All through English literature the word "gentleman" has had two meanings, and has been used to describe a man of certain qualities as well as a man of a certain birth. A hundred and fifty years before Dekker wrote it was declared that "truth, pity, freedom, and hardiness" were the essential qualities of a gentleman. Our Lord in His human nature personified these things. Every gentleman in Christendom derives his ideal from Christ whatever may be his dogmatic creed. No virtue, perhaps, was so characteristic of our Lord as His devotion to truth. He declared before Pilate that it was the end for which He was born. He condemned all those who hindered its diffusion and tried to make it the monopoly of a caste. He tabooed all absurd asseverations, the occasional use of which was but a confession of habitual lying. He taught that lies were of the Devil, and that it was the Holy Spirit who led men into all truth. He said that sincerity was the great light of the Spirit, that all double-minded men were in the dark, and that their fear of the light of day was their own sufficient condemnation. The ideal gentleman all through the ages has conformed his conduct in the matter of truth to the Christian standard. He has avoided mental reservation, abhorred lying, and, though he has garnished his speech with oaths, his yea has meant yea, and his nay, nay, and he has regarded his word as his bond. Again, courage and pity were combined in the character of Christ as they had never been combined before. Now the combination is common enough. We have the seed and can grow the flower; but every man who excels in both is in some sense a follower of Christ. The courage of our Lord, though it included physical courage, was not of that calibre which is more properly called animal,--animal courage implies a want of imagination, and is probably incompatible with pity. Christ in the garden of Gethsemane "tasted death for every man," and held out a hand of sympathy to that vast majority who must for ever regard it with strong dread. Yet by His precepts, by His life, and by His death He taught men that fear can be mastered, though it is a form of suffering seldom altogether spared to the highest type of man. Apart from their religious significance, the trial and crucifixion of Christ form the scene in the world’s history of which humanity has most reason to be proud. Christ, in His human nature, was a Galilean peasant. He excused to his face the Roman Governor who stooped to threaten a prisoner in Whom he found no fault. Judge and prisoner changed places. The distinctions of the world dissolved before the distinctions of God. At Pilate’s bar all gentlemen recognise their hero, an example for ever of the powerlessness of circumstances to humiliate.