ld in its place;
but what is this enjoyment compared to the bliss of human love? A
man--a living, breathing, loving man--is the perfection of
existence; and one could be happy with a perfect man, if all the
suns in the universe were blotted out. A MAN! what is he, in his
essential attributes? What is it that gives a delight in him? Ah! I
am full of ideal visions--for in all history I find not one man that
altogether fills my vision of what a man should be. From the
Alexanders and Caesars I turn with loathing--their fierce, rude,
outre life, their selfish, grasping ambition, suggest to me the
vision of snarling wild beasts, battling over the torn and
palpitating limbs of nations. These men could never have touched my
soul; they could never have dispelled the darkness of my mind; they
could not be friends. But was there ever a man that could have
answered the questions for the solution of which my spirit yearns?
Plato was beautiful; around him was a pure, intellectual light. But,
after all, he _knew_ very little; his writings are mostly
suggestive. But suppose here was a man who could reveal all the
hidden things of life? How sudden would be the delight of learning
of him, of communing with his spirit? And what if he knew, not only
everything relating to this world, and my own intellectual being,
but could tell me of all the universe, of all the after life? Oh!
what a joy such a man would be to me! How would this midnight
darkness melt into the clearest and most beautiful day!

But did such an one ever exist? Why is it that now comes over me the
vision of my childhood, of the Divine Man walking over the hills of
Judea? Oh, Christ! who wert Thou? My thought goes forth to Thee;
beautiful was Thy life upon the earth. It had in it a heavenly
sanctity, a purity, a grace and mercy, a gentleness and forbearance,
that seems to me God-like and Divine. Yes--what if God descended and
walked on the earth? I could love Him, that He had lowered Himself
to my comprehension. But God! the Infinite and Eternal! in the
finite human form, undergoing death! I cannot comprehend this. But
what is infinity? When I look within myself and realize my
ever-changing and fleeting feelings, now glancing in expansive
ranges of thought from star to star, I realize an infinity in mind,
that is not of the body. What if it were thus with the Holy Man,
Christ? What if He were God as to the spirit, and man as to the
flesh? If this were so, well may I have w