in harmony, conflicting interests; it silences hatreds, and breaks down many a partition wall of separation.(21) The difference between Christ’s death and all of these is, that Christ lived and died not merely for popular education, for patriotism, for philanthropy, but to be the power of God for the salvation of the world; to found a universal religion of love to God and man; to reveal God as a Father, not a King; to show man to man as brother. But the effect of his death, as in all these other cases, was simply to glorify his life and his cause. The same law worked in his case and in theirs, only on a higher plane, and for a vastly greater object. We may observe that most of the passages concerning the effect of Christ’s death are from the apostle Paul. They are written thirty years after that death by one who probably had never seen him, at least never knew him. But Paul had seen the actual effect of the death of Jesus on the minds and hearts of the people. It was a reconciling effect; it did away with their hatred to his religion, and enabled them to see it, and be led by it to God. It made “those who were afar off, nigh.” It made peace between man and God,—between man and man. When Jesus died, men’s eyes seemed at once to open, and they saw for the first time the beauty and holiness of his life. His death, therefore, did what his life had not done. We, misled by a false theology, imagine Paul to be speaking of some transcendental transaction in the spiritual world by which the death of Jesus acted on God’s mind to make him placable; whereas, in truth, he is speaking of the simple historic fact that the death of Christ did draw men to his religion, and so to God; did, therefore, bring them to see God’s forgiving love; did unite them with each other. So Paul says that he “is not ashamed of the cross of Christ,”—not ashamed of the fact that Christ was hanged as a malefactor, since that very death was the power of God to bring man to salvation. It made men just, and kind, and true, and so was the power of God. § 13. Dr. Bushnell’s View of the Atonement. In his book, lately published, Dr. Bushnell teaches that the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus consists in his sympathy with sinners. He suffers with them and for them, as a friend suffers for a friend, or a mother for a child,—in the same way, and in no exceptional or uncommon way. He did not die officially, but naturally. He did not come here to die, but he died because he was here.