Through such a quiet deepening of the life of the people was the nation preparing for its final development of religion.

True it is that in the latter part of this period the nation showed unmistakable signs of being overtrained.  The hedge made about the Law had fenced men off from one thing after another until, to men who were anxious not to offend, life became a weary burden.  There was scarcely an action that might not involve sin.  The natural effect of externalizing the commands of conscience followed; and the ethical aims which had been sought were well nigh lost in the routine of form and ceremony, and in the fine-spun distinctions of belief and conduct.  A great-souled Jew found, later on, as hosts of his fellow-countrymen had found before him, that by the works of the Thorah (law or teaching) could no flesh be justified.  The very Book which had fed so deep a life had come to stand between the soul and God, a barrier to the fresh, free inspirations from on high.  Religion had run out upon the surface, and was dying.  But it was as the tassels wither and whiten when the corn is ripe within the husk and ready to seed down a new season.

Plainly, by every sign, Israel’s long gestation of Religion was nearing its appointed term.  All the elements had been developed, one after another, for a Universal Religion, and there was nothing more to be done but to await the coming to the birth.  As plainly, by every sign, the world-conditions were at length found for a safe issue of the “holy thing” which Israel so long had carried within her bosom.  There was needed a man to body these scattered elements, to fuse the forces of the nation into a personality, to live the dreams which a race had visioned.  Religion is never a code nor a theory, it is always a life.  The ideal religion awaited the ideal man.  He came!  As the nation held the holy child Jesus in her arms, joying that a MAN was born into the world, she might have been overheard singing: 

    Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,
    According to thy word: 
    For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
    Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
    A light to lighten the Gentiles,
    And the glory of thy people Israel.

The historical reality of Jesus is unquestionable.  The essential features of his life and thought are distinctly outlined through the mist of time, and above the clouds of legend that hang low upon the horizon where he disappeared.  The threefold tradition preserves a clear-cut image of the Son of Man.  We see One in whom the ideals of Israel found a perfect realization.  He brought to the flower the conception of religion whose germ lay seeded down in the Ten Words of Moses.  In him worship and aspiration were one.  He lived the ethical and spiritual religion after which the nation had patiently striven, through prophet and priest and sage, through psalmist and through scribe.  He lived the vision of