The more carefully we study the long wrestle of Christ with the blind
leaders of a doomed nation, the more we shall recognize the perfect
truthfulness, and therefore the perfect courage, which marks his
conduct of it. From beginning to end there is no word or act which can
mislead friend or foe. The strife, though for life and death, has left
no trace or stain on his nature. Fresh from the last and final conflict
in the temple court, he can pause on the side of Olivet to weep over
the city, the sight of which can still wring from him the pathetic
yearnings of a soul purified from all taint of bitterness.
It is this most tender and sensitive of the sons of men—with fibres
answering to every touch and breath of human sympathy or human hate—who
has borne with absolutely unshaken steadfastness the distrust and anger
of kinsfolk, the ingratitude of converts, the blindness of disciples,
the fitful and purblind worship and hatred, and fear, of the nation
of the Jews. So far, we can estimate to some extent the burden and the
strain, and realize the strength and beauty of the spirit which could
bear it all. Beyond and behind lie depths into which we can but glance.
For in those last hours of his life on earth the question was to be
decided whether we men have in deed and truth a brotherhood, in a Son
of Man, the head of humanity, who has united mankind to their Father,
and can enable them to know him.