d, as if he himself were one of the invisible
companions, that his words and gestures carry the very breath and
fragrance of truth.

As the drama of his life unfolds itself before us we seem to grow
more and more aware of these two aspects of his soul. It was his
reason, brooding upon the traditions of his race, that led him into
that confusion of the invisible witnesses with the jealous tribal
God of his father David. It was the rhythmic harmony of his soul,
rising up out of the depths of his struggle with himself, that led
him, in his passionate submission to the will of his invisible
friends, to feel as if he were identical with those friends, as if he
were himself the "son of man" and the incarnation of man's
supreme hope.

It is the emphasis laid by Jesus upon his identity with his "father"
which has produced the tragic results we know. For although this
was the personal conception of the noblest of all human souls, it
remains a proof of how much even the soul of Jesus was limited
and restricted by the malicious power which opposes itself to love.

The living companions of men are as we have seen a necessary
answer to the craving of the complex vision for some objective
standard of beauty and reality, which shall give these things an
eternal unity and purpose. Such a vision is an answer to our desire
that the spirit of creative love, which is one side of the
unfathomable duality, should be embodied in personality.

And we have a right to use the name of Christ in this sense; and to
associate it with all that immortal anonymous company, so
beautiful, so pitiful, so terrible, which the name of "_the gods_"
has, in its turbulent and dramatic history, gathered about itself.

The idea of Christ is older than the life of Jesus; nor does the life
of Jesus, as it has come down to us in ecclesiastical tradition,
exhaust or fulfil all the potentialities latent in the idea of Christ.
What the complex vision seems to demand is that the invisible
companions of men should be regarded as immortal gods. If,
therefore, we throw all hesitancy and scruple aside and risk the
application of the name of Christ to this vision of the sons of the
universe, then we shall be compelled to regard Christ as an
immortal God.

The fact that there must be some objective standard which shall
satisfy all the passionate demands of the complex vision is the
path by which we reach this conception of Christ. But once having
reached him he cease