essibly sweet to remember it. Again, to use our old solecism,
that is the lesser part of the truth; the greater part, for men of
religion, is that Jesus is of God, that He belongs to Him. His chief
office for our world has not been to show us what men can be like; it
has been to give us the vision of the Eternal in a human face. For if
He does reveal God to man then He must hold, as President Tucker says,
the quality and substance of the life which He reveals.

Here is where He differs immeasurably from even a Socrates. What men
want most to believe about Jesus is this, that when we commune with
Him, we are with the infinite; that man's just perception of the
Eternal Spirit, his desire to escape from time into reality, may be
fulfilled in Jesus. That is the Gospel: Come unto Him, all ye that
labor and are heavy laden, for He will give you rest. Whosoever
drinketh of this water shall thirst again. But whosoever drinketh of
the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that
I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into
everlasting life. If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall
be free indeed.

Now, if all this is true, what is the religious preaching of Jesus,
what aspect of His person meets the spiritual need? Clearly, it is His
transcendence. It is not worthy of us to evade it because we cannot
explain it. Surely what has hastened our present paganism has been the
removal from the forefront of our consciousness of Jesus the Saviour,
the divine Redeemer, the absolute Meeter of an absolute need. Of such
preaching of Jesus we have today very little. The pendulum has swung
far to the left, to the other exclusive emphasis, too obviously
influenced by the currents of the day. It was perhaps inevitable
that He should for a time drop out of His former place in Christian
preaching under this combined humanistic and naturalistic movement.
But it means that again we have relinquished those values which have
made Jesus the heart of humanity.

Of course, He was a perfected human character inspired above all
men by the spirit of God, showing the capacity of humanity to hold
Divinity. This is what Mary celebrates in her paean, "He that is
mighty has magnified me and holy is his name." But is this what men
have passionately adored in Jesus? Has love of Him been self-love? Is
this why He has become the sanctuary of humanity? I think not. We have
for the moment no good language for t