Finally, two points may be mentioned.  The Church from the very start accepted the Gospels.  Two of them were written by men in Paul’s own personal circle (Philemon 24; Col. 4:10, 14).  All found early acceptance and wide use,[6] and after a century we find Irenaeus maintaining that four Gospels are necessary, and are necessarily all—­there are four points of the compass, seasons and so forth; therefore it is appropriate that there are four Gospels.  The argument is not very convincing; but that such an argument was possible is evidence to the position of the Gospels as we have them.  We must remember the solidarity of that early Church.  The constituency, for which the Gospels were written, was steeped in the tradition of Jesus’ life, and the Christians accepted the Gospels, as embodying what they knew; and there were still survivors from the first days of the Gospel.  When Boswell’s Life of Johnson was published, the great painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, a lifelong friend of Johnson, said it might be depended upon as if delivered upon oath; Burke too had a high opinion of the book.  In the same way the Gospels come recommended to us by those who knew Jesus, though, it is true, we do not know their names.

The Gospels do not tell us all that Christians thought of Jesus, but they imply more than they say.  The writers limited themselves.  That Luke, for years a friend of Paul’s, so generally kept his great friend’s theology, above all his Christology, out of his Gospel, is significant.  It does not mean divergence of view.  More reasonably we may conclude something else:  he held to his literary and other authorities, and he was content; for he knew to what the historical Jesus brings men—­to new life and larger views, to a series of new estimates of Jesus himself.  He left it there.  In what follows, we must not forget in our study that behind the Gospels, simple and objective as they are, is the larger experience of the ever-working Christ.

There are three canons which may be laid down for the study of any human character, whether of the past or of to-day.  They are so simple that it may hardly seem worth while to have stated them; yet they are not always very easy to apply.  Without them the acutest critic will fail to give any sound account of a human character.

First of all, give the man’s words his own meaning.  Make sure that every term he uses has the full value he intends it to carry, connotes all he wishes it to cover, and has the full emotional power and suggestion that it has for himself.  Two quite simple illustrations may serve.  The English-born clergyman in Canada who spoke of a meeting of his congregation as a “homely gathering” did not produce quite the effect he intended; “home-like” is one thing in Canada, “homely” quite another, and the people laughed at the slip—­they knew, what he did not, that “homely” meant hard-featured and ugly.  My other illustration will take us towards the second canon.  I remember, years ago, a working-man