Jesus of Nazareth, whose knightly character embodied all that the sweet romancists of the Middle Ages dreamed of and pictured in the faultless knight-errant of their day which won their hearts’ devotion and consent (_preux chevalier sans peur et sans reproche_), and all that our own age typifies and holds dear in modern character of good repute when in a single phrase it proclaims the man a perfect gentleman--Jesus Christ means all that and more to us. Christ is not a withered flower on a broken stem torn from the Tree of Life; He is not a damaged idol of an effete civilization which modern progress sweeps aside in its forward march; He is not the Lord of an ancient faith whom the fires of scientific criticism have burnt up and left only His ashes in a cinerary urn reposing on the altar of our heart. He is the world’s one fulfilment of the faultless and the ideal in human nature, blending all that is beautiful and enjoyable with all that is holy and vigorous. *IV* *THE LURE OF MAGIC WORDS* Beautiful language is the flower of poetry. The magic of diction, of enchanted words transformed into radiant, marvellous sentient things pulsing with life and passion, capture our attention, and deep within us something vibrates in answer to their mastering call. A writer with perfect felicity of expression voices thoughts and emotions of our own heart that we cannot give utterance to, yet of which we are dimly conscious. These ghostly creatures of our mind, half a memory and half a thing, peep and mutter within us; we try to hold them, but they are illusive as shadows on the wall. From the well-written words there leaps out something that has life and form and comeliness in it, and instantly we recognize an intimate returning from a far country laden with spoil. Words liberate the imprisoned thought that fretted within us and set it free: gloriously free for you and me and all the world to make familiar with. There are words--spectacular words that print indelibly pleasant pictures on the mind, reveal in a sabre-flash thoughts that burn and things that were hidden. There are words--vivid, striking, portentous words that unfold noble vistas of truth in which happy, emancipated people walk freely in sunlight and song. There are melodious, aromatic words that ring tunefully through corridors of the mind like a carillon of merry bells charming the heart with far-reaching joy. There are strong, fiery, tempestuous words that crash and rattle and reverberate like rolling thunder through your being, and kindle the spirit of man into blazing passion and heroic fervour. There are dull, prosy, somnolent words that baffle like a London fog, envelop the writer’s meaning in dense obscurity, and lure the reader’s mentality into quagmires of perplexity and doubt.