Jesus Christ came into a dead world--He the one living man, alive in body, soul, and spirit--alive to God in the world. He was, like none besides, aware of God and of God’s love, breathing in His Spirit, “living not by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded from His mouth.” “This,” He said, “is life eternal.” If His definition was correct, if it be life to know God, then the world into which Christ entered by His human birth, the world of heathendom and Judaism, was veritably dying or dead--“dead indeed unto God.” Its condition was visible to discerning eyes. It was a world rotting in its corruption, mouldering in its decay, and which to His pure sense had the moral aspect and odour of the charnel-house. We realize very imperfectly the distress, the inward nausea, the conflict of disgust and pity which the fact of being in such a world as this and belonging to it caused in the nature of Jesus Christ, in a soul that was in perfect sympathy with God. Never was there loneliness such as His, the solitude of life in a region peopled with the dead. The joy which Christ had in His little flock, in those whom the Father had given Him out of the world, was proportionately great. In them He found companionship, teachableness, signs of a heart awakening towards God--men to whom life was in some degree what it was to Him. He had come, as the prophet in his vision, into “the valley full of dry bones,” and He “prophesied to these slain, that they might live.” What a comfort to see, at His first words, a shaking in the valley,--to see some who stirred at His voice, who stood upon their feet and gathered round Him--not yet a great army, but a band of living men! In their breasts, inspired from His, was the life of the future. “I am come,” He said, “that they might have life.” It was the work of Jesus Christ to breathe His vital spirit into the corpse of humanity, to reanimate the world.