But if there was ever a true prophet of God, a man in whom the God-life in human form was truly manifest, a man supremely divine,--not by miraculous generation, but by spiritual union with God, whereby God indeed became manifest in human flesh,--that man was Jesus of Nazareth. And as such he becomes the eternal example for all mankind after him. As a man he justly commands the highest homage that the world can give to man. But make him God, and the chain that connects him with man is at once broken. If Jesus was God, and therefore incapable of temptation or sin, the temptation and triumph in the wilderness becomes a farce, without any meaning to mankind whatever. But as a mortal man struggling with and overcoming the strongest temptations of life, it has infinite significance to all mankind. If he overcame as a man, so may I. As a god, the sweat of Gethsemane and the agony of the Cross are but mockery--not equal to a single pin-prick in a whole mortal life. But as a man, struggling with the last enemy, with eternity before him, a means of escape at hand, but deliberately devoting his life and his all in the most excruciatingly torturous manner known to human ingenuity in cruelty, it becomes a spectacle to command the awe and admiration of angels. Jesus is indeed the savior of the world, not by having _redeemed_ mankind with the purchase-price of his own blood; but by his life and words in teaching men how to live, and by his death how to die, if necessary, for the right. I know of no more fitting close to this my view of Jesus, than a quotation from Ernest Renan's Apostrophe to Jesus. Ernest Renan was called an infidel because he abandoned the church of his fathers, and with it the deity of Jesus. But he found in Jesus the supreme model of all human life, the most perfect and complete reflection of the God-life in mankind the world has ever known. "Repose now in thy glory, noble founder. Thy work is finished; thy divinity is established. Fear no more to see the edifice of thy labors fall by any fault. Henceforth beyond the reach of frailty, thou shalt witness from the heights of divine peace the infinite results of thy acts. At the price of a few hours of suffering, which did not even reach thy grand soul, thou hast brought the most complete immortality. For thousands of years the world will depend on thee: Banner of our contests, thou shalt be the standard about which the hottest battle will be given. A thousand times more alive, a thousand times more beloved, since thy death than during thy passage here below, thou shalt become the cornerstone of humanity so entirely, that to tear thy name from this world would be to rend it to its foundation. Complete conqueror of death, take possession of thy kingdom, whither shall follow thee, by the royal road which thou hast traced, ages of followers." LIBERTY _MY NEW CHURCH RELATIONS AND SECOND CALL TO THE MINISTRY_