belief--that Jesus Christ was still a real
power, permanent and destined to hold a larger place in the affairs
of men; and we see that they were right. Jesus remains the very
heart and soul of the Christian movement, still controlling men,
still capturing men--against their wills very often--changing men's
lives and using them for ends they never dreamed of. So much is
plain to the candid observer, whatever the explanation.

We find further, another fact of even more significance to the
historian who will treat human experience with seriousness and
sympathy. The cynical view that delusion and error in a real world
have peculiar power in human affairs, may be dismissed; no serious
student of history could hold it.

For those who believe, as we all do at heart, that the world is
rational, that real effects follow real causes, and conversely that
behind great movements lie great forces, the fact must weigh
enormously that wherever the Christian Church, or a section of it,
or a single Christian, has put upon Jesus Christ a higher
emphasis--above all where everything has been centred in Jesus
Christ--there has been an increase of power for Church, or
community, or man. Where new value has been found in Jesus Christ,
the Church has risen in power, in energy, in appeal, in victory.

Paul of Tarsus progressively found more in Christ, expected more of
him, trusted him more; and his faith was justified. If Paul was
wrong, how did he capture the Christian Church for his ideas? If he
was wrong, how is it that when Luther caught his meaning,
re-interpreted him and laid the same emphasis on Jesus Christ with
his "Nos nihil sumus, Christus solus est omnia"[2], once more the
hearts of men were won by the higher doctrine of Christ's person and
power, and a new era followed the new emphasis? How is it that, when
John Wesley made the same discovery, and once more staked all on
faith in Christ, again the Church felt the pulse of new life?

On the other hand, where through a nebulous philosophy men have
minimized Jesus, or where, through some weakness of the human mind,
they have sought the aid of others and relegated Jesus Christ to a
more distant, even if a higher, sphere--where, in short, Christ is
not the living centre of everything, the value of the Church has
declined, its life has waned. That, to my own mind, is the most
striking and outstanding fact in history. There must be a real
explanation of a thing so signal in a rational