gain, and again he is left alone but for the hem of
the garment; for Christ has entered the lecture-hall of a rationalistic
German professor, and into this He will not bid His disciple follow Him;
but the interior of the building is open, as before, to the disciple's
mental sight. The lecturer is refreshing his hearers' convictions by an
inquiry into the origin of the Christian Myth and the foundation of fact
on which it rests; and he arrives at the conclusion that Christ was a
man, but whose work proved Him all but Divine; His Gospel quite other
than those who heard it believed, but in value nearly the same.

The spectator begins musing on the anomalies of this view. "Christ, only
a man, is to be reverenced as something more. On what ground?--The
ground of intellect?--Yet he teaches us only what a hundred others have
taught, without claiming to be worshipped on account of it--The ground
of goodness?--But goodness is due from each man to his fellows; it is no
title to sovereignty over them." And he thus sums up his own conviction.
"He may be called a _saint_ who best teaches us to keep our lives pure;
he a _poet_ whose insight dims that of his fellow-men. He is no less
than this, though guided by an instinct no higher than that of the bat;
no more, though inspired by God. All gifts are from God, and no
multiplying of gifts can convert the creature into the Creator. Between
Him who created goodness, and made it binding on the conscience of man:
and him who reduces it to a system, of which the merits may be judged by
man: lies the interval which separates Nature, who decrees the
circulation of the blood, from the observer Harvey, who discovered it.
One man is Christ, another Pilate; beyond their dust is the Divinity of
God."

"And the 'God-function' with regard to virtue was first to impress its
truths on every human breast; and secondly, to give a motive for
carrying them out; and this motive could be given only by one, who,
being life's Lord, died for the sake of men. Whoever conceives this
love, and takes this proof to his heart, has found a new motive, and has
also gained a truth."

But Christ lingers within the hall "Is there something after all in that
lecture which finds an echo in the Christian soul? Yes, even there.
There is the ghost of love, if nothing more, in the utterance of that
virgin-minded man, with the 'wan, pure look,' and the frail life burning
itself away in the striving after truth. For his critic