ce to emphasising the obvious fact that
it is impossible to deny the uniqueness of Jesus; history has settled
that question for us. If all the theologians and materialists put
together were to set to work to-morrow to try to show that Jesus was
just like other people, they would not succeed, for the civilised world
has already made up its mind on that point, and by a right instinct
recognises Jesus as the unique standard of human excellence. But this
is not to say that we shall never reach that standard too; quite the
contrary. We must reach it in order to fulfil our destiny and to crown
and complete His work. To stop short of manifesting the perfect love
of God would be to fail of the object for which we are here and to
render the advent of Jesus useless. Christendom already knows this
perfectly well, although it has not always succeeded in expressing it
with perfect clearness. "Beloved, now are we sons of God, and it doth
not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He (or rather
it) shall appear, we shall be like Him." In our practical religion we
all, even the most reactionary of us, regard the divinity of Jesus just
in this way. It has no other value. We talk of imitating Him,
conforming to His likeness, showing His spirit, and so on. When we
want a model for courage, fidelity, gentleness, humility,
unselfishness, we promptly turn to Jesus. Even in our relations with
God we try to follow His lead; instinctively we range ourselves with
Him when we address the universal Father; until we come to creed-making
we never think of putting Him on the God side of things and ourselves
on another. Catholic or Protestant, orthodox or unorthodox, Unitarian
or Trinitarian, we all accept in practice the identity of the divine
and human in Jesus and potentially in ourselves. But you make Him only
a man! No, reader, I do not. I make Him the only Man--and there is a
difference. We have only seen perfect manhood once and that was the
manhood of Jesus. The rest of us have got to get there.

+Jesus and Deity.+--This brings us to the further question of the Deity
of Jesus. As a matter of fact, as I have already indicated, this
question, too, has long been settled in practice. If by the Deity of
Jesus is meant that He possessed the all-controlling consciousness of
the universe, then assuredly He was not the Deity for He did not
possess that consciousness. He prayed to His Father, sometimes with
agony and drea