And yet the very existence of such men is in itself a significant comment upon the Scriptural decision that "the world by wisdom knew not God." For how many like them, out of all the records of antiquity, is it possible for us to count? Are there five men in the whole circle of ancient history and ancient literature to whom we could, without a sense of incongruity, accord the title of "holy?" When we have mentioned Socrates, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, I hardly know of another. _Just_ men there were in multitudes--men capable of high actions; men eminently worthy to be loved; men, I doubt not, who, when the children of the kingdom shall be rejected, shall be gathered from the east and the west with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, into the kingdom of heaven. Yes, _just_ men in multitudes; but how many _righteous_, how many _holy_? Some, doubtless, whom we do not know, whose names were never written, even for a few years, on the records of mankind--men and women in unknown villages and humble homes, "the faithful who were not famous." We do not doubt that there were such--but were they _relatively_ numerous? If those who rose above the level of the multitude--if those whom some form of excellence, and often of virtue, elevated into the reverence of their fellows--present to us a few examples of stainless life, can we hope that a tolerable ideal of sanctity was attained by any large proportion of the ordinary myriads? Seeing that the dangerous lot of the majority was cast amid the weltering sea of popular depravity, can we venture to hope that many of them succeeded in reaching some green island of purity, integrity, and calm? We can hardly think it; and yet, in the dispensation of the Kingdom of Heaven we see such a condition daily realized. Not only do we see many of the eminent, but also countless multitudes of the lowly and obscure, whose common lives are, as it were, transfigured with a light from heaven. Unhappy, indeed, is he who has not known such men in person, and whose hopes and habits have not caught some touch of radiance reflected from the nobility and virtue of lives like these. The thought has been well expressed by the author of _Ecce Homo_, and we may well ask with him, "If this be so, has Christ failed, or can Christianity die?"