One writer has ventured, in order to find one spot on this sun, to say, Jesus did not teach patriotism! His whole life was devoted to his people; his doctrines nourish and conserve patriotism. He did not teach the thing a mere partisan of a clan or tribe calls patriotism; then he would have been only a Galilean zealot. He teaches the only patriotism a good man can respect--a love of country that believes in righteousness and the golden rule that loves its own and another’s too. If Jesus be only a man--a Galilean Jew, we must remember--he contradicts in his flawless all-round character and perfect teaching the conditions of his life. This perfection of character and teaching on the one hand, and this Galilean Jew and Nazarene carpenter on the other, not only do not agree, they cannot exist together. It is by his life that we realize how imperfect all others are; it is by his teachings that we test the rights and wrongs of all other teachings. There is absolutely nothing in his race or age that accounts for Jesus. That he was a normal product of his race and age contradicts every law of life we know. If it be not so all history goes for nothing and there is no law or reason in the nature of things. CHAPTER VII. HIS METHOD OF THOUGHT DIFFERENCES HIM FROM MEN. In studying the story of the evangelists let us try to come nearer to Jesus. We need not fear; he would have us find out all about him that we can; he would have us know what manner of man he is. If we love beauty, goodness, and truth, we will approach him with reverence. No good man, no man you can respect or trust, will speak of Jesus with flippant words. But we may go to him without hesitation; he who took little children in his arms and blessed and kissed them will not receive the humblest student with coldness. Indeed, the more one needs him the more welcome he is. It was he who said to the “weary and heavy laden,” “Come unto me.” Let us consider now, as best we may, what we must call his method of thought. It differences him utterly from all mere human teachers. We can find many illustrations. In the first place, Jesus does not seek the same end that the great thinkers, who have given the world its philosophy and its science, always seek--the creation of an intellectual system of and for the universe. Humboldt, who was a very learned and gifted man, gives us a great work he calls _Cosmos_. It tells all he knew, or thought he knew, of the universe, and explains it all as best he could. He is one among many; all the philosophers try to account for things, and the greater they are the more they try.