The most inspiring and hopeful spectacle in all humanity is an assemblage, wrapt in the devotional exercises of Christianity, listening attentively to the eloquent ministrations of an earnest leader, who pleads the cause of virtue and charity as it is exhibited in the written life and character of the Model Man. The great central story never wearies in interest, and never grows old; a willing sacrifice and suffering for the benefit of mankind. Such never failing kindness, such lessons of brotherhood, such love for men, such tenderness for children, such consideration beyond his time for women, and with such a pathetic and suffering end as to capture their emotional natures for all time. And above all bringing the tidings of a hope, that comes to men, as a boat of rescue comes to a storm-tossed ship slowly sinking into the depths; so cherished in Christian households as to become a worshiped member of them, to be defended as one of them, upheld if need be by force of arms and sacrifice of life. And the lesson of it all, and the hopefulness and inspiration of it all is, that wherever mankind dwells, be it in castles or cottages, amid the crowds of cities, or among quiet country fields, there are laurels everywhere among them all for him who will sacrifice himself that others may gain; esteem and veneration among them all for him, whose life is pure, and whose ways are ways of kindness and charity. Vice can never reign supreme but for a time amid such inherent affinity for goodness implanted in every human heart, and as the days of general consent and unobstructed knowledge enlighten and control the affairs of men, more and more certain, as time rolls on, will come protests and rebellions against the temporary triumph of evil. Of that entrancing story which has captured civilization, and has come to be a part of it, what is there in the Master that deserves such barbaric surroundings; such inconsequential details of obscure and barbarous lives; such vindictive retaliations and brutal conflicts, sacrilegiously involving the Deity as a promoter of them; wild fictions of early ages, inventions of the infancy of man, conflicting accounts of historical events, fragmentary parts by different persons at different periods; explanations in many branches of science, now known to be mistaken and absurd, and containing texts, that either openly sanction or have been twisted into service of the most stupendous outrages that humanity has suffered.