. Hence, there exist two methods of demonstration: the one beginning from the consideration of the effect, and tracing it up to the cause; the other starting from the study of the cause, and deducing its legitimate effect. We are now about to apply to the great cause and the great effect before us this twofold species of demonstration—this extrinsic and intrinsic touchstone used by our intellect in acquiring its noble treasure of proved facts and tried certainties in the domain of philosophy, metaphysics, history, natural sciences, and, in fact, of every branch of human knowledge. This cause is Christ, this effect Christianity, of which he is the founder; and, since it is natural to the human mind to consider first that which falls more immediately under its own observation, I shall begin by investigating the effect, namely, Christianity. This done, I shall appeal simply to your reason to connect the effect with its cause, and to discern through the beautiful proportions of the Christian system the inimitable stamp of its divine founder.
I.
Every doctrine which has become a fact, every fact which has won for itself a place in history, may be looked at in three ways: first, with regard to its extent in material space; secondly, as to its duration in time; thirdly, as to the depth to which it has reached in human nature. This division is no invention of mine; it is the same pointed out by the Apostle St. Paul when he wrote to the Ephesians, and endeavored to explain to them the length and breadth, the depth and divinity, of the Christian faith: Ut possitis comprehendere cum omnibus sanctis quæ sit latitudo et longitudo, et sublimitas et profundum (Eph. iii. 18).
Now, as to its extent in material space, or, in other words, its territorial sway:
Open the map of the world, and scan the globe with attentive eye: a strange phenomenon will strike you. You will hardly discover one corner of earth where Christianity—and I use the word in this instance in its widest acceptation, excluding neither heresy nor schism, which, though unhappily rebellious, are nevertheless, in a certain sense, real members of the Christian household—where Christianity, therefore, has not penetrated, either in undisputed and irrevocable sway, as in Europe and America, or as a peaceful conqueror, sealing its hardly-won victories not in the blood of its enemies, but in its own. Following closely in the wake of new discoveries, it is for ever landing on new shores, making a home for itself among new populations, and winning new worshippers to bend beneath the ancient sway of the never-aging cross.
You might rise in contradiction to my statement, and remind me that the hour has not yet struck that will allow us, the soldiers of Jesus Christ, to intone the triumphant hosanna of final victory, since to this day there are many lands, many island-studded archipelagoes, many vast and populous continents, beyond the pale of our peaceful conquest, and since, after all, the standard of the cross is not yet securely reared in every clime.