own,--it must borrow from the senses and the imagination.

The central idea of Jesus is expressed in the saying, "No man knoweth the
Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son."
That is, man is a mystery except to his Maker; he does not even
understand himself. And correspondingly, "No man knoweth the Father save
the Son:" only the obedient and loving heart recognizes the Divinity.
God is not known by the intellect: he is felt through the moral nature.
Peace, assurance, sense of inmost reality, comes through steadfast
goodness.

Jesus impressed this idea by the figure of father and son. What symbol
could he have used more intelligible? more universally coming home? Like
all statements of highest truth, all symbols, it was imperfect; it did
not furnish an adequate explanation of the workings of the universe.
But, under the homeliest figure, under the guise of the nearest human
relation, it expressed the greatest truth of the inner life.

Further, Jesus threw his emphasis where men need it thrown,--not on
abstract ideas, but on action. His teaching was always as to conduct.
Purity, forgiveness, rightness of heart were his themes.

Above all, he lived what he taught. He left the memory of a life which
to his followers seemed faultless. And ever since, those who felt their
own inadequacy have laid closest hold on his success, his victory, as
somehow the pledge of theirs.

Jesus was a Jew, but in him there was born into the world a higher
principle than Judaism. The historic lineage is not to be too much
insisted on. When he said, "Love your enemies," "Forgive that ye may be
forgiven," he brought into the traditional religion a revolutionary idea.
Judaism was largely a religion of wrath. Jesus planted a religion of
love.

The tender plant was soon half choked by the old coarse growth, and for
many centuries the religion named after Christ had a vein of hate as
fierce as the old Judaism. But blending with it, and struggling always
for ascendency, was the religion of love, symbolized by the cradle of
Bethlehem and the cross of Calvary.

Of the Judaic traits in Jesus, conspicuous was the prophetic feeling and
tone. He was possessed with an absolute fullness of conviction, and
spoke in a tone of blended ardor and certitude. "He taught as one having
authority." He rarely gave reasons. If in his words we find appeal to
precedent or argument, it is really as little more than illust