Such tenets, publicly announced as a voice from heaven, were of course offensive to the ruling factions at Jerusalem. The people also that flocked to the preaching of the new Prophet were disappointed by his proclaiming to them a spiritual kingdom not the heritage of wealth, splendour, and glory, so distinctly promised to them by the seers of former generations. They were but poorly put off with a type or symbol. A reformer is rarely popular, and reform is a dangerous work among a people so hasty and headstrong as the Jews. But Christ’s teaching was not for the Jews only; he was preparing to spread abroad amongst mankind a knowledge of the One Supreme, when, falling a victim to priestly wiles, the Prophet of Nazareth suffered an ignominious death. But he had given an impetus to the progress of mankind by systematizing a religion of the highest moral loveliness, showing what an imperfect race can and may become; and by the labour of a devoted life he had instituted a college of successors who after him might preach the glad tidings to all the nations of the earth. The Prophet of Nazareth had declared his mission to be for the purpose of establishing and confirming the Law of Moses. As it first appeared, Christianity was rather strong in the weakness around it than strong in its own strength. It was a system for anchorites and ascetics. The reformed faith abounded also in a matter usually consigned in the East to bards and mystics; namely, principles of almost superhuman beauty often couched in highly poetical language, principles not the creation of one mind, but the current coinage of philanthropy from time immemorial. Islam all over the East has left its principles as a heritage to poets, and right well have they performed their duty to mankind. From the literature of the Hindus and Persians, the Egyptians and the Arabs, it would be easy to collect a code of morality and a law of benevolence as pure and amiable as ever entered the heart of man. The whole practice of the Sufi consists in seeking the Divinity, not as the “popular prudential and mercenary devotee,” but from fervency of love to God and man. He “proclaims the invisible truth above the visible comfort”; his entire resignation can face the horrors of eternal death inflicted by divine Will; “he has something higher even than everlasting gain.”