Some of them showed that they could fight upon occasion--their Galilean blood was equal to that; but they greatly lacked moral courage. They were afraid not only of men’s anger, but of their criticism. But it is impossible to think of Jesus as hesitating, for one instant, from any sort of fear of men, fear of death or criticism, in uttering one truth or doing one right thing. We cannot think of Jesus as feeling the pulse of public sentiment in order to determine what he should say. We cannot think of Jesus as, for one instant, looking about him to read in the faces of his hearers, whether they were Galilean peasants or the chief estates of Jerusalem, the probable reception of his words. We cannot think of him as veering the thickness of a line from the perfect truth as he saw it in order to win favor or avoid resentment. It is certain to us that such thoughts were never in his mind--that such feelings were never in his heart. His “eye was single,” his “whole body full of light.” Do these men whose names go with the four gospels show right feeling, sentiment, for inventing such a character, granting, what we know they did not have, all other qualifications? Seeing what they were, what they show themselves to have been, is it possible to believe that, in their inmost souls, they were in sympathy with the character they have given us in the gospels? To invent a truly great, all-round character, there must be not only adequate gifts of intellect and force of conscience; there must be also right sensibility. There must not only be a large mind and a true conscience; there must be a good heart. The evangelists were not bad men, but they were unspiritual. If one cannot, as an original conception of the intellect, “draw a taller man than himself,” much less can he draw a better man than himself. Test their capacity for such a work as inventing the Jesus of the gospels in any direction. Compare these men with Jesus as to his doctrine and practice as to toleration and human brotherhood. They shrink into nothingness. Jesus goes to the house of the publican, Zaccheus, whom all Jericho hated. Jesus dines with the man who was unpopular, who was despised; he preaches the full Gospel to him; he is kind to him; he loves him. The disciples were in sympathy not with Jesus, but the crowd that “murmured.” They were mortified, displeased, afraid, scandalized; Jesus had done so imprudent a thing as to dine with a man who had no friends, but many foes.