what man may and should become in the course of ages; in
his progress towards the realization of his destiny; an individual
gifted with a grand, clear intellect, a noble soul, a fine organization,
marvelous moral intuitions, and a perfectly balanced moral being; and
who, by virtue of these endowments, saw further than all other men,
'Beyond the verge of that blue sky, where God's sublimest secrets
lie.'"--_Creed of Christendom, pp. 306, 307._

We regard him * * as the perfection of the spiritual character, as
surpassing all men of all times in the closeness and depth of his
communion with the Father. In reading his sayings, we feel that we are
holding converse with the wisest, purest, noblest being that ever
clothed thought in the poor language of humanity. In studying his life
we feel that we are following the footsteps of the highest ideal yet
presented to us upon earth.

By the very next sentence Gregg's eulogy upon Christ becomes an eulogy
upon the Old Testament. He says the Old Testament contained his
teaching; it was reserved for him to elicit, publish and enforce
it.--_Creed of Christendom, pp. 300, 310._

"But it must not be forgotten that though many of the Christian precepts
were extant before the time of Jesus, yet it is to him that we owe them;
to the energy, the beauty, the power of his teaching, and still more to
the sublime life he led, which was a daily and hourly exposition and
enforcement of his teaching."--_Gregg, C.C._

Strauss allows that it was not possible that the early Christians should
have looked upon Christ as their Redeemer and Mediator between God and
men, if the apostles had not proclaimed this very doctrine; and the
apostles could not have preached it if Jesus himself had not designated
himself as the Redeemer from sin, guilt and death, and demanded faith in
himself as a religious act. He asserts that the distinguishing features
of the Christian church must be traced to Christ, his ministry and
teachings about himself; that Christ claimed the power to secure peace
to his followers. He also claims that the moral and religious character
of Christ is above every suspicion, and unequaled in its kind. He says,
"The purely spiritual and ethical conceptions of God as the '_only
one_,' he owed to his Jewish education, and, also the purity of his
being. But the Greecian element in Jesus was his cheerfulness, arising
from his _unsullied mind_." Again he says, Jesus, by cultivating a frame
of m