void asking this question. And is
there any more natural solution of the question than that given in
the Bible? "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself."
"God, who spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath
in these last days spoken unto us by his son." Philip says, "Lord,
show us the Father and it sufficeth us." Jesus saith unto him, "Have
I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know me, Philip? he
that hath seen me hath seen the Father; how sayest thou shew us the
Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in
me? the words that I say unto you I speak not from myself: but the
Father abiding in me doeth his works."

"And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world,
and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were
evil."

Something more is needed than light. We need more light and
knowledge of our duty; we need vastly more the will-power to do it.
I know how I ought to live; I do not live thus. What I need is not a
teacher, but power to become a son of God. "I delight in the law of
God after the inward man: but I see a different law in my members,
warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity
under the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I
am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?"

This is the terrible question. How is it to be answered? Let us
remember our illustration of the change wrought in that
panic-stricken army before Winchester by the appearance of Sheridan.
What these men needed was not information. No plan of battle
reported as sure of success by trustworthy and competent witnesses,
and forwarded from the greatest leader could have stayed that rout.
What they needed was Sheridan and the magnetic power of his
personality. This is the strange power of all great leaders of men,
whether orators, statesmen, or generals. It is intellect acting on
and through intellect, but it is also vastly more; it is will acting
on will. The leader does not merely instruct others, he inspires
them, puts himself into them, and makes them heroes like himself.

Now something like this, but vastly grander and deeper, seems to me
to have been the work of our Lord. Read John's gospel and see how it
is interpenetrated with the idea of the new life to be gained by
contact with our Lord, and how this forms the foundation of his hope
and claim to give men this new life by drawing them to him