To conceive the good, in fact, is not sufficient; it must be made to succeed amongst men. To accomplish this, less pure paths must be followed. Certainly, if the Gospel was confined to some chapters of Matthew and Luke, it would be more perfect, and would not now be open to so many objections; but would Jesus have converted the world without miracles? If he had died at the period of his career we have now reached, there would not have been in his life a single page to wound us; but, greater in the eyes of God, he would have remained unknown to men; he would have been lost in the crowd of great unknown spirits, himself the greatest of all; the truth would not have been promulgated, and the world would not have profited from the great moral superiority with which his Father had endowed him. Jesus, son of Sirach, and Hillel, had uttered aphorisms almost as exalted as those of Jesus. Hillel, however, will never be accounted the true founder of Christianity. In morals, as in art, precept is nothing, practice is everything. The idea which is hidden in a picture of Raphael is of little moment; it is the picture itself which is prized. So, too, in morals, truth is but little prized when it is a mere sentiment, and only attains its full value when realized in the world as fact. Men of indifferent morality have written very good maxims. Very virtuous men, on the other hand, have done nothing to perpetuate in the world the tradition of virtue. The palm is his who has been mighty both in words and in works, who has discerned the good, and at the price of his blood has caused its triumph. Jesus, from this double point of view, is without equal; his glory remains entire, and will ever be renewed. CHAPTER VI. JOHN THE BAPTIST--VISIT OF JESUS TO JOHN, AND HIS ABODE IN THE DESERT OF JUDEA--ADOPTION OF THE BAPTISM OF JOHN. An extraordinary man, whose position, from the absence of documentary evidence, remains to us in some degree enigmatical, appeared about this time, and was unquestionably to some extent connected with Jesus. This connection tended rather to make the young prophet of Nazareth deviate from his path; but it suggested many important accessories to his religious institution, and, at all events, furnished a very strong authority to his disciples in recommending their Master in the eyes of a certain class of Jews.