or cleanse His people from sin
as from a bodily disease.' Thus, in one and the same moment is suggested
prospectively to the early Christian, who is looking forward in search
of some adequate protection against the civil magistrate, and
theoretically and retrospectively is suggested to the Christian of our
own philosophizing days, that admirable resource of what by a shorthand
expression I will call _Hakimism_. The _Hakim_, the _Jesus_, the
_Healer_, comes from God. Mobs must not be tolerated. But neither must
the deep therapeutic inspirations of God be made of none effect, or
narrowed in their applications. And thus in one moment was the panic
from disease armed against the panic from insurgent mobs; the privileged
Hakim was marshalled against the privileged magistrate; and the deep
superstition, which saw, and not unreasonably, a demon raging in a
lawless mob, saw also a demon not less blind or cruel in the pestilence
that walked in darkness. And, as one magnet creates other magnets, so
also the Hakim, once privileged, could secretly privilege others. And
the physical Hakim could by no test or shibboleth be prevented from
silently introducing the spiritual Hakim. And thus, whilst thrones and
councils were tumultuating in panic, behold! suddenly the Christian
soldier was revealed amongst them as an armed man.

'_Ecrasez l'infame_,' I also say: and who is he? It would be mere
insanity to suppose that it could be _any_ teacher of moral truths. Even
I, who so much despise Socrates, could not reasonably call him
_l'infame_.

But who, then, is _l'infame_? It is he who, finding in those great ideas
which I have noticed as revelations from God, and which throw open to
the startled heart the heaven of heavens, in the purity, the holiness,
the peace which passeth all understanding, finding no argument of
divinity, then afterwards _does_ find it in the little tricks of
legerdemain, in conjuring, in praestigia. But here, though perhaps roused
a little to see the baseness of relying on these miracles, and also in
the rear a far worse argument against them, he still feels uncomfortable
at such words applied to things which Christ did. Christ could not
make, nor wished to make, that great which was inherently mean; that
relevant, which was originally irrelevant. If He did things in
themselves mean, it was because He suited Himself to mean minds,
incapable of higher views; wretches such as exist amongst us of modern
days by mill