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was "one great corporation-temple," the stronghold of that arid formalism against which he had vowed eternal war? Why should he haunt the fringy edges of the fight, when he could plunge at once into the thick of it? He would go to Jerusalem, and there confront the huge ecclesiasticism of the scribes and Pharisees with his own simple thoughts of life and duty, and the great Father-love which is indifferent to everything but love and righteousness, and for the reality of which he needed no assurance other than the steady beat of his own loving heart. He knew that God was more than the fountain higher than the stream.

that;

The rest is quickly told. With thousands of others from all parts of Judea, he went up to Jerusalem to attend the Passover. His journey took him east of the Jordan, across the ford at Jericho, then on to Bethany, and over the Mount of Olives down into the great ecclesiastical city; and, as he went, especially at the last, a great crowd of Galileans followed him, shouting their faith in his Messiahship, while he, perhaps, did not realize the difference of their conception from his own. Or was it that his gentle heart could not deny itself this tribute of acclaim upon the threshold of the tragic scene which was to be the last? Reaching the city, he at once threw his gauntlet in the teeth of the ecclesiastical religion. Going to the temple, he drove out the venders of sacrificial doves and cattle from the outer court, and for several days failed not to lift up his voice in defiance and rebuke of the prevailing formalism. The authorities, with that conceit which is universally characteristic of ecclesiastical bodies, honestly regarded him as an impostor, and availed themselves of the treachery of Judas, the treasurer of the little company, to lay hands on him.

On the eve of his arrest he kept the feast of the Passover with his disciples. This feast was ordinarily a joyous one, but this time it was not. The Master's mind was too intently fixed on his immediate future. For many days he had felt the coils tightening around him, and he knew that they would crush him soon. How have I longed," he

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said, "to eat this Passover with you! for I shall not eat it again till it be the true feast of redemption in the kingdom of God." Moreover, a vague suspicion haunted him that one of the twelve had gone over to the enemy. In the spirit of the ancient prophets, he engaged in a symbolic action. Breaking the bread and giving it to his disciples, he said, "Take, eat: it is my body!" And, passing the cup, he said: "This is my blood of the covenant that shall flow for the salvation of many. Of a truth I tell you that I shall never again drink of this Paschal wine till I drink it new in the established kingdom of God." The act was perfectly spontaneous. It is probable that the broken bread and ruddy wine suddenly suggested to him his own broken body, his own streaming blood. As if the hope of his return might be denied or long delayed, he begged his followers to remember him at each succeeding feast. There was no institution of the Lord's Supper. There was an act of natural human tenderness. Never was anything more simple. And, oh, the pity of it that from an action and from words so simple and humane should have come doctrines and practices more foreign to the mind of Jesus than any he endeavored to destroy !

"And, when they had sung a hymn, they went out." The hymn was the usual hymn sung upon this occasion. Then came the walk toward Bethany, and in the garden of Gethsemane the last and sharpest struggle between his natural human sensibility and the imperious exigencies of his ideal. He did himself injustice by his antithesis, “The spirit, indeed, is willing, but the flesh is weak." It was his spirit, not merely his shrinking flesh, that drew back from the impending doom. The outcome of the struggle has been well divined by the narrator of these last events: “Father, if this cup cannot pass away till I have drunk it, thy will be done!"

The little that remains had better, possibly, remain untold upon this happy day. You know how he was taken to the house of Caiphas, the high priest, and condemned to death

because he had made himself amenable to the law which said that any prophet should be put to death whose teachings did not conform to the received traditions. Through the chill morning hours he was made the laughing-stock of brutal clowns, and buffeted by their rude hands. Taken by the Sanhedrin to the procurator, Pilate, their sentence was confirmed; but the Roman death by crucifixion was substituted for their favorite method, which was by stoning. Given their choice to release Jesus or a seditious zealot who had killed a Roman soldier in a brawl, they chose Barabbas; and Jesus went his way to die the hardest death men's cruelty had then devised. But a process, which often lasted two or three days, in his case was mercifully shortened to some six or eight hours. The sun had not yet set when the three faithful women, who alone remained when all the rest had fled, knew by the sinking of his head upon his breast that he was dead. Never was one who loved his fellow-men so much more cruelly destroyed. A decent burial was accorded him in the customary manner; and the legend of the part which Joseph of Arimathea took in the last sad offices is too gracious in its probability for us to doubt its truth. "And there was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sitting over against the sepulchre."

It is quite possible that some of you may think the life of Jesus, as I have set it forth, is insufficient to account for eighteen centuries of Christian history, with their immense dogmatic and ecclesiastical developments. And why should it account for these things? Does the stream a child may ford far up among the hills account for the Hudson or the Mississippi? Historic Christianity is the life of Jesus plus a thousand confluents of thought and government and social organization. It is Greek metaphysics, and not Jesus, that accounts for the Nicene theology. It is the Roman Empire, and not Jesus, that accounts for Papal Christianity. To reproach Jesus, as so many do, for all the follies and iniquities. of historic Christianity, is as if one should reproach a mountain stream, as clear as crystal, edged with delicate flowers,

for all the imperfections and impurities of a mighty river which did indeed begin its course far up among the hills, but into which a thousand storms have washed the ruin of the fields, and on whose banks men have built up their manufactories and abattoirs, and into whose waters they have drained their towns and cities of their waste. But still, far up among the hills, the stream retains its crystal purity; and still, for all the centuries have done to soil historic Christianity, the life of Jesus remains for us among the hills of Galilee as sweet and pure as ever mountain cup which all night long mirrors the quiet stars. Nor must it go unsaid that, as the mighty river, although variously soiled, is apt for uses that the upland stream cannot fulfil, even so historic Christianity, however soiled by various blood and filth, has done a mightier work than Jesus could perform, for the simple reason that it has been a flood of human life, of many times and races, blending into one glorious sweep, in its full course rejoicing many fields, and bearing many a costly freight upon its breast.

It must be confessed that the actual Jesus, as we have found him in the New Testament, is very different from the theological Christ; and it may be that few will be disposed to take the former and to let the latter go. For the Jesus of the New Testament, in those parts of it which have least of metaphysical distortion, and with due allowance made for mythological additions, is not a god or demigod or superangelic being or miraculous personality. He is - the man Jesus. He is every inch a man; but such a man that in the coming ages of the world he will, I dare believe, when every superstition that invests him has been stripped away, on the basis of his simple manhood win for himself a higher place in men's regard, a warmer place in their affections, than any other who has cast his bread upon the centuries, trusting it would return to him in God's good time. Only a man! Only a great loving heart that dared believe the Eternal Father kinder than itself! Only a

man whose hatred of

oppression, whose scorn of hypocrisy, and whose reprobation

of self-righteousness were like lightning from the cloud! Only a man who, when he had put his hand to the plough, would not turn back, though it was clear the deepening furrow was to be his grave! Only a man who thought that righteousness and truth and love were all in all, and died in attestation of the faith which not a hundred deaths could force him to forego!

Yes: he was only this. And, because he was only this, I charge you do not let the superstitious reverence of others prejudice your right and privilege to honor him with natural reverence and honest admiration. Take him for what he was, and you cannot make your churches or your homes too bright upon his yearly festival, your Christmas cheer too pure and glad to celebrate the immortal beauty of his life the transcendent purity and holiness of his ideal.

As I was thinking of these things the other day, and wondering what answer we should make if any one should challenge our participation in this gladsome feast, I found my thought was going to a certain rhyme and rhythm of its own; and I said, "I will end my sermon with these verses upon Christmas Day." And so I will::

What means for us this sacred day
By all the happy children blest,
So long desired it breaks in dreams
The quiet of their rest?

Not ours the angels' peaceful song
From heaven's height nor orient star,

The magi's trackless way to guide
With radiance pure and far.

But still upon the inward ear

That song descends with music sweet,
Our hearts to cheer on darksome ways,
With patience for our feet.

It sings the hope of things to be

Beyond the anger and the strife,
When all the cruel hate shall cease,
And Love be Lord of life.

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