The spectator begins musing on the anomalies of this view.  “Christ, only a man, is to be reverenced as something more.  On what ground?—­The ground of intellect?—­Yet he teaches us only what a hundred others have taught, without claiming to be worshipped on account of it—­The ground of goodness?—­But goodness is due from each man to his fellows; it is no title to sovereignty over them.”  And he thus sums up his own conviction.  “He may be called a saint who best teaches us to keep our lives pure; he a poet whose insight dims that of his fellow-men.  He is no less than this, though guided by an instinct no higher than that of the bat; no more, though inspired by God.  All gifts are from God, and no multiplying of gifts can convert the creature into the Creator.  Between Him who created goodness, and made it binding on the conscience of man:  and him who reduces it to a system, of which the merits may be judged by man:  lies the interval which separates Nature, who decrees the circulation of the blood, from the observer Harvey, who discovered it.  One man is Christ, another Pilate; beyond their dust is the Divinity of God.”

“And the ‘God-function’ with regard to virtue was first to impress its truths on every human breast; and secondly, to give a motive for carrying them out; and this motive could be given only by one, who, being life’s Lord, died for the sake of men.  Whoever conceives this love, and takes this proof to his heart, has found a new motive, and has also gained a truth.”

But Christ lingers within the hall “Is there something after all in that lecture which finds an echo in the Christian soul?  Yes, even there.  There is the ghost of love, if nothing more, in the utterance of that virgin-minded man, with the ‘wan, pure look,’ and the frail life burning itself away in the striving after truth.  For his critical tests have reduced the pearl of price to ashes, and yet left it, in his judgment, a pearl; and he bids his followers gather up their faith as an almost perfect whole; go home and venerate the myth on which he has experimented, adore the man whom he has proved to be one.  And if his learning itself be loveless, it may claim our respect when a tricksy demon has let it loose on the Epistles of St. Paul, as it claims our gratitude when expended on secular things.  It is at least better than the ignorance which hates the word of God, if it cannot wholly accept it; while these, his disciples, who renounce the earth, and chain up the natural man on a warrant no more divine than this, are by so much better than he who at this moment judges them.  Let them carry the doctrine by which they think themselves carried, as does the child his toy-horse.  He will not deride nor disturb them.”

The subject of these experiences has reached a state of restful indifference.  “He will adhere to his own belief, and be tolerant towards his neighbour’s:  since the two only differ as do two different refractions of a single ray of light.  He will study, instead of criticizing, the different creeds which are fused into one before the universal Father’s throne.”