all love and
tenderness. Yet never does He speak as one who fears lest either in His
tenderness or His severity He has gone too far. His path is always
clear; He enters upon it without doubt; He looks back upon it without
misgiving.

This contrast between Christ and all other men, as it presented itself
to His own consciousness, may be illustrated almost indefinitely. His
forerunners the prophets were the servants of God; He is His Son. All
other men are weary and in need of rest; He has rest and can give it.
All others are lost; He is not lost, He is the shepherd sent to seek the
lost. All others are sick; He is not sick, He is the physician sent to
heal the sick. All others will one day stand at the bar of God; but He
will be on the throne to be their Judge. All others are sinners--this is
the great, final distinction into which all others run up--He is the
Saviour. When at the Last Supper He said, "This is My blood of the
covenant which is shed for many unto remission of sins"; and again, when
He said, "The Son of Man came to give His life a ransom for many," He
set Himself over against all others, the one sinless sacrifice for a
sinful world.

There is in Edinburgh a Unitarian church which bears carved on its front
these words of St. Paul. "There is one God, and one mediator between God
and man, the man Christ Jesus." I say nothing as to the fitness of any
of Paul's words for such a place--perhaps we can imagine what he would
have said; I pass over any questions of interpretation that might very
justly be raised; I have only one question to ask: Why was the quotation
not finished? Paul only put a comma where they have put a full stop; the
next words are: _"Who gave Himself a ransom for all."_ But how could He
do that if He was only "the _man_ Christ Jesus"?

"No man can save his brother's soul,
Nor pay his brother's debt,"

and how could He, how dare He, think of His life as the ransom for our
forfeited lives, if He were only one like unto ourselves? There is but
one explanation which does really explain all that Christ thought and
taught concerning Himself; it is that given by the first disciples and
re-echoed by every succeeding generation of Christians--

"THOU ART THE KING OF GLORY, O CHRIST.
THOU ART THE EVERLASTING SON OF THE FATHER."

* * * * *

CONCERNING HIS OWN DEATH

"While there is life in thee, in this death alone place thy