Never did Jesus look to using the strongest drifts in human nature to secure his ends; his ends required him to arrest and reverse these drifts. He was not ignorant of the forces locked up in human nature; no man ever so deeply read the heart, so absolutely “knew what was in man.” As no other who ever taught men the truth Jesus knew the force of the torrent that bore down upon him--the Niagara his cause had to ascend. If Jesus was only a man how happened it that the methods he adopted are as unlike the methods of men as the end he sought is unlike the end that any man ever yet proposed to himself? How happened it that in his plans he did every thing that a man would not do, and nothing--all history being witness--that a man would do? These pages are not written for exhortation; but would it not be better every way, for the cause they stand for, if his friends studied the plans of Jesus more and their own plans less? Placing ourselves, in imagination, in the company of those few faithful friends, men and women--who were of the humble and obscure people--among those who received his command to “disciple all nations,” let us look about us and consider what are our prospects of success. What predominant influence in the world is friendly to the cause of our Lord and Master? The only people who believe in the Lord God have crucified Jesus. The Romans are masters not only in the holy city but in all the world we know, and the Roman power has just sanctioned the death of Jesus. The Greeks still give philosophy and art to the world, but there is not among the Greeks sympathy with the teachings and work of Jesus. No people befriend his cause; no hand is stretched out to his disciples; the world is against his cause, and for his sake against us, his disciples. Looking at it all as a man might, was there then a single human probability that the cause represented by the crucified Galilean would have the least place in history? That it would abide among men for a single generation? If Jesus was only a man could any thing conceivable by the human mind be more impossible than the realization of the dream (if he was only a man it was but a dream) of this man of Galilee, crucified like a felon? No wonder certain men, while Jesus was yet among them, “laughed him to scorn.” CHAPTER XIV. HIS GRASP UPON MANKIND. So far we have been studying the character and work of Jesus as he is presented in the evangelists, just as we might study any other character of that period. We have not yet considered Jesus as he now affects the world--a presence and force of our own times.