'_How can these things be?_' asked the doctor of the Sanhedrim, in a bewilderment which many of us can well understand. It was, indeed, a strange new world into which he was transported; it seemed to him a world of dreams, because he had been himself so much amidst dreams, because he had known so little of realities. '_Art thou a master of Israel_,' was the rejoinder, '_and knowest not these things?_' 'What hast thou been learning all thy life? what hast thou been teaching thy countrymen? Hast thou not been reading of an unseen God, who holds converse with men,--of a God of the spirits of all flesh? Hast thou not believed that this God is a living God, as He was when He appeared to Moses in the bush? when He touched the lips of Isaiah with fire in the Temple? Hast thou not understood that He is thy God, as much as He was the God of any Israelite to whom the commandments were spoken on the Mount? Hast thou not bidden the people of Israel of this day to believe that He is _their_ God?' '_Verily, I say unto you, That which we have known, we speak; that which we have seen, we testify._' 'This is the characteristic of every true teacher, of every called prophet. This has been the characteristic of John; this is mine. We do not speak things that we have learnt by report--things that have been transmitted to us; we speak the truths with which we have been brought face to face.' '_And ye receive not our testimony._' 'These things we tell you of, because they are about you, because you are created to know them, and have fellowship with them. And you turn away from them in search of things that are at a distance from you--of formalities and trifles which you call by lofty names, which give rise to endless disputings, but which do not concern you as human beings in the least.' '_And if I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of the heavenly things?_' 'If these things which have to do with your daily lives, which bear upon your ordinary business, which you can test by the experience of your failures and your sins,--if _these_ seem to you incredible, how will it be if I speak to you of God Himself, of His purposes, of His nature?'