5.  Consider, again, the Person of Christ, not only in the light of Christian character generally, but with the addition of Christian knowledge as to its cause.  It will surely be admitted that, to whatever extent the term Christian has been misapplied as indicating character, and in however many cases it has been unworthily or only formally assumed, yet it includes within its widest embrace the best men and women this earth possesses, or has ever possessed.  There is a certain kind of character which all men whose moral sense is not blunted recognise as the culminating point and perfection of humanity.  They may not themselves attempt to realise it, or they may deem it unattainable, but nevertheless the idea of what constitutes a good or perfect man is no sooner presented to their minds than conscience accepts it as that which ought to be.  Now, it is admitted even by the atheist that such an idea is embodied in the historical character of Jesus Christ, and in the life, consequently, of every man just in proportion as he possesses His Spirit, obeys His precepts, and walks in His steps.  But there are, and have been in every age, persons who have done this, if not in a perfect, yet in a more perfect degree than by any others among mankind.  Or supposing it were admitted, for the sake of argument, that, so far as we had the means of judging, there has occasionally appeared, without faith in Christ, a certain product of character, apparently as pure, lofty, self-denying, loving, and devoted to God as any which ever professed to owe its origin to Jesus Christ; yet, where has there been on earth such a body of living persons as those Christians who, within the bosom of the universal Church, during eighteen centuries, have manifested that kind of character which all men profess to admire and reverence?  In vain one tries to conceive the flowers of moral beauty and glory that have sprung up within the garden of Christendom!  Being rooted in the earth, they may have been soiled, indeed, by its dust, but they yet expanded in loveliness to the sky, and sent forth a fragrance to the air, peculiar to the plants raised by the Great Husbandman.  Number, if you can, the saints of the Christian Church; the young and old, the poor and rich, who in every age and clime have been truthful, simple, sincere, patient, forgiving, and compassionate; who have enjoyed an inward life of peace with God, maintained an outward conduct, and possessed a reality of abiding love to their Father in heaven and to their brethren on earth peculiar to themselves.  Their lives have been a blessing to the world, and a happiness to their own hearts; their deathbed has been freed from the fears of a dark future, and brightened by the pure prospect of continued life and joy.  The Christian Church, and the Christian Church alone, contains such characters; and these are the lights of our homes, the salt of the earth, and the only security of the world’s progress.