For a true valuation of his intellectual contribution to mankind we must remember that we have not a page of his own writing. We are dependent on the verbal memory of his disciples; so far as we know, nothing was written down for years. The fragments which survived probably had to stand the ordeal of translation from the Aramaic to the Greek. Simply from the point of view of literature, it is an amazing thing that anything characteristic in Jesus survived at all. But it did. His sayings have the sparkle of genius and personality; the illustrations and epigrams which he threw off in fertile profusion are still clinchers; even his humor plays around them. Critics undertake to fix on the genuine sayings by internal evidence. Only a mind of transcendent originality could win its way to posterity through such obstructions.
But we ought not to forget the brevity of our material when we try to build up a coherent conception of his outlook on society. There is little use in stickling on details. The main thing is the personality of Jesus, his religious and ethical insight into the nature and needs of the social life of mankind, the vital power of religious conviction which he was able to put behind righteousness, and the historical force which he set going through history.
From the indirect influences which Jesus Christ set in motion, no man or woman or child in America can escape. We live on him. Even those who attack the Christian Church, or who repudiate what they suppose Christ to stand for, do so with spiritual weapons which they have borrowed from him. But it does make a great difference whether the young men and women of our day give their conscious and [pg 195] intelligent allegiance to Christianity or hold aloof in misunderstanding. Without them the Christian movement will mark time on old issues. With them it will dig new irrigation channels and string the wires for new power transmission.
In return, Christianity can do more for students than they themselves are likely to realize in youth. Men grow tired. Their moral enthusiasm flags. Scientific sociology may remain academic, cold, and ineffective. We need inspiration, impulse, will power, and nothing can furnish such steady accessions of moral energy as living religion. Science and the Christian faith combined are strong. Those who succeed in effecting a combination of these two without insincerity or cowardice are the coming leaders.
If a student's mind has given inward consent to the teachings of Jesus in this course of study, that constitutes an appeal for personal discipleship. Can we go with Christ in living out these principles, and meanwhile draw on his spiritual wealth to build up our growing life? If there is a student who can not at present affirm all that the Christian Church holds concerning the nature of Christ, why should he not approach him as the earliest disciples did, by personal love and obedience, following him and cooperating with him in the business of the Kingdom of God, and arriving in time at full faith in his Messiahship? A great and firm faith is the product and prize of a lifetime of prayer and loving action. “Light is sown to the righteous.” As we gather the wisdom of life, and find that while we move from knowledge to knowledge, we are also advancing from mystery to mystery, many of us will be ready and glad to join in the highest affirmation of faith about Jesus Christ, in whom we have learned to see God.
“If Jesus Christ is a man,
And only a man, I say
That of all mankind I cleave to him,
And to him I cleave alway.
“If Jesus Christ is a God,