The instance which we have cited is exceptional among modern doubters,
among those who have deliberately set themselves without violent
prejudice to study the claims of Christianity. Be it in poetry or
prose, in scientific criticism or in imaginative {193} biography, with
remarkable unanimity, while stubbornly refusing to accept the Creed of
the Church, they so depict Him that the natural conclusion of their
representation is, 'Oh, come let us adore Him.' There is scarcely any
of them who would not sympathise with the admission and aspiration of
B. Wimmer in his confession, _My Struggle for Light_: 'I cannot but
love this unique Child of God with all the fervour of my soul, I cannot
but lift up eyes full of reverence and rapture to this Personality in
whom the highest and most sacred virtues which can move the heart of
man shine forth in spotless purity throughout the ages. Even if many a
trait in His portrait, as the Gospels sketch it for us, be more
legendary than historical, yet I feel that here a man stands before me,
a man who really lived and has a place in history like that of no other
man: indeed I feel that even the legends concerning Him possess a truth
in that they spring from the {194} Spirit which passed from Him into
His Church. I know what I have to thank Him for. I would in my inmost
self be so closely united with Him that He may live in my spirit and
bear absolute sway in my soul. I will not be ashamed of His Cross and
I will gladly endure the insults which men have directed, and still
often enough direct, against Him and His truth.'
That is the characteristic and dominant note of the more recent
criticism. The almost universal conclusion is that the Perfect Ideal
has been depicted in the Christ of the Gospels, and has been depicted
because the Reality had been seen in Jesus of Nazareth.[8] Is it not
allowable to declare that the writers, let them say what they will
about their rejection of the doctrine of the Church concerning the
Incarnation and the Atonement of Christ, are practically His disciples,
that the ardour of their faith in Him not {195} infrequently puts to
shame the coldness of us who call Him Lord?[9] There is scarcely
extravagance in the assertion that, as we recognise the part which
Strauss and Renan played, and the unconscious help which they rendered,
'we may well say now "_noster_" Strauss and "_noster_" Renan. They
were, in their measure, and, according to their respective abilities,
defenders of the Faith.'[10] While it is possible to lament that among
Christian apologists there are timid surrenders and faithless
forebodings, it is yet more possible to reply that 'Whereas our critics
were at one time infidels and our bitter enemies, they are now proud of
the name of Christian and ready to be the friends, as far as that is
permitted, of every form of orthodoxy in Christianity.'[11]
The language in which, at any rate, they express their conception of
Him is sometimes {196} more devout, more exalted, than the language
which used to be employed by professed apologists. The Hindu Theist,
Protab Chandra Mozoomdar, who stood outside the fold of Christianity,
joyfully proclaimed, 'Christ reigns. As the law of the spirit of
heavenly life, He reigns in the bosom of every believer.... Christ
reigns as the recogniser of Divine humanity in the fallen, the low, and
the despicable, as the healer of the unhappy, the unclean, and the sore
distressed. Reigns He not in the sweet humanity that goes forth to
seek and to save its kin in every land and clime, to teach and preach,
and raise and reclaim, to weep and watch and give repose? He reigns as
sweet patience and sober reason amid the laws and orders of the world;
as the spirit of submission and loyalty He reigns in peace in the
kingdoms of the world.... Christ reigns in the individual who feebly
watches His footprints in the tangled mazes of life. {197} He reigns
in the community that is bound together in His name. As Divine
Humanity, and the Son of God, He reigns gloriously around us in the New
Dispensation.'[12]
Or listen to the rhapsody with which Mrs. Besant, once an Atheist, now
a Theosophist, depicts His influence from age to age: 'His the steady
inpouring of truth into every brain ready to receive it, so that hand
stretched out to hand across the centuries and passed on the torch of
knowledge, which thus was never extinguished. His the Form which stood
beside the rack and in the flames of the burning pile, cheering His
confessors and His martyrs, soothing the anguish of their pains and
filling their hearts with His peace. His the impulse which spoke in
the thunder of Savonarola, which guided the calm wisdom of Erasmus,
which inspired the deep ethics of the God-intoxicated Spinoza.... His
the beauty that allured Fra {198} Angelico and Raphael and Leonardo da
Vinci, that inspired the genius of Michael Angelo, that shone before
the eyes of Murillo, and that gave the power that raised the marvels of
the world, the Duomo of Milan, the San Marco of Venice, the Cathedral
of Florence. His the melody that breathed in the Masses of Mozart, the
sonatas of Beethoven, the oratorios of Handel, the fugues of Bach, the
austere splendour of Brahms. Through the long centuries He has striven
and laboured, and, with all the mighty burden of the Churches to carry,
He has never left uncared for and unsolaced one human heart that cried
to Him for help.'[13] When we read sentences like these by themselves
we say, Here is unqualified acceptance of the Christian Faith. And
even when we are told that we must not take the sentences in their
literal and natural meaning, that they apply not to Him Whose earthly
{199} career is sketched in the Gospels, but to an Ideal Being evolved
out of the writer's imagination, we are surely entitled to answer, It
is of Jesus that the words are spoken, whether their meaning is to be
taken literally or figuratively; if they have any meaning at all, they
indicate a Being without a parallel. That there should be so
extraordinary a conflict of opinion regarding Him, that the greatest
intellects as well as the simplest souls should hail Him as Divine,
that the most critical should still find their explanations
insufficient to account for the impression which He made upon His
contemporaries and continues to wield to this day, at least renders Him
absolutely unique. Men may disbelieve a great deal; they cannot
disbelieve that this Amazing Personality has a place in the heart of
the world which no other has ever occupied. The alleged imaginary
Ideal has had on earth only one approximate Embodiment. Nay, we are
{200} forced to confess, without the actual Character disclosed from
Nazareth to Calvary, the Ideal would never have been conceived.