dramatic portraiture of acts and words appropriate to
Christ as so conceived; a temper in which a portraiture so inspired was
identified with actual and absolute truth--some such genesis we may
suppose for the Gospel which bears the name of John.

The writer shows no such close contact with the actual struggle of life
as vivifies the other biographies of Jesus and the impassioned pleadings
of Paul. He is a pure and lofty soul, but he writes as if in seclusion
from the world. His favorite words are abstract and general. The
parable and precept of the early gospels give place to polemic and
metaphysic disquisition. The Christian communities for which he writes
have left behind them the sharp antagonisms of the first generation, and
have drawn together into a harmonious society, strong in their mutual
affection, their inspiring faith, and their rule of life, and facing
together the cruelty of the persecutor and the scorn of the philosopher.
To this writer, all who are outside of the Christian fold and the
Christian belief seem leagued together by the power of evil. The secret
of their perversity and the seal of their doom is unbelief. Let them
accept the Christ he portrays, and good shall supplant evil in their
hearts. The ground of the acceptance is to be simply the self-evident
beauty and therefore the self-evident truth of the Christ here set forth.

And so we have a portrayal of Christ which at many points profoundly
appeals to the heart, yet which constantly dissipates into a metaphysical
mythology; together with the admonition that only a full belief can save
the soul and the world from ruin. The ethical and emotional elements of
the new religion have thoroughly fused with the elements of dogma and
exclusiveness.

A kind of self-exaltation is by this writer imputed to Jesus, which is as
much less attractive than his attitude in the Synoptics as it is less
genuine. "All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers"--this is
the word of an idolatrous worshiper; far different from him whose only
sense of superiority was expressed in a longing to impart his own
treasure: "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest."

But the writer rises to a lofty plane where he conceives the parting
words of Jesus to his friends. Here he is on the ground of what we know
did in some wise really happen--a last interview between the Master and
his disciples, when clouds of defeat and dea