he would have been of the party of progressive science against the routine which shielded itself under his authority; he would have applauded his opponents.  In the same way, if Jesus were to return among us, he would recognize as disciples, not those who pretend to enclose him entirely in a few catechismal phrases, but those who labor to carry on his work.  The eternal glory, in all great things, is to have laid the first stone.  It may be that in the “Physics,” and in the “Meteorology” of modern times, we may not discover a word of the treatises of Aristotle which bear these titles; but Aristotle remains no less the founder of natural science.  Whatever may be the transformations of dogma, Jesus will ever be the creator of the pure spirit of religion; the Sermon on the Mount will never be surpassed.  Whatever revolution takes place will not prevent us attaching ourselves in religion to the grand intellectual and moral line at the head of which shines the name of Jesus.  In this sense we are Christians, even when we separate ourselves on almost all points from the Christian tradition which has preceded us.

And this great foundation was indeed the personal work of Jesus.  In order to make himself adored to this degree, he must have been adorable.  Love is not enkindled except by an object worthy of it, and we should know nothing of Jesus, if it were not for the passion he inspired in those about him, which compels us still to affirm that he was great and pure.  The faith, the enthusiasm, the constancy of the first Christian generation is not explicable, except by supposing at the origin of the whole movement, a man of surpassing greatness.  At the sight of the marvellous creations of the ages of faith, two impressions equally fatal to good historical criticism arise in the mind.  On the one hand we are led to think these creations too impersonal; we attribute to a collective action, that which has often been the work of one powerful will, and of one superior mind.  On the other hand, we refuse to see men like ourselves in the authors of those extraordinary movements which have decided the fate of humanity.  Let us have a larger idea of the powers which Nature conceals in her bosom.  Our civilizations, governed by minute restrictions, cannot give us any idea of the power of man at periods in which the originality of each one had a freer field wherein to develop itself.  Let us imagine a recluse dwelling in the mountains near our capitals, coming out from time to time in order to present himself at the palaces of sovereigns, compelling the sentinels to stand aside, and, with an imperious tone, announcing to kings the approach of revolutions of which he had been the promoter.  The very idea provokes a smile.  Such, however, was Elias; but Elias the Tishbite, in our days, would not be able to pass the gate of the Tuileries.  The preaching of Jesus, and his free activity in Galilee, do not deviate less completely from the social conditions to which we are accustomed.