es of the mustard-seed and the leaven. They contain within
themselves the whole history of Christ's kingdom in its inward
principle. They unfold views of its steady progress from age to age, as
a growth from an inward vital force, on which the most philosophical
minds especially love to dwell; and yet they are perfectly intelligible
to the most unlettered man. To teach by parables, without any false
analogies, and in a way that interested and instructed alike the learned
and the ignorant, this was a wonderful characteristic of our Lord's
ministry. In this respect no one of his apostles, not even the bosom
disciple, attempted to imitate him. Yet in the great fact that his
teaching was not for a select few, but for the masses of mankind, so
that "the common people heard him gladly," all his servants can and
ought to imitate him.

Thus far we have considered mainly the human side of our Lord's
character, though through it all his divinity shines forth. Let us now
look more particularly at _his divine mission and character_. On the
fact that his mission was from God we need not dwell. Nicodemus
expressed the judgment of every candid mind when he said, "Rabbi, we
know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these
miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." If there is one truth
which our Lord asserted more frequently than any other, it is that he
came from God: "The works which the Father hath given me to finish, the
same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me."
"If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and
came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me."

But Jesus had not only a divine mission, but a _divine person_ also; and
the manner in which he manifested his divinity is, if possible, more
original than any thing else in his history, and bears in itself the
impress of reality. A company of men who should attempt to give a
portraiture of a divine being simply from their own conceptions would
doubtless put into his lips many direct assertions of his deity, and
make his life abound in stupendous miracles. But it is not in any such
crude way that our Saviour's divinity manifests itself in the gospel
narratives. It is true indeed that in the manner of his miracles he
everywhere makes the impression that he performs them by virtue of a
power residing in himself; that while the _commission_ to do them comes
from the Father, the _power_ to do