It stirs wonder in us, therefore, that Christ's every journey across the fields took on the aspect of a triumphal procession, while His popularity waxed with familiarity and the increasing years. Indeed, full oft the rapture men felt toward Him amounted to an intoxication and an ecstasy of devotion. True it is that men now look upon Him through a blaze of light, and, remembering His achievements for art, liberty and learning, have stained His name through and through with lustrous colors. As at eventide we look out upon the sun through white and golden clouds that the sun itself has lifted, so do we behold the carpenter's son standing forth under the dazzling light of nearly two thousand years of history, while the heart colors His name with all that is noblest in human aspiration and achievement. Nevertheless, be it instantly confessed that from the very beginning this divine Teacher exhibited qualities that kindled in men an enthusiasm that amounted to transcendent delight. The time was when scholars attempted to explain His influence over the multitude by portraying Him with a halo of light about His head. Fortunately these ideas that robbed men of all fellowship with their divine brother have perished, and now we know that there was nothing unusual about His appearance, nor did any effulgent light blaze forth from His person. Whether or not unique beauty of face and form was His we do not know. Coins and statues portray for us the Roman emperors and the Greek scholars. Yet art has broken down utterly in the attempt to combine in one face Christ's majesty and meekness, strength and gentleness, suffering and victory. All that we can know of His personal appearance must be gained through imagination, as it clothed Him with those traits that alone cannot account for His influence over the multitudes. What sweet allurement in the face that made children leap into His arms! What winsome benignity that made mothers feel that His touch would return the babe with double worth into the parent's bosom! Purity in others has been cold and chaste as ice. How strange that in Him purity had an irresistible fascination, so that the corruptest and wickedest felt drawn unto Him, and "depravity itself bowed down and wept in the presence of divinity." What all-forgiving love, what all-cleansing love, in one who by a mere look could dissolve in repentant tears men long hardened by vice and crime! What an atmosphere of power He must have carried, that by one beam from His eye He could smite to the very ground the soldiers who confronted Him!