[11]
Ecce Homo: A Survey of the Life and Work of Jesus Christ. Guardian1,
7th February 1866.
This is a dangerous book to review. The critic of it, if he is prudent2, will feel that it is more than most books a touchstone of his own capacity, and that in giving his judgment3 upon it he cannot help giving his own measure and betraying what he is himself worth. All the unconscious guiding which a name, even if hitherto unknown, gives to opinion is wanting. The first aspect of the book is perplexing; closer examination does not clear up all the questions which present themselves; and many people, after they have read it through, will not feel quite certain what it means. Much of what is on the surface and much of what is inherent in the nature of the work will jar painfully on many minds; while others who begin to read it under one set of impressions may by the time they have got to the end complain of having been taken in. There can be no doubt on which side the book is; but it may be open to debate from which side it has come. The unknown champion who comes into the lists with barred vizor and no cognisance on his shield leaves it not long uncertain for which of the contending parties he appears; but his weapons and his manner of fighting are not the ordinary ones of the side which he takes; and there is a force in his arm, and a sweep in his stroke, which is not that of common men. The book is one which it is easy to take exception to, and perhaps still easier to praise at random5; but the subject is put before us in so unusual a way, and one so removed from the ordinary grooves6 of thought, that in trying to form an adequate estimate of the work as a whole, a man feels as he does when he is in the presence of something utterly7 unfamiliar8 and unique, when common rules and inferences fail him, and in pronouncing upon which he must make something of a venture.
In making our own venture we will begin with what seems to us incontestable. In the first place, but that it has been questioned, we should say that there could be no question of the surpassing ability which the book displays. It is far beyond the power of the average clever and practised writer of our days. It is the work of a man in whom thought, sympathy, and imagination are equally powerful and wealthy, and who exercises a perfect and easy command over his own conceptions, and over the apt and vivid language which is their expression. Few men have entered so deeply into the ideas and feelings of the time, or have looked at the world, its history and its conditions, with so large and piercing an insight. But it is idle to dwell on what must strike, at first sight, any one who but opens the book. We go on to observe, what is equally beyond dispute, the deep tone of religious seriousness which pervades9 the work. The writer's way of speaking is very different from that of the ascetic10 or the devotee; but no ascetic or devotee could be more profoundly penetrated11 with the great contrast between holiness and evil, and show more clearly in his whole manner of thinking the ineffaceable impression of the powers of the world to come. Whatever else the book may be, this much is plain on the face of it—it is the work of a mind of extreme originality12, depth, refinement13, and power; and it is also the work of a very religious man: Thomas à Kempis had not a more solemn sense of things unseen and of what is meant by the Imitation of Christ.
What the writer wishes his book to be understood to be we must gather from his Preface:—
Those who feel dissatisfied with the current conceptions of Christ, if they cannot rest content without a definite opinion, may find it necessary to do what to persons not so dissatisfied it seems audacious and perilous14 to do. They may be obliged to reconsider the whole subject from the beginning, and placing themselves in imagination at the time when he whom we call Christ bore no such name, but was simply, as St. Luke describes him, a young man of promise, popular with those who knew him, and appearing to enjoy the Divine favour, to trace his biography from point to point, and accept those conclusions about him, not which church doctors or even apostles have sealed with their authority, but which the facts themselves, critically weighed, appear to warrant.
This is what the present writer undertook to do for the satisfaction of his own mind, and because, after reading a good many books on Christ, he felt still constrained15 to confess that there was no historical character whose motives16, objects, and feelings remained so incomprehensible to him. The inquiry17 which proved serviceable to himself may chance to be useful to others.
What is now published is a fragment. No theological questions whatever are here discussed. Christ, as the creator of modern theology and religion, will make the subject of another volume, which, however, the author does not hope to publish for some time to come. In the meanwhile he has endeavoured to furnish an answer to the question, What was Christ's object in founding the Society which is called by his name, and how is it adapted to attain19 that object?
Thus the book comes before us as a serious facing of difficulties. And that the writer lays stress on its being so viewed appears further from a letter which he wrote to the Spectator, repeating emphatically that the book is not one "written after the investigation20 was completed, but the investigation itself." The letter may be taken to complete the statement of the Preface:—
I endeavoured in my Preface to describe the state of mind in which I undertook my book. I said that the character and objects of Christ were at that time altogether incomprehensible to me, and that I wished to try whether an independent investigation would relieve my perplexity. Perhaps I did not distinctly enough state that Ecce Homo is not a book written after the investigation was completed, but the investigation itself.
The Life of Christ is partly easy to understand and partly difficult. This being so, what would a man do who wished to study it methodically? Naturally he would take the easy part first. He would collect, arrange, and carefully consider all the facts which are simple, and until he has done this, he would carefully avoid all those parts of his subject which are obscure, and which cannot be explained without making bold hypotheses. By this course he would limit the problem, and in the meanwhile arrive at a probable opinion concerning the veracity21 of the documents, and concerning the characteristics, both intellectual and moral, of the person whose high pretensions22 he wished to investigate.
This is what I have done. I have postponed23 altogether the hardest questions connected with Christ, as questions which cannot properly be discussed until a considerable quantity of evidence has been gathered about his character and views. If this evidence, when collected, had appeared to be altogether conflicting and inconsistent, I should have been saved the trouble of proceeding24 any further; I should have said that Christ is a myth. If it had been consistent, and had disclosed to me a person of mean and ambitious aims, I should have said, Christ is a deceiver. Again, if it had exhibited a person of weak understanding and strong impulsive25 sensibility, I should have said Christ is a bewildered enthusiast26.
In all these cases you perceive my method would have saved me a good deal of trouble. As it is, I certainly feel bound to go on, though, as I say in my Preface, my progress will necessarily be slow. But I am much engaged and have little time for theological study. But pray do not suppose that postponing27 questions is only another name for evading28 them. I think I have gained much by this postponement29. I have now a very definite notion of Christ's character and that of his followers30. I shall be able to judge how far he was likely to deceive himself or them. It is possible I may have put others, who can command more time than I, in a condition to take up the subject where for the present I leave it.
You say my picture suffers by my method. But Ecce Homo is not a picture: it is the very opposite of a picture; it is an analysis. It may be, you will answer, that the title suggests a picture. This may perhaps be true, and if so, it is no doubt a fault, but a fault in the title, not in the book. For titles are put to books, not books to titles.
Thus it appears that the writer found it his duty to investigate those awful questions which every thinking man feels to be full of the "incomprehensible" and unfathomable, but which many thinking men, for various reasons both good and bad, shrink from attempting to investigate, accepting on practical and very sufficient grounds the religious conclusions which are recommended and sanctioned by the agreement of Christendom. And finding it his duty to investigate them at all, he saw that he was bound to investigate in earnest. But under what circumstances this happened, from what particular pressure of need, and after what previous belief or state of opinion, we are not told. Whether from being originally on the doubting side—on the irreligious side we cannot suppose he ever could have been—he has risen through his investigation into belief; or whether, originally on the believing side, he found the aspect so formidable, to himself or to the world, of the difficulties and perplexities which beset31 belief, that he turned to bay upon the foes32 that dogged him—must be left to conjecture33. It is impossible to question that he has been deeply impressed with the difficulties of believing; it is impossible to question that doubt has been overborne and trampled34 under foot. But here we have the record, it would not be accurate to say of the struggle, but of that resolute35 and unflinching contemplation of the realities of the case which decided36 it. Such plunging37 into such a question must seem, as he says, to those who do not need it, "audacious and perilous"; for if you plunge38 into a question in earnest, and do not under a thin disguise take a side, you must, whatever your bias39 and expectation, take your chance of the alternative answers which may come out. It is a simple fact that there are many people who feel "dissatisfied with the current conceptions" of our Lord—whether reasonably and justly dissatisfied is another question; but whatever we think of it they remain dissatisfied. In such emergencies it is conceivable that a man who believes, yet keenly realises and feels what disturbs or destroys the belief of others, should dare to put himself in their place; should enter the hospital and suffer the disease which makes such ravages40; should descend41 into the shades and face the spectres. No one can deny the risk of dwelling42 on such thoughts as he must dwell on; but if he feels warmly with his kind, he may think it even a duty to face the risk. To any one accustomed to live on his belief it cannot but be a hard necessity, full of pain and difficulty, first to think and then to speak of what he believes, as if it might not be, or could be otherwise; but the changes of time bring up ever new hard necessities; and one thing is plain, that if ever such an investigation is undertaken, it ought to be a real one, in good earnest and not in play. If a man investigates at all, both for his own sake and for the sake of the effect of his investigation on others, he must accept the fair conditions of investigation. We may not ourselves be able to conceive the possibility of taking, even provisionally, a neutral position; but looking at what is going on all round us, we ought to be able to enlarge our thoughts sufficiently43 to take in the idea that a believing mind may feel it a duty to surrender itself boldly to the intellectual chances and issues of the inquiry, and to "let its thoughts take their course in the confidence that they will come home at last." It may be we ourselves who "have not faith enough to be patient of doubt"; there may be others who feel that if what they believe is real, they need not be afraid of the severest revisal and testing of the convictions on which they rest; who feel that, in the circumstances of the time, it is not left to their choice whether these convictions shall be sifted44 unsparingly and to the uttermost; and who think it a venture not unworthy of a Christian46, to descend even to the depths to go through the thoughts of doubters, if so be that he may find the spell that shall calm them. We do not say that this book is the production of such a state of mind; we only think that it may be. One thing is clear, wherever the writer's present lot is cast, he has that in him which not only enables him, but forces him, to sympathise with what he sees in the opposite camp. If he is what is called a Liberal, his whole heart is yet pouring itself forth47 towards the great truths of Christianity. If he is what is called orthodox, his whole intellect is alive to the right and duty of freedom of thought. He will therefore attract and repel48 on both sides. And he appears to feel that the position of double sympathy gives him a special advantage, to attract to each side what is true in its opposite, and to correct in each what is false or inadequate49.
What, then, is this investigation, and what course does it follow? At the first aspect, we might take it for one of those numerous attempts on the Liberal side, partly impatient, partly careless of Christianity, to put a fresh look on the Christian history, and to see it with new eyes. The writer's language is at starting neutral; he speaks of our Lord in the language indeed of the New Testament50, but not in the usual language of later Christian writers. All through, the colour and tone is absolutely modern; and what would naturally be expressed in familiar theological terms is for the most part studiously put in other words. Persons acquainted with the writings of the late Mr. Robertson might be often reminded of his favourite modes of teaching; of his maxim51 that truth is made up of two opposites which seem contradictories52; of the distinction which he was so fond of insisting upon between principles and rules; above all, of his doctrine53 that the true way to rise to the faith in our Lord's Divine Nature was by first realising His Human Life. But the resemblance is partial, if not superficial, and gives way on closer examination before broad and characteristic features of an entirely54 different significance. That one which at first arrests attention, and distinguishes this writer's line of thought from the common Liberal way of dealing55 with the subject, is that from the first page of the book to its last line the work of Christ is viewed, not simply as the foundation of a religious system, the introduction of certain great principles, the elevation56 of religious ideas, the delivery of Divine truths, the exhibition of a life and example, but as the call and creation of a definite, concrete, organised society of men. The subject, of investigation is not merely the character and history of the Person, but the Person as connected with His work. Christ is regarded not simply in Himself or in His teaching, as the Founder58 of a philosophy, a morality, a theology in the abstract, but as the Author of a Divine Society, the Body which is called by His Name, the Christian Church Universal, a real and visible company of men, which, however we may understand it, exists at this moment as it has existed since His time, marked by His badges, governed by His laws, and working out His purpose. The writer finds the two joined in fact, and he finds them also joined in the recorded history of Christ's plan. The book might almost be described as the beginning of a new De Civitate Dei, written with the further experience of fourteen centuries and from the point of view of our own generation. This is one remarkable59 peculiarity61 of this investigation; another is the prominence62 given to the severe side of the Person and character of whom he writes, and what is even more observable, the way in which both the severity and the gentleness are apprehended63 and harmonised.
We are familiar with the attempts to resolve the Christianity of the New Testament into philanthropy; and, on the other hand, writers like Mr. Carlyle will not let us forget that the world is as dark and evil as the Bible draws it. This writer feels both in one. No one can show more sympathy with enlarged and varied64 ideas of human happiness, no one has connected them more fearlessly with Christian principles, or claimed from those principles more unlimited65 developments, even for the physical well-being66 of men. No one has extended wider the limits of Christian generosity67, forbearance, and tolerance68. But, on the other hand, what is striking is, that all this is compatible, and is made to appear so, with the most profound and terrible sense of evil, with indignation and scorn which is scathing69 where it kindles70 and strikes, with a capacity and energy of deliberate religious hatred71 against what is impure72 and false and ungodly, which mark one who has dared to realise and to sympathise with the wrath73 of Jesus Christ.
The world has been called in these later days, and from opposite directions, to revise its judgments74 about Jesus Christ. Christians75, on the one hand, have been called to do it by writers of whom M. Ernest Renan is the most remarkable and the most unflinching. But the sceptical and the unbelieving have likewise been obliged to change their ground and their tone, and no one with any self-respect or care for his credit even as a thinker and a man would like to repeat the superficial and shallow flippancy76 and irreligion of the last century. Two things have been specially77 insisted on. We have been told that if we are to see the truth of things as it is, we must disengage our minds from the deeply rooted associations and conceptions of a later theology, and try to form our impressions first-hand and unprompted from the earliest documents which we can reach. It has been further urged on us, in a more believing spirit, that we should follow the order by which in fact truth was unfolded, and rise from the full appreciation78 of our Lord's human nature to the acknowledgment of His Divine nature. It seems to us that the writer of this book has felt the force of both these appeals, and that his book is his answer to them. Here is the way in which he responds to both—to the latter indirectly79, but with a significance which no one can mistake; to the former directly and avowedly80. He undertakes, isolating81 himself from current beliefs, and restricting himself to the documents from which, if from any source at all, the original facts about Christ are to be learned, to examine what the genuine impression is which an attempt to realise the statements about him leaves on the mind. This has been done by others, with results supposed to be unfavourable to Christianity. He has been plainly moved by these results, though not a hint is given of the existence of Renan or Strauss. But the effect on his own mind has been to drive him back on a closer survey of the history in its first fountains, and to bring him from it filled more than ever with wonder at its astonishing phenomena83, to protest against the poverty and shallowness of the most ambitious and confident of these attempts. They leave the historical Character which they pourtray still unsounded, its motives, objects, and feelings absolutely incomprehensible. He accepts the method to reverse the product. "Look at Christ historically," people say; "see Him as He really was." The answer here is, "Well, I will look at Him with whatever aid a trained historical imagination can look at Him. I accept your challenge; I admit your difficulties. I will dare to do what you do. I will try and look at the very facts themselves, with singleness and 'innocence84 of the eye,' trying to see nothing more than I really see, and trying to see all that my eye falls on. I will try to realise indeed what is recorded of Him. And this is what I see. This is the irresistible85 impression from the plainest and most elementary part of the history, if we are to accept any history at all. A miracle could not be more unlike the order of our experience than the Character set before us is unique and unapproachable in all known history. Further, all that makes the superiority of the modern world to the ancient, and is most permanent and pregnant with improvement in it, may be traced to the appearance of that Character, and to the work which He planned and did. You ask for a true picture of Him, drawn86 with freedom, drawn with courage; here, if you dare look at it, is what those who wrote of Him showed Him to be. Renan has tried to draw this picture. Take the Gospels as they stand; treat them simply as biographies; look, and see, and think of what they tell, and then ask yourself about Renan's picture, and what it looks like when placed side by side with the truth."
This, as we have ventured to express it in our own words, seems to be the writer's position. It is at any rate the effect of his book, to our minds. The inquiry, it must always be remembered, is a preliminary one, dealing, as he says, with the easiest and obvious elements of the problem; and much that seems inadequate and unsatisfactory may be developed hereafter. He starts from what, to those who already have the full belief, must appear a low level. He takes, as it will be seen, the documents as they stand. He takes little more than the first three Gospels, and these as a whole, without asking minute questions about them. The mythical87 theory he dismisses as false to nature, in dealing with such a Character and such results. He talks in his preface of "critically weighing" the facts; but the expression is misleading. It is true that we may talk of criticism of character; but the words naturally suggest that close cross-questioning of documents and details which has produced such remarkable results in modern investigations88; and of this there is none. It is a work in no sense of criticism; it is a work of what he calls the "trained historical imagination"; a work of broad and deep knowledge of human nature and the world it works in and creates about it; a work of steady and large insight into character, and practical judgment on moral likelihoods. He answers Strauss as he answers Renan, by producing the interpretation89 of a character, so living, so in accordance with all before and after, that it overpowers and sweeps away objections; a picture, an analysis or outline, if he pleases, which justifies90 itself and is its own evidence, by its originality and internal consistency91. Criticism in detail does not affect him. He assumes nothing of the Gospels, except that they are records; neither their inspiration in any theological sense, nor their authorship, nor their immunity92 from mistake, nor the absolute purity of their texts. But taking them as a whole he discerns in them a Character which, if you accept them at all and on any terms, you cannot mistake. Even if the copy is ever so imperfect, ever so unskilful, ever so blurred94 and defaced, there is no missing the features any more than a man need miss the principle of a pattern because it is rudely or confusedly traced. He looks at these "biographies" as a geologist95 might do at a disturbed series of strata96; and he feeds his eye upon them till he gets such a view of the coherent whole as will stand independent of the right or wrong disposition97 of the particular fragments. To the mind which discerns the whole, the regulating principle, the general curves and proportions of the strata may be just as visible after the disturbance98 as before it. The Gospels bring before us the visible and distinct outlines of a life which, after all efforts to alter the idea of it, remains99 still the same; they present certain clusters of leading ideas and facts so embedded100 in their substance that no criticism of detail can possibly get rid of them, without absolutely obliterating101 the whole record. It is this leading idea, or cluster of ideas, to be gained by intent gazing, which the writer disengages from all questions of criticism in the narrow sense of the word, and sets before us as explaining the history of Christianity, and as proving themselves by that explanation. That the world has been moved we know. "Give me," he seems to say, "the Character which is set forth in the Gospels, and I can show how He moved it":—
It is in the object of the present treatise102 to exhibit Christ's career in outline. No other career ever had so much unity93; no other biography is so simple or can so well afford to dispense103 with details. Men in general take up scheme after scheme, as circumstances suggest one or another, and therefore most biographies are compelled to pass from one subject to another, and to enter into a multitude of minute questions, to divide the life carefully into periods by chronological104 landmarks105 accurately106 determined107, to trace the gradual development of character and ripening108 or change of opinions. But Christ formed one plan and executed it; no important change took place in his mode of thinking, speaking, or acting109; at least the evidence before us does not enable us to trace any such change. It is possible, indeed, for students of his life to find details which they may occupy themselves with discussing; they may map out the chronology of it, and devise methods of harmonising the different accounts; but such details are of little importance compared with the one grand question, what was Christ's plan, and throw scarcely any light upon that question. What was Christ's plan is the main question which will be investigated in the present treatise, and that vision of universal monarchy110 which we have just been considering affords an appropriate introduction to it….
We conclude then, that Christ in describing himself as a king, and at the same time as king of the Kingdom of God—in other words as a king representing the Majesty111 of the Invisible King of a theocracy112—claimed the character first of Founder, next of Legislator; thirdly, in a certain high and peculiar60 sense, of Judge, of a new divine society.
In defining as above the position which Christ assumed, we have not entered into controvertible113 matter. We have not rested upon single passages, nor drawn upon the fourth Gospel. To deny that Christ did undertake to found and to legislate114 for a new theocratic115 society, and that he did claim the office of Judge of mankind, is indeed possible, but only to those who altogether deny the credibility of the extant biographies of Christ. If those biographies be admitted to be generally trustworthy, then Christ undertook to be what we have described; if not, then of course this, but also every other account of him falls to the ground.
We have said that he starts from a low level; and he restricts himself so entirely at the opening to facts which do not involve dispute, that his views of them are necessarily incomplete, and, so to say, provisional and deliberate understatements. He begins no higher than the beginning of the public ministry116, the Baptism, and the Temptation; and his account of these leaves much to say, though it suggests much of what is left unsaid. But he soon gets to the proper subject of his book—the absolute uniqueness of Him whose equally unique work has been the Christian Church. And this uniqueness he finds in the combination of "unbounded personal pretensions," and the possession, claimed and believed, of boundless117 power, with an absolutely unearthly use of His pretensions and His power, and with a goodness which has proved to be, and still is, the permanent and ever-flowing source of moral elevation and improvement in the world. He early comes across the question of miracles, and, as he says, it is impossible to separate the claim to them and the belief in them from the story. We find Christ, he says, "describing himself as a king, and at the same time as king of the Kingdom of God"; calling forth and founding a new and divine society, and claiming to be, both now and hereafter, the Judge without appeal of all mankind; "he considered, in short, heaven and hell to be in his hands." And we find, on the other hand, that as such He has been received. To such an astonishing chain of phenomena miracles naturally belong:—
When we contemplate118 this scheme as a whole, and glance at the execution and results of it, three things strike us with astonishment119. First, its prodigious120 originality, if the expression may be used. What other man has had the courage or elevation of mind to say, "I will build up a state by the mere57 force of my will, without help from the kings of the world, without taking advantage of any of the secondary causes which unite men together—unity of interest or speech, or blood-relationship. I will make laws for my state which shall never be repealed121, and I will defy all the powers of destruction that are at work in the world to destroy what I build"?
Secondly122, we are astonished at the calm confidence with which the scheme was carried out. The reason why statesmen can seldom work on this vast scale is that it commonly requires a whole lifetime to gain that ascendency over their fellow-men which such schemes presuppose. Some of the leading organisers of the world have said, "I will work my way to supreme123 power, and then I will execute great plans." But Christ overleaped the first stage altogether. He did not work his way to royalty124, but simply said to all men, "I am your king." He did not struggle forward to a position in which he could found a new state, but simply founded it.
Thirdly, we are astonished at the prodigious success of the scheme. It is not more certain that Christ presented himself to men as the founder, legislator, and judge of a divine society than it is certain that men have accepted him in these characters, that the divine society has been founded, that it has lasted nearly two thousand years, that it has extended over a large and the most highly-civilised portion of the earth's surface, and that it continues full of vigour125 at the present day.
Between the astonishing design and its astonishing success there intervenes an astonishing instrumentality—that of miracles. It will be thought by some that in asserting miracles to have been actually wrought126 by Christ we go beyond what the evidence, perhaps beyond what any possible evidence, is able to sustain. Waiving127, then, for the present, the question whether miracles were actually wrought, we may state a fact which is fully4 capable of being established by ordinary evidence, and which is actually established by evidence as ample as any historical fact whatever—the fact, namely, that Christ professed128 to work miracles. We may go further, and assert with confidence that Christ was believed by his followers really to work miracles, and that it was mainly on this account that they conceded to Him the pre-eminent dignity and authority which he claimed. The accounts which we have of these miracles may be exaggerated; it is possible that in some special cases stories have been related which have no foundation whatever; but on the whole, miracles play so important a part in Christ's scheme, that any theory which would represent them as due entirely to the imagination of his followers or of a later age destroys the credibility of the documents not partially129 but wholly, and leaves Christ a personage as mythical as Hercules. Now, the present treatise aims to show that the Christ of the Gospels is not mythical, by showing that the character those biographies portray130 is in all its large features strikingly consistent, and at the same time so peculiar as to be altogether beyond the reach of invention both by individual genius and still more by what is called the "consciousness of an age." Now, if the character depicted131 in the Gospels is in the main real and historical, they must be generally trustworthy, and if so, the responsibility of miracles is fixed132 on Christ. In this case the reality of the miracles themselves depends in a great degree on the opinion we form of Christ's veracity, and this opinion must arise gradually from the careful examination of his whole life. For our present purpose, which is to investigate the plan which Christ formed and the way in which he executed it, it matters nothing whether the miracles were real or imaginary; in either case, being believed to be real, they had the same effect. Provisionally, therefore, we may speak of them as real.
Without the belief in miracles, as he says, it is impossible to conceive the history of the Church:—
If we suppose that Christ really performed no miracles, and that those which are attributed to him were the product of self-deception mixed in some proportion or other with imposture133, then no doubt the faith of St. Paul and St. John was an empty chimera134, a mere misconception; but it is none the less true that those apparent miracles were essential to Christ's success, and that had he not pretended to perform them the Christian Church would never have been founded, and the name of Jesus of Nazareth would be known at this day only to the curious in Jewish antiquities135.
But he goes on to point out what was the use which Christ made of miracles, and how it was that they did not, as they might have done, even impede136 His purpose of founding His kingdom on men's consciences and not on their terrors. In one of the most remarkable passages perhaps ever written on the Gospel miracles as they are seen when simply looked at as they are described, the writer says:—
He imposed upon himself a strict restraint in the dse of his supernatural powers. He adopted the principle that he was not sent to destroy men's lives but to save them, and rigidly137 abstained139 in practice from inflicting140 any kind of damage or harm. In this course he persevered141 so steadily142 that it became generally understood. Every one knew that this king, whose royal pretensions were so prominent, had an absolutely unlimited patience, and that he would endure the keenest criticism, the bitterest and most malignant143 personal attacks. Men's mouths were open to discuss his claims and character with perfect freedom; so far from regarding him with that excessive fear which might have prevented them from receiving his doctrine intelligently, they learnt gradually to treat him, even while they acknowledged his extraordinary power, with a reckless animosity which they would have been afraid to show towards an ordinary enemy. With curious inconsistency they openly charged him with being leagued with the devil; in other words, they acknowledged that he was capable of boundless mischief144, and yet they were so little afraid of him that they were ready to provoke him to use his whole power against themselves. The truth was that they believed him to be disarmed145 by his own deliberate resolution, and they judged rightly. He punished their malice146 only by verbal reproofs148, and they gradually gathered courage to attack the life of one whose miraculous149 powers they did not question.
Meantime, while this magnanimous self-restraint saved him from false friends and mercenary or servile flatterers, and saved the kingdom which he founded from the corruption152 of self-interest and worldliness, it gave him a power over the good such as nothing else could have given. For the noblest and most amiable153 thing that can be seen is power mixed with gentleness, the reposing154, self-restraining attitude of strength. These are the "fine strains of honour," these are "the graces of the gods"—
To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' the air.
And yet to charge the sulphur with a bolt
That shall but rive an oak.
And while he did no mischief under any provocation155, his power flowed in acts of beneficence on every side. Men could approach near to him, could eat and drink with him, could listen to his talk and ask him questions, and they found him not accessible only, but warmhearted, and not occupied so much with his own plans that he could not attend to a case of distress156 or mental perplexity. They found him full of sympathy and appreciation, dropping words of praise, ejaculations of admiration157, tears. He surrounded himself with those who had tasted of his bounty158, sick people whom he had cured, lepers whose death-in-life, demoniacs whose hell-in-life, he had terminated with a single powerful word. Among these came loving hearts who thanked him for friends and relatives rescued for them out of the jaws159 of premature160 death, and others whom he had saved, by a power which did not seem different, from vice18 and degradation161.
This temperance in the use of supernatural power is the masterpiece of Christ. It is a moral miracle superinduced upon a physical one. This repose162 in greatness makes him surely the most sublime163 image ever offered to the human imagination. And it is precisely164 this trait which gave him his immense and immediate165 ascendency over men. If the question be put—Why was Christ so successful?—Why did men gather round him at his call, form themselves into a new society according to his wish, and accept him with unbounded devotion as their legislator and judge? some will answer, Because of the miracles which attested166 his divine character; others, Because of the intrinsic beauty and divinity of the great law of love which he propounded167. But miracles, as we have seen, have not by themselves this persuasive168 power. That a man possesses a strange power which I cannot understand is no reason why I should receive his words as divine oracles169 of truth. The powerful man is not of necessity also wise; his power may terrify and yet not convince. On the other hand, the law of love, however divine, was but a precept170. Undoubtedly171 it deserved that men should accept it for its intrinsic worth, but men are not commonly so eager to receive the words of wise men nor so unbounded in their gratitude172 to them. It was neither for his miracles nor for the beauty of his doctrine that Christ was worshipped. Nor was it for his winning personal character, nor for the persecutions he endured, nor for his martyrdom. It was for the inimitable unity which all these things made when taken together. In other words, it was for this that he whose power and greatness as shown in his miracles were overwhelming denied himself the use of his power, treated it as a slight thing, walked among men as though he were one of them, relieved them in distress, taught them to love each other, bore with undisturbed patience a perpetual hailstorm of calumny173; and when his enemies grew fiercer, continued still to endure their attacks in silence, until, petrified174 and bewildered with astonishment, men saw him arrested and put to death with torture, refusing steadfastly175 to use in his own behalf the power he conceived he held for the benefit of others. It was the combination of greatness and self-sacrifice which won their hearts, the mighty176 powers held under a mighty control, the unspeakable condescension177, the Cross of Christ.
And he goes on to describe the effect upon the world; and what it was that "drew all men unto Him":—
To sum up the results of this chapter. We began by remarking that an astonishing plan met with an astonishing success, and we raised the question to what instrumentality that success was due. Christ announced himself as the Founder and Legislator of a new Society, and as the Supreme Judge of men. Now by what means did he procure178 that these immense pretensions should be allowed? He might have done it by sheer power, he might have adopted persuasion179, and pointed180 out the merits of the scheme and of the legislation he proposed to introduce. But he adopted a third plan, which had the effect not merely of securing obedience181, but of exciting enthusiasm and devotion. He laid men under an immense obligation. He convinced them that he was a person of altogether transcendent greatness, one who needed nothing at their hands, one whom it was impossible to benefit by conferring riches, or fame, or dominion182 upon him, and that, being so great, he had devoted183 himself of mere benevolence184 to their good. He showed them that for their sakes he lived a hard and laborious185 life, and exposed himself to the utmost malice of powerful men. They saw him hungry, though they believed him able to turn the stones into bread; they saw his royal pretensions spurned186, though they believed that he could in a moment take into his hand all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; they saw his life in danger; they saw him at last expire in agonies, though they believed that, had he so willed it, no danger could harm him, and that had he thrown himself from the topmost pinnacle187 of the temple he would have been softly received in the arms of ministering angels. Witnessing his sufferings, and convinced by the miracles they saw him work that they were voluntarily endured, men's hearts were touched, and pity for weakness blending strangely with wondering admiration of unlimited power, an agitation188 of gratitude, sympathy, and astonishment, such as nothing else could ever excite, sprang up in them; and when, turning from his deeds to his words, they found this very self-denial which had guided his own life prescribed as the principle which should guide theirs, gratitude broke forth in joyful189 obedience, self-denial produced self-denial, and the Law and Lawgiver together were enshrined in their inmost hearts for inseparable veneration190.
It is plain that whatever there is novel in such a line of argument must depend upon the way in which it is handled; and it is the extraordinary and sustained power with which this is done which gives its character to the book. The writer's method consists in realising with a depth of feeling and thought which it would not be easy to match, what our Lord was in His human ministry, as that ministry is set before us by those who witnessed it; and next, in showing in detail the connection of that ministry, which wrought so much by teaching, but still more by the Divine example, "not sparing words but resting most on deeds," with all that is highest, purest, and best in the morality of Christendom, and with what is most fruitful and most hopeful in the differences between the old world and our own. We cannot think we are wrong when we say that no one could speak of our Lord as this writer speaks, with the enthusiasm, the overwhelming sense of His inexpressible authority, of His unapproachable perfection, with the profound faith which lays everything at His feet, and not also believe all that the Divine Society which Christ founded has believed about Him. And though for the present his subject is history, and human morality as it appears to have been revolutionised and finally fixed by that history, and not the theology which subsequent in date is yet the foundation of both, it is difficult to imagine any reader going along with him and not breaking out at length into the burst, "My Lord and my God." If it is not so, then the phenomenon is strange indeed; for a belief below the highest and truest has produced an appreciation, a reverence191, an adoration193 which the highest belief has only produced in the choicest examples of those who have had it, and by the side of which the ordinary exhibitions of the divine history are pale and feeble. To few, indeed, as it seems to us, has it been given to feel, and to make others feel, what in all the marvellous complexity194 of high and low, and in all the Divine singleness of His goodness and power, the Son of Man appeared in the days of His flesh. It is not more vivid or more wonderful than what the Gospels with so much detail tell us of that awful ministry in real flesh and blood, with a human soul and with all the reality of man's nature; but most of us, after all, read the Gospels with sealed and unwondering eyes. But, dwelling on the Manhood, so as almost to overpower us with the contrast between the distinct and living truth and the dead and dull familiarity of our thoughts of routine and custom, he does so in such a way that it is impossible to doubt, though the word Incarnation never occurs in the volume, that all the while he has before his thoughts the "taking of the manhood into God." What is the Gospel picture?
And let us pause once more to consider that which remains throughout a subject of ever-recurring astonishment, the unbounded personal pretensions which Christ advances. It is common in human history to meet with those who claim some superiority over their fellows. Men assert a pre-eminence195 over their fellow-citizens or fellow-countrymen and become rulers of those who at first were their equals, but they dream of nothing greater than some partial control over the actions of others for the short space of a lifetime. Few indeed are those to whom it is given to influence future ages. Yet some men have appeared who have been "as levers to uplift the earth and roll it in another course." Homer by creating literature, Socrates by creating science, Caesar by carrying civilisation196 inland from the shores of the Mediterranean197, Newton by starting science upon a career of steady progress, may be said to have attained198 this eminence. But these men gave a single impact like that which is conceived to have first set the planets in motion; Christ claims to be a perpetual attractive power like the sun which determines their orbit. They contributed to men some discovery and passed away; Christ's discovery is himself. To humanity struggling with its passions and its destiny he says, Cling to me, cling ever closer to me. If we believe St. John, he represented himself as the Light of the world, as the Shepherd of the souls of men, as the Way to immortality199, as the Vine or Life-tree of humanity. And if we refuse to believe that he used those words, we cannot deny, without rejecting all the evidence before us, that he used words which have substantially the same meaning. We cannot deny that he commanded men to leave everything and attach themselves to him; that he declared himself king, master, and judge of men; that he promised to give rest to all the weary and heavy-laden; that he instructed his followers to hope for life from feeding on his body and blood.
But it is doubly surprising to observe that these enormous pretensions were advanced by one whose special peculiarity, not only among his contemporaries but among the remarkable men that have appeared before and since, was an almost feminine tenderness and humility200. This characteristic was remarked, as we have seen, by the Baptist, and Christ himself was fully conscious of it. Yet so clear to him was his own dignity and infinite importance to the human race as an objective fact with which his own opinion of himself had nothing to do, that in the same breath in which he asserts it in the most unmeasured language, he alludes201, apparently202 with entire unconsciousness, to his humility. "Take my yoke203 upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek204 and lowly of heart." And again, when speaking to his followers of the arrogance205 of the Pharisees, he says, "They love to be called Rabbi; but be not you called Rabbi: for one is your master, even Christ."
Who is the humble206 man? It is he who resists with special watchfulness207 and success the temptations which the conditions of his life may offer to exaggerate his own importance…. If he judged himself correctly, and if the Baptist described him well when he compared him to a lamb, and, we may add, if his biographers have delineated his character faithfully, Christ was one naturally contented208 with obscurity, wanting the restless desire for distinction and eminence which is common in great men, hating to put forward personal claims, disliking competition and "disputes who should be greatest," finding something bombastic209 in the titles of royalty, fond of what is simple and homely210, of children, of poor people, occupying himself so much with the concerns of others, with the relief of sickness and want, that the temptation to exaggerate the importance of his own thoughts and plans was not likely to master him; lastly, entertaining for the human race a feeling so singularly fraternal that he was likely to reject as a sort of treason the impulse to set himself in any manner above them. Christ, it appears, was this humble man. When we have fully pondered the fact we may be in a condition to estimate the force of the evidence which, submitted to his mind, could induce him, in direct opposition211 to all his tastes and instincts, to lay claim, persistently212, with the calmness of entire conviction, in opposition to the whole religious world, in spite of the offence which his own followers conceived, to a dominion more transcendent, more universal, more complete, than the most delirious213 votary214 of glory ever aspired215 to in his dreams.
And what is it that our Lord has done for man by being so truly man?
This then it is which is wanted to raise the feeling of humanity into an enthusiasm; when the precept of love has been given, an image must be set before the eyes of those who are called upon to obey it, an ideal or type of man which may be noble and amiable enough to raise the whole race and make the meanest member of it sacred with reflected glory.
Did not Christ do this? Did the command to love go forth to those who had never seen a human being they could revere192? Could his followers turn upon him and say, How can we love a creature so degraded, full of vile150 wants and contemptible216 passions, whose little life is most harmlessly spent when it is an empty round of eating and sleeping; a creature destined217 for the grave and for oblivion when his allotted218 term of fretfulness and folly219 has expired? Of this race Christ himself was a member, and to this day is it not the best answer to all blasphemers of the species, the best consolation220 when our sense of its degradation is keenest, that a human brain was behind his forehead, and a human heart beating in his breast, and that within the whole creation of God nothing more elevated or more attractive has yet been found than he? And if it be answered that there was in his nature something exceptional and peculiar, that humanity must not be measured by the stature221 of Christ, let us remember that it was precisely thus that he wished it to be measured, delighting to call himself the Son of Man, delighting to call the meanest of mankind his brothers. If some human beings are abject222 and contemptible, if it be incredible to us that they can have any high dignity or destiny, do we regard them from so great a height as Christ? Are we likely to be more pained by their faults and deficiencies than he was? Is our standard higher than his? And yet he associated by preference with the meanest of the race; no contempt for them did he ever express, no suspicion that they might be less dear than the best and wisest to the common Father, no doubt that they were naturally capable of rising to a moral elevation like his own. There is nothing of which a man may be prouder than of this; it is the most hopeful and redeeming223 fact in history; it is precisely what was wanting to raise the love of man as man to enthusiasm. An eternal glory has been shed upon the human race by the love Christ bore to it And it was because the Edict of Universal Love went forth to men whose hearts were in no cynical224 mood, but possessed225 with a spirit of devotion to a man, that words which at any other time, however grandly they might sound, would have been but words, penetrated so deeply, and along with the law of love the power of love was given. Therefore also the first Christians were enabled to dispense with philosophical226 phrases, and instead of saying that they loved the ideal of man in man, could simply say and feel that they loved Christ in every man.
We have here the very kernel227 of the Christian moral scheme. We have distinctly before us the end Christ proposed to himself, and the means he considered adequate to the attainment228 of it….
But how to give to the meagre and narrow hearts of men such enlargement? How to make them capable of a universal sympathy? Christ believed it possible to bind229 men to their kind, but on one condition—that they were first bound fast to himself. He stood forth as the representative of men, he identified himself with the cause and with the interests of all human beings; he was destined, as he began before long obscurely to intimate, to lay down his life for them. Few of us sympathise originally and directly with this devotion; few of us can perceive in human nature itself any merit sufficient to evoke230 it. But it is not so hard to love and venerate231 him who felt it. So vast a passion of love, a devotion so comprehensive, elevated, deliberate, and profound, has not elsewhere been in any degree approached save by some of his imitators. And as love provokes love, many have found it possible to conceive for Christ an attachment232 the closeness of which no words can describe, a veneration so possessing and absorbing the man within them, that they have said, "I live no more, but Christ lives in me."
And what, in fact, has been the result, after the utmost and freest abatement233 for the objections of those who criticise234 the philosophical theories or the practical effects of Christianity?
But that Christ's method, when rightly applied235, is really of mighty force may be shown by an argument which the severest censor236 of Christians will hardly refuse to admit. Compare the ancient with the modern world: "Look on this picture and on that." The broad distinction in the characters of men forces itself into prominence. Among all the men of the ancient heathen world there were scarcely one or two to whom we might venture to apply the epithet237 "holy." In other words, there were not more than one or two, if any, who, besides being virtuous238 in their actions, were possessed with an unaffected enthusiasm of goodness, and besides abstaining239 from vice, regarded even a vicious thought with horror. Probably no one will deny that in Christian countries this higher-toned goodness, which we call holiness, has existed. Few will maintain that it has been exceedingly rare. Perhaps the truth is that there has scarcely been a town in any Christian country since the time of Christ, where a century has passed without exhibiting a character of such elevation that his mere presence has shamed the bad and made the good better, and has been felt at times like the presence of God Himself. And if this be so, has Christ failed? or can Christianity die?
The principle of feeling and action which Christ implanted in that Divine Society which He founded, or in other words, His morality, had two peculiarities240; it sprang, and it must spring still, from what this writer calls all through an "enthusiasm"; and this enthusiasm was kindled241 and maintained by the influence of a Person. There can be no goodness without impulses to goodness, any more than these impulses are enough without being directed by truth and reason; but the impulses must come before the guidance, and "Christ's Theocracy" is described "as a great attempt to set all the virtues242 of the world on this basis, and to give it a visible centre and fountain." He thus describes how personal influence is the great instrument of moral quickening and elevation:—
How do men become for the most part "pure, generous, and humane"? By personal, not by logical influences. They have been reared by parents who had these qualities, they have lived in a society which had a high tone, they have been accustomed to see just acts done, to hear gentle words spoken, and the justness and the gentleness have passed into their hearts, and slowly moulded their habits and made their moral discernment clear; they remember commands and prohibitions244 which it is a pleasure to obey for the sake of those who gave them; often they think of those who may be dead and say, "How would this action appear to him? Would he approve that word or disapprove245 it?" To such no baseness appears a small baseness because its consequences may be small, nor does the yoke of law seem burdensome although it is ever on their necks, nor do they dream of covering a sin by an atoning246 act of virtue243. Often in solitude247 they blush when some impure fancy sails across the clear heaven of their minds, because they are never alone, because the absent Examples, the Authorities they still revere, rule not their actions only but their inmost hearts; because their conscience is indeed awake and alive, representing all the nobleness with which they stand in sympathy, and reporting their most hidden indecorum before a public opinion of the absent and the dead.
Of these two influences—that of Reason and that of Living Example—which would a wise reformer reinforce? Christ chose the last He gathered all men into a common relation to himself, and demanded that each should set him on the pedestal of his heart, giving a lower place to all other objects of worship, to father and mother, to husband or wife. In him should the loyalty248 of all hearts centre; he should be their pattern, their Authority and Judge. Of him and his service should no man be ashamed, but to those who acknowledged it morality should be an easy yoke, and the law of right as spontaneous as the law of life; sufferings should be easy to bear, and the loss of worldly friends repaired by a new home in the bosom249 of the Christian kingdom; finally, in death itself their sleep should be sweet upon whose tombstone it could be written "Obdormivit in Christo."
In his treatment of this part of the subject, the work of Christ as the true Creator, through the Christian Church, of living morality, what is peculiar and impressive is the way in which sympathy with Christianity in its antique and original form, in its most austere250, unearthly, exacting251 aspects, is combined with sympathy with the practical realities of modern life, with its boldness, its freedom, its love of improvement, its love of truth. It is no common grasp which can embrace both so easily and so firmly. He is one of those writers whose strong hold on their ideas is shown by the facility with which they can afford to make large admissions, which are at first sight startling. Nowhere are more tremendous passages written than in this book about the corruptions252 of that Christianity which yet the writer holds to be the one hope and safeguard of mankind. He is not afraid to pursue his investigation independently of any inquiry into the peculiar claims to authority of the documents on which it rests. He at once goes to their substance and their facts, and the Person and Life and Character which they witness to. He is not afraid to put Faith on exactly the same footing as Life, neither higher nor lower, as the title to membership in the Church; a doctrine which, if it makes imperfect and rudimentary faith as little a disqualification as imperfect and inconsistent life, obviously does not exclude the further belief that deliberate heresy253 is on the same level with deliberate profligacy254. But the clear sense of what is substantial, the power of piercing through accidents and conditions to the real kernel of the matter, the scornful disregard of all entanglement255 of apparent contradictions and inconsistencies, enable him to bring out the lesson which he finds before him with overpowering force. He sees before him immense mercy, immense condescension, immense indulgence; but there are also immense requirements—requirements not to be fulfilled by rule or exhausted256 by the lapse257 of time, and which the higher they raise men the more they exact—an immense seriousness and strictness, an immense care for substance and truth, to the disregard, if necessary, of the letter and the form. The "Dispensation of the Spirit" has seldom had an interpreter more in earnest and more determined to see meaning in his words. We have room but for two illustrations. He is combating the notion that the work of Christianity and the Church nowadays is with the good, and that it is waste of hope and strength to try to reclaim258 the bad and the lost:—
Once more, however, the world may answer, Christ may be consistent in this, but is he wise? It may be true that he does demand an enthusiasm, and that such an enthusiasm may be capable of awakening259 the moral sense in hearts in which it seemed dead. But if, notwithstanding this demand, only a very few members of the Christian Church are capable of the enthusiasm, what use in imposing260 on the whole body a task which the vast majority are not qualified261 to perform? Would it not be well to recognise the fact which we cannot alter, and to abstain138 from demanding from frail262 human nature what human nature cannot render? Would it not be well for the Church to impose upon its ordinary members only ordinary duties? When the Bernard or the Whitefield appears let her by all means find occupation for him. Let her in such cases boldly invade the enemy's country. But in ordinary times would it not be well for her to confine herself to more modest and practicable undertakings263? There is much for her to do even though she should honestly confess herself unable to reclaim the lost. She may reclaim the young, administer reproof147 to slight lapses264, maintain a high standard of virtue, soften265 manners, diffuse266 enlightenment. Would it not be well for her to adapt her ends to her means?
No, it would not be well; it would be fatal to do so; and Christ meant what he said, and said what was true, when he pronounced the Enthusiasm of Humanity to be everything, and the absence of it to be the absence of everything. The world understands its own routine well enough; what it does not understand is the mode of changing that routine. It has no appreciation of the nature or measure of the power of enthusiasm, and on this matter it learns nothing from experience, but after every fresh proof of that power, relapses from its brief astonishment into its old ignorance, and commits precisely the same miscalculation on the next occasion. The power of enthusiasm is, indeed, far from being unlimited; in some cases it is very small….
But one power enthusiasm has almost without limit—the power of propagating itself; and it was for this that Christ depended on it. He contemplated267 a Church in which the Enthusiasm of Humanity should not be felt by two or three only, but widely. In whatever heart it might be kindled, he calculated that it would pass rapidly into other hearts, and that as it can make its heat felt outside the Church, so it would preserve the Church itself from lukewarmncss. For a lukewarm Church he would not condescend268 to legislate, nor did he regard it as at all inevitable269 that the Church should become lukewarm. He laid it as a duty upon the Church to reclaim the lost, because he did not think it utopian to suppose that the Church might be not in its best members only, but through its whole body, inspired by that ardour of humanity that can charm away the bad passions of the wildest heart, and open to the savage270 and the outlaw271 lurking272 in moral wildernesses273 an entrancing view of the holy and tranquil274 order that broods over the streets and palaces of the city of God….
Christianity is an enthusiasm or it is nothing; and if there sometimes appear in the history of the Church instances of a tone which is pure and high without being enthusiastic, of a mood of Christian feeling which is calmly favourable82 to virtue without being victorious275 against vice, it will probably be found that all that is respectable in such a mood is but the slowly-subsiding movement of an earlier enthusiasm, and all that is produced by the lukewarmness of the time itself is hypocrisy276 and corrupt151 conventionalism.
Christianity, then, would sacrifice its divinity if it abandoned its missionary277 character and became a mere educational institution. Surely this Article of Conversion278 is the true articulus stantis aut cadentis ecclesiae. When the power of reclaiming279 the lost dies out of the Church, it ceases to be the Church. It may remain a useful institution, though it is most likely to become an immoral280 and mischievous281 one. Where the power remains, there, whatever is wanting, it may still be said that "the tabernacle of God is with men."
One more passage about those who in all Churches and sects282 think that all that Christ meant by His call was to give them a means to do what the French call faire son salut:—
It appears throughout the Sermon on the Mount that there was a class of persons whom Christ regarded with peculiar aversion—the persons who call themselves one thing and are another. He describes them by a word which originally meant an "actor." Probably it may in Christ's time have already become current in the sense which we give to the word "hypocrite." But no doubt whenever it was used the original sense of the word was distinctly remembered. And in this Sermon, whenever Christ denounces any vice, it is with the words "Be not you like the actors." In common with all great reformers, Christ felt that honesty in word and deed was the fundamental virtue; dishonesty, including affectation, self-consciousness, love of stage effect, the one incurable283 vice. Our thoughts, words, and deeds are to be of a piece. For example, if we would pray to God, let us go into some inner room where none but God shall see us; to pray at the corner of the streets, where the passing crowd may admire our devotion, is to act a prayer. If we would keep down the rebellious284 flesh by fasting, this concerns ourselves only; it is acting to parade before the world our self-mortification. And if we would put down sin let us put it down in ourselves first; it is only the actor who begins by frowning at it in others. But there are subtler forms of hypocrisy, which Christ does not denounce, probably because they have sprung since out of the corruption of a subtler creed285. The hypocrite of that age wanted simply money or credit with the people. His ends were those of the vulgar, though his means were different Christ endeavoured to cure both alike of their vulgarity by telling them of other riches and another happiness laid up in heaven. Some, of course, would neither understand nor regard his words, others would understand and receive them. But a third class would receive them without understanding them, and instead of being cured of their avarice286 and sensuality, would simply transfer them to new objects of desire. Shrewd enough to discern Christ's greatness, instinctively287 believing what he said to be true, they would set out with a triumphant288 eagerness in pursuit of the heavenly riches, and laugh at the short-sighted and weak-minded speculator who contented himself with the easy but insignificant289 profits of a worldly life. They would practise assiduously the rules by which Christ said heaven was to be won. They would patiently turn the left cheek, indefatigibly walk the two miles, they would bless with effusion those who cursed them, and pray fluently for those who used them spitefully. To love their enemies, to love any one, they would certainly find impossible, but the outward signs of love might easily be learnt. And thus there would arise a new class of actors, not like those whom Christ denounced, exhibiting before an earthly audience and receiving their pay from human managers, but hoping to be paid for their performance out of the incorruptible treasures, and to impose by their dramatic talent upon their Father in heaven.
We have said that one peculiarity of this work is the connection which is kept in view from the first between the Founder and His work; between Christ and the Christian Church. He finds it impossible to speak of Him without that still existing witness of His having come, which is only less wonderful and unique than Himself. This is where, for the present, he leaves the subject:—
For the New Jerusalem, as we witness it, is no more exempt290 from corruption than was the Old…. First the rottenness of dying superstitions291, their barbaric manners, their intellectualism preferring system and debate to brotherhood292, strangling Christianity with theories and framing out of it a charlatan's philosophy which madly tries to stop the progress of science—all these corruptions have in the successive ages of its long life infected the Church, and many new and monstrous293 perversions294 of individual character have disgraced it. The creed which makes human nature richer and larger makes men at the same time capable of profounder sins; admitted into a holier sanctuary295, they are exposed to the temptation of a greater sacrilege; awakened296 to the sense of new obligations, they sometimes lose their simple respect for the old ones; saints that have resisted the subtlest temptations sometimes begin again, as it were, by yielding without a struggle to the coarsest; hypocrisy has become tenfold more ingenious and better supplied with disguises; in short, human nature has inevitably297 developed downwards298 as well as upwards299, and if the Christian ages be compared with those of heathenism, they are found worse as well as better, and it is possible to make it a question whether mankind has gained on the whole….
But the triumph of the Christian Church is that it is there—that the most daring of all speculative300 dreams, instead of being found impracticable, has been carried into effect, and when carried into effect, instead of being confined to a few select spirits, has spread itself over a vast space of the earth's surface, and when thus diffused301, instead of giving place after an age or two to something more adapted to a later time, has endured for two thousand years, and at the end of two thousand years, instead of lingering as a mere wreck302 spared by the tolerance of the lovers of the past, still displays vigour and a capacity of adjusting itself to new conditions, and lastly, in all the transformations303 it undergoes, remains visibly the same thing and inspired by its Founder's universal and unquenchable spirit.
It is in this and not in any freedom from abuses that the divine power of Christianity appears. Again, it is in this, and not in any completeness or all-sufficiency….
But the achievement of Christ in founding by his single will and power a structure so durable304 and so universal, is like no other achievement which history records. The masterpieces of the men of action are coarse and common in comparison with it, and the masterpieces of speculation305 flimsy and insubstantial. When we speak of it the commonplaces of admiration fail us altogether. Shall we speak of the originality of the design, of the skill displayed in the execution? All such terms are inadequate. Originality and contriving306 skill operated indeed, but, as it were, implicitly307. The creative effort which produced that against which, it is said, the gates of hell shall not prevail, cannot be analysed. No architects' designs were furnished for the New Jerusalem, no committee drew up rules for the Universal Commonwealth308. If in the works of Nature we can trace the indications of calculation, of a struggle with difficulties, of precaution, of ingenuity309, then in Christ's work it may be that the same indications occur. But these inferior and secondary powers were not consciously exercised; they were implicitly present in the manifold yet single creative act. The inconceivable work was done in calmness; before the eyes of men it was noiselessly accomplished310, attracting little attention. Who can describe that which unites men? Who has entered into the formation of speech which is the symbol of their union? Who can describe exhaustively the origin of civil society? He who can do these things can explain the origin of the Christian Church. For others it must be enough to say, "the Holy Ghost fell on those that believed." No man saw the building of the New Jerusalem, the workmen crowded together, the unfinished walls and unpaved streets; no man heard the chink of trowel and pickaxe; it descended311 out of heaven from God.
And here we leave this remarkable book. It seems to us one of those which permanently312 influence opinion, not so much by argument as such, as by opening larger views of the familiar and the long-debated, by deepening the ordinary channels of feeling, and by bringing men back to seriousness and rekindling313 their admiration, their awe314, their love, about what they know best. We have not dwelt on minute criticisms about points to which exception might be taken. We have not noticed even positions on which, without further explanation, we should more or less widely disagree. The general scope of it, and the seriousness as well as the grandeur315 and power with which the main idea is worked out, seem to make mere secondary objections intolerable. It is a fragment, with the disadvantages of a fragment. What is put before us is far from complete, and it needs to be completed. In part at least an answer has been given to the question what Christ was; but the question remains, not less important, and of which the answer is only here foreshadowed, who He was. But so far as it goes, what it does is this: in the face of all attempts to turn Christianity into a sentiment or a philosophy, it asserts, in a most remarkable manner, a historical religion and a historical Church; but it also seeks, in a manner equally remarkable, to raise and elevate the thoughts of all, on all sides, about Christ, as He showed Himself in the world, and about what Christianity was meant to be; to touch new springs of feeling; to carry back the Church to its "hidden fountains," and pierce through the veils which hide from us the reality of the wonders in which it began.
The book is indeed a protest against the stiffness of all cast-iron systems, and a warning against trusting in what is worn out. But it shows how the modern world, so complex, so refined, so wonderful, is, in all that it accounts good, but a reflection of what is described in the Gospels, and its civilisation, but an application of the laws of Christ, changing, it may be, indefinitely in outward form, but depending on their spirit as its ever-living spring. If we have misunderstood this book, and its cautious understatements are not understatements at all, but represent the limits beyond which the writer does not go, we can only say again it is one-of the strangest among books. If we have not misunderstood him, we have before us a writer who has a right to claim deference316 from those who think deepest and know most, when he pleads before them that not Philosophy can save and reclaim the world, but Faith in a Divine Person who is worthy45 of it, allegiance to a Divine Society which He founded, and union of hearts in the object for which He created it.
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1
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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grooves
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| n.沟( groove的名词复数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏v.沟( groove的第三人称单数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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pervades
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的第三人称单数 ) | |
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ascetic
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| adj.禁欲的；严肃的 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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originality
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| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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veracity
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| n.诚实 | |
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pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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postponed
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| vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发） | |
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proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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enthusiast
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| n.热心人，热衷者 | |
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postponing
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| v.延期，推迟( postpone的现在分词 ) | |
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evading
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| 逃避( evade的现在分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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postponement
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| n.推迟 | |
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followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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34
trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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bias
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| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
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ravages
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| 劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹 | |
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41
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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42
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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43
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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44
sifted
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| v.筛( sift的过去式和过去分词 )；筛滤；细查；详审 | |
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45
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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47
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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repel
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| v.击退，抵制，拒绝，排斥 | |
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inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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50
testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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maxim
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| n.格言，箴言 | |
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52
contradictories
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| n.矛盾的，抵触的( contradictory的名词复数 ) | |
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53
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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54
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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55
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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56
elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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57
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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58
Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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59
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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prominence
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| n.突出；显著；杰出；重要 | |
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63
apprehended
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 )； 理解 | |
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64
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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66
well-being
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| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
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67
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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68
tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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69
scathing
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| adj.（言词、文章）严厉的，尖刻的；不留情的adv.严厉地，尖刻地v.伤害，损害（尤指使之枯萎）( scathe的现在分词) | |
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70
kindles
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的第三人称单数 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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71
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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72
impure
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| adj.不纯净的，不洁的；不道德的，下流的 | |
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73
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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74
judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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75
Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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76
flippancy
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| n.轻率；浮躁；无礼的行动 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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avowedly
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| adv.公然地 | |
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81
isolating
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| adj.孤立的，绝缘的v.使隔离( isolate的现在分词 )；将…剔出（以便看清和单独处理）；使（某物质、细胞等）分离；使离析 | |
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favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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mythical
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| adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的 | |
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investigations
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| （正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究 | |
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interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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justifies
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| 证明…有理( justify的第三人称单数 )； 为…辩护； 对…作出解释； 为…辩解（或辩护） | |
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91
consistency
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| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
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immunity
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| n.优惠；免除；豁免，豁免权 | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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geologist
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| n.地质学家 | |
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strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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embedded
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| a.扎牢的 | |
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obliterating
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| v.除去( obliterate的现在分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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treatise
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| n.专著；(专题)论文 | |
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dispense
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| vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施 | |
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chronological
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| adj.按年月顺序排列的，年代学的 | |
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landmarks
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| n.陆标( landmark的名词复数 )；目标；（标志重要阶段的）里程碑 ~ (in sth)；有历史意义的建筑物（或遗址） | |
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accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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monarchy
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| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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theocracy
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| n.神权政治；僧侣政治 | |
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controvertible
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| adj.可争论的，有辩论余地的，可辩论的 | |
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114
legislate
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| vt.制定法律；n.法规，律例；立法 | |
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115
theocratic
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| adj.神权的，神权政治的 | |
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116
ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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117
boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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118
contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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119
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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120
prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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121
repealed
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| 撤销，废除( repeal的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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122
secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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123
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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124
royalty
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| n.皇家，皇族 | |
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125
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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126
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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127
waiving
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| v.宣布放弃( waive的现在分词 )；搁置；推迟；放弃（权利、要求等） | |
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128
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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129
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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130
portray
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| v.描写，描述；画(人物、景象等) | |
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131
depicted
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| 描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述 | |
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132
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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133
imposture
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| n.冒名顶替，欺骗 | |
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134
chimera
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| n.神话怪物；梦幻 | |
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135
antiquities
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| n.古老( antiquity的名词复数 )；古迹；古人们；古代的风俗习惯 | |
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136
impede
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| v.妨碍，阻碍，阻止 | |
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137
rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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138
abstain
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| v.自制，戒绝，弃权，避免 | |
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139
abstained
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| v.戒（尤指酒），戒除( abstain的过去式和过去分词 )；弃权（不投票） | |
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140
inflicting
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的现在分词 ) | |
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141
persevered
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| v.坚忍，坚持( persevere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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142
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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143
malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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144
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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145
disarmed
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| v.裁军( disarm的过去式和过去分词 )；使息怒 | |
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146
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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147
reproof
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| n.斥责，责备 | |
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148
reproofs
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| n.责备，责难，指责( reproof的名词复数 ) | |
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149
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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150
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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151
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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152
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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153
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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154
reposing
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| v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的现在分词 ) | |
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155
provocation
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| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
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156
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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157
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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158
bounty
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| n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与 | |
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159
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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160
premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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161
degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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162
repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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163
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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164
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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165
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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166
attested
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| adj.经检验证明无病的，经检验证明无菌的v.证明( attest的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；声称…属实；使宣誓 | |
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167
propounded
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| v.提出（问题、计划等）供考虑[讨论]，提议( propound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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168
persuasive
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| adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的 | |
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169
oracles
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| 神示所( oracle的名词复数 )； 神谕； 圣贤； 哲人 | |
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170
precept
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| n.戒律；格言 | |
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171
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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172
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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173
calumny
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| n.诽谤，污蔑，中伤 | |
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174
petrified
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| adj.惊呆的；目瞪口呆的v.使吓呆，使惊呆；变僵硬；使石化(petrify的过去式和过去分词) | |
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175
steadfastly
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| adv.踏实地，不变地；岿然；坚定不渝 | |
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176
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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177
condescension
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| n.自以为高人一等，贬低(别人) | |
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178
procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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179
persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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180
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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181
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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182
dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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183
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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184
benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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185
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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186
spurned
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| v.一脚踢开，拒绝接受( spurn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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187
pinnacle
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| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
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188
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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189
joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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190
veneration
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| n.尊敬，崇拜 | |
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191
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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192
revere
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| vt.尊崇，崇敬，敬畏 | |
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193
adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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194
complexity
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| n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物 | |
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195
eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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196
civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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197
Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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198
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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199
immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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200
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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201
alludes
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| 提及，暗指( allude的第三人称单数 ) | |
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202
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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203
yoke
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| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
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204
meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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205
arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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206
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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207
watchfulness
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| 警惕，留心； 警觉（性） | |
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208
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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209
bombastic
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| adj.夸夸其谈的，言过其实的 | |
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210
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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211
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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212
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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213
delirious
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| adj.不省人事的，神智昏迷的 | |
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214
votary
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| n.崇拜者；爱好者；adj.誓约的，立誓任圣职的 | |
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215
aspired
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| v.渴望，追求( aspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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216
contemptible
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| adj.可鄙的，可轻视的，卑劣的 | |
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217
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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218
allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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219
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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220
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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221
stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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222
abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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223
redeeming
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| 补偿的，弥补的 | |
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224
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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225
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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226
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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227
kernel
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| n.(果实的)核，仁；(问题)的中心，核心 | |
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228
attainment
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| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
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229
bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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230
evoke
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| vt.唤起，引起，使人想起 | |
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231
venerate
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| v.尊敬，崇敬，崇拜 | |
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232
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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233
abatement
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| n.减(免)税，打折扣，冲销 | |
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234
criticise
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| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
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235
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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236
censor
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| n./vt.审查，审查员；删改 | |
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237
epithet
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| n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语 | |
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238
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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239
abstaining
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|
| 戒（尤指酒），戒除( abstain的现在分词 )； 弃权（不投票） | |
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240
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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241
kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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242
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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243
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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244
prohibitions
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| 禁令，禁律( prohibition的名词复数 )； 禁酒； 禁例 | |
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245
disapprove
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| v.不赞成，不同意，不批准 | |
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246
atoning
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| v.补偿，赎（罪）( atone的现在分词 )；补偿，弥补，赎回 | |
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247
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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248
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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249
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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250
austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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251
exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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252
corruptions
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| n.堕落( corruption的名词复数 )；腐化；腐败；贿赂 | |
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253
heresy
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| n.异端邪说；异教 | |
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254
profligacy
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| n.放荡，不检点，肆意挥霍 | |
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255
entanglement
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| n.纠缠，牵累 | |
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256
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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257
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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258
reclaim
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| v.要求归还，收回；开垦 | |
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259
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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260
imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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261
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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262
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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263
undertakings
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| 企业( undertaking的名词复数 )； 保证； 殡仪业； 任务 | |
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264
lapses
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| n.失误，过失( lapse的名词复数 )；小毛病；行为失检；偏离正道v.退步( lapse的第三人称单数 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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265
soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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266
diffuse
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| v.扩散；传播；adj.冗长的；四散的，弥漫的 | |
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267
contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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268
condescend
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| v.俯就，屈尊；堕落，丢丑 | |
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269
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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270
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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271
outlaw
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| n.歹徒，亡命之徒；vt.宣布…为不合法 | |
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272
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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273
wildernesses
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| 荒野( wilderness的名词复数 )； 沙漠； （政治家）在野； 不再当政（或掌权） | |
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274
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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275
victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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276
hypocrisy
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| n.伪善，虚伪 | |
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277
missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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278
conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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279
reclaiming
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| v.开拓( reclaim的现在分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救 | |
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280
immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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281
mischievous
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| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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282
sects
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| n.宗派，教派( sect的名词复数 ) | |
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283
incurable
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| adj.不能医治的，不能矫正的，无救的；n.不治的病人，无救的人 | |
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284
rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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285
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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286
avarice
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| n.贪婪；贪心 | |
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287
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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288
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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289
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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290
exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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291
superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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292
brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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293
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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294
perversions
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| n.歪曲( perversion的名词复数 )；变坏；变态心理 | |
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295
sanctuary
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| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
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296
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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297
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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298
downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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299
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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300
speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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301
diffused
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| 散布的，普及的，扩散的 | |
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302
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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303
transformations
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| n.变化( transformation的名词复数 )；转换；转换；变换 | |
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304
durable
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| adj.持久的，耐久的 | |
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305
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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306
contriving
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| （不顾困难地）促成某事( contrive的现在分词 )； 巧妙地策划，精巧地制造（如机器）； 设法做到 | |
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307
implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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308
commonwealth
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| n.共和国，联邦，共同体 | |
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309
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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310
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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311
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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312
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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313
rekindling
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| v.使再燃( rekindle的现在分词 ) | |
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314
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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315
grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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316
deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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