soever inward and spiritual
grace, or disgrace, there may be in him. I mean by the word what our
Lord meant when He reproved the pushing and vulgar arrogance of the
Scribes and Pharisees, and laid down the golden rule of all good manners,
"Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and
whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant."

Next, I beg you to remember that all, or almost all, good manners which
we have among us--courtesies, refinements, self-restraint, and mutual
respect--all which raises us, socially and morally, above our forefathers
of fifteen hundred years ago--deep-hearted men, valiant and noble, but
coarse, and arrogant, and quarrelsome--all that, or almost all, we owe to
Christ, to the influence of His example, and to that Bible which
testifies of Him. Yes, the Bible has been for Christendom, in the
cottage as much as in the palace, the school of manners; and the saying
that he who becomes a true Christian becomes a true gentleman, is no
rhetorical boast, but a solid historic fact.

Now imagine Christ to reappear on earth, with that perfect outward beauty
of character--with what Greeks and Romans, and our own ancestors, would
have called those perfect manners--which, if we are to believe the
Gospels, He shewed in Judea of old, which won then so many hearts,
especially of the common people, sounder judges often of true nobility
than many who fancy themselves their betters. Conceive--but which of us
can conceive?--His perfect tenderness, patience, sympathy, graciousness,
and grace, combined with perfect strength, stateliness, even awfulness,
when awe was needed. Remember that, if, again, the Gospels are to be
believed. He alone, of all personages of whom history tells us, solved
in His own words and deeds the most difficult paradox of human character-
-to be at once utterly conscious, and yet utterly unconscious, of self;
to combine with perfect self-sacrifice a perfect self-assertion. Whether
or not His being able to do that proved Him to have been that which He
was, the Son of God, it proves Him at least to have been the Son of Man--
the unique and unapproachable ideal of humanity, utterly inspired by the
Holy Spirit of God.

But again: He condescended, in His teaching of old, to the level of
Jewish, knowledge at that time. We may, therefore, believe that He would
condescend to the level of our modern knowledge; and what would that