nant authorities in Church and State
were about to crush Him, He looked forward undismayed, and in the
glowing pictures of fervent Jewish men of hope He imaged the Divine Rule
He proclaimed coming in power.

He was to His followers the Conqueror of sin. He went forth to wage war
with evil in the world, because He was conscious that He had first bound
the strong man, and could spoil his house. In an autobiographical
parable He seems to have told them something of His own battle with
temptation and of His victory. They found in Him One who both shamed
and transformed them; they saw Him forgiving and altering sinners; and,
above all, His cross, from the earliest days when they began to ask
themselves what it meant, had for them redemptive force.

He was to them the Victor of death. However the historian may deal with
the details of the narratives of the appearances of the risen Jesus to
His disciples, he cannot fail to recognize the conviction of Jesus'
followers that their Lord had returned to them and was alive with power.
We must remember that it was to faith alone that the risen Jesus showed
Himself, and that no one outside the circle of believers (unless we
except Saul of Tarsus) saw Him after His death. Historical research,
independent of Christian faith, may not be able positively to affirm the
correctness of the Easter faith of the disciples, for the data lie, in
part at least, outside the range of such research. But the historian
must leave the door open for faith; and he may go further and point out
that faith's explanation best fits the facts. Present faith finds itself
prepared to receive the witness of the men of faith centuries ago. The
attempt to banish Jesus from our world signally failed; He was a more
living and potent force in it after, than before, His death.

This singular religious experience, character and victory we ascribe to
the Jesus of history through the tradition which preserves for us His
religious impression upon His immediate followers. There are some who
lay little stress upon the events of the past; like Shelley's Skylark,
they are "scorners of the ground." Why, they ask, should we care what
took place in Palestine centuries ago? The answer is that it is the
roots which go down into historic fact which give the whole tree of
Christian faith its stability and vigor. A tree gathers nourishment and
grows by its leaves; and Christianity has undoubtedly taken into itself
many enriching eleme