The whole idea of the Incarnation, as well as some of the miracles and the sacraments, are expressive of this wide and comprehensive character of the Christian religion. It recognises the wonder and beauty of the animal body, destined to be the scene of extraordinary spiritual triumphs in the long course of time; and it teaches “That none but Gods could build this house of ours, So beautiful, vast, various, so beyond All work of man, yet, like all work of man, A beauty with defect—till That which knows, And is not known, but felt thro’ what we feel Within ourselves is highest, shall descend On this half-deed, and shape it at the last According to the Highest in the Highest.” Christianity is a planetary and human religion: being the revelation of those aspects of Godhead which are most intelligible and helpful to us in our present stage of development. But it is more than a revelation, it is a manifestation of some of the attributes of Godhead in the form of humanity. The statement that Christ and God are one, is not really a statement concerning Christ, but a statement concerning what we understand by God. It is useless, and in the literal sense preposterous, to explain the known in terms of the unknown: the converse is the right method. “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” Every son of man is potentially also a son of God, but the union was deepest and completest in the Galilean. The ideas of incarnation and revelation are not confined to the domain of religion; they are common to music and letters and science: in all we recognise “a flash of the will that can,” “All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul, All through my soul that praised, as the wish flowed visibly forth.” The spirit of Beethoven is incarnate in his music; and he that hath heard the Fifth Symphony hath heard Beethoven. The Incarnation of the Divine Spirit in man is the central feature of Terrestrial History. It is through man, and the highest man, that the revelation of what is meant by Godhead must necessarily come. The world—even the common everyday world—has accepted this, and is able to perceive its appropriateness and truth; and the traditional song of the angels, at the epoch of the Birth— “Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace, goodwill among men,” is still heard in the land. Whenever there is war at Christmas-time it is universally felt to be incongruous. Goodwill among men is conspicuous in cessation of private feuds, in overladen postbags, in family reunions and Christmas hampers and all manner of homely frivolities.