And what shall we say of our Lord’s spotless purity of heart and life?  We cannot eulogize it, for it is above all human praise.  But we can refresh the eyes of our understanding by gazing upon it, as upon a glorious sun, until we feel its vivifying and transforming power in our own souls.

In contemplating the above qualities, it is of the highest importance to notice that, though they exist in such fulness and perfection, they are yet human, and therefore imitable.  They are not the virtues of an angel in heaven, or of a king on the throne, or of a philosopher in his school, or of a monk in his cell; but of a man moving among men in the sphere of common life, and filling out common life with all the duties appropriate to it.  His example then is available for the imitation of the lowest not less than the highest.  It offers itself to all classes of men as a model of all that is good in human nature.  We may boldly affirm that such a character as this could never have been conceived of, if it had not actually existed.

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If now we look at our Lord’s character as a teacher, we find it equally original and wonderful.  Writers on the gospel history have with reason laid great stress on the fact that he stood high above the errors and prejudices, not only of his own age and nation, but of all ages and nations.  He saw intuitively and perfectly what God is, what man is, and what are man’s relations to God and to his fellow-men; and was therefore able to establish a religion for men, as men, that needs no change for any age, or nation, or condition of life.  He has sometimes been called a “Galilean peasant.”  The phrase sounds unpleasantly in the ears of those who adore him as their divine Lord and Master.  Nevertheless it is in an important sense true.  He was educated among the common people of Galilee, and had no special human training.  It was an age of narrowness and formalism.  The scribes and Pharisees, who sat in Moses’ seat, had covered up the true meaning and spirit of the Old Testament beneath a mass of human traditions that substituted “mint, and anise, and cummin” for “the weightier matters of the law.”  Yet in such an age Jesus came forth a perfect teacher of divine truth.  He swept away at once the glosses of the Jewish doctors, unfolded to the people the true meaning of the law and the prophets as preparatory to his coming, and gave to the world a religion that meets the wants of all classes and conditions of men in all ages and nations.  Considered as the good leaven which Christ cast into the lump of humanity, the gospel has continual progress.  But considered as the plan of salvation which he revealed, it cannot have progress, for it is perfect.  It needs no amendment or change, that it may be adapted to our age or any other age.  As air and water and light meet the wants of all men in all ages, so the gospel, when freed from human additions and received in its original purity, is