H Among all the artists who represented Christ's life, one stands alone for his unique, unconventional, and manifold treatment of it
^ H. E. Manning, Scrmom, iii. p. 439.
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and its subject. Others have represented Him in the common humanities of life, but they have lacked the power to give with equal grandeur the awful moments in which His mission was concentrated. Others have represented Him ideally and with sublimity, but they have not been able to touch such subjects as the Supper at Cana without either making it too ideal or too vulgar. One man alone has mingled, without a trace of effort, and with a profound conception at the root of his work, the heavenly with the earthly, the Divine with the human, the common with the wonderful, the poetical with the prose of daily life, in his representation of the human existence of Christ. That man was Tintoret. In his "Last Supper," for example, it is a common room in which the Apostles and the Master meet. Servants hurry to and fro ; the evening has fallen dark, and the lamps are lit ; those who eat the meal are really fishermen and unlearned men ; here and there, there are incidents which prove that the artist wished to make us feel that it was just such a meal as was eaten that night by every one else in Jerusalem. We are in the midst of common human life. But the upper air of the chamber is filled with a drift of cherubim, and the haze of the lamp light takes that azure tint with which the artist afterwards filled the recesses of the " Paradise," and the whole soft radiance of the lamp falls on and envelops the upright figure of Christ, worn and beautiful, and bending down to offer to one of His disciples the broken bread. It is common human life filled with the Divine. It is the conception of Christ's personality which modern theology ought to possess, because it ought to be the ideal of our own life.^
In his volume on Christ in Modern Life Stopford Brooke makes an effort to analyse the character of Jesus as a man. He finds that it contains these elements.
1. Sensibility. — Not sensitiveness, which is too passive. Sensibility is sensitiveness with the addition of activity of soul exercised upon the impressions received. Jesus manifested (1) sensibility to natural beauty. He had watched the tall " lilies " arrayed more gloriously than Solomon ; He had marked the reed shaken in the wind, and the tender green of the first shoot of the fig tree. (2) Sensibility to human feeling. This is the highest touch of beauty in a character. He saw Nathanael under the fig tree and recognised the long effort of the man to
' Stopford A. Brooks.
ISAIAH . 207
be true. He met Peter in the morning light, and seeing through all the surface impetuosity of his character deep into the strength of his nature, called him Cephas the rock.
2. Sympathy. — When sensibility to human feeling is trans- lated into action it becomes sympathy. The examples are innumerable. How discriminating was the sympathy which gave to Martha and to Mary their several meed of praise. With what forgetfulness of His own pain did He speak the distinctive word to mother and apostle : Behold thy son ! Behold thy mother !
1[ But, as Dr. Guthrie says, there is no sight in the wide world like Jesus Christ, with forgiveness on His lips, and a crown in His blessed hand ! This is worth labouring for ; praying for ; living for ; suffering for ; dying for. You remember how the prophet's servant climbed the steeps of Carmel. Three years, and never cloud had dappled the burning sky ; three long years, and never a dewdrop had glistened on the grass, or wet the lips of a dying flower; but the cloud came at last. No bigger than a man's hand, it rose from the sea ; it spread ; and as he saw the first lightnings flash, and heard the first thunders roll, how did he forget all his toils! and would have climbed the hill, not seven but seventy times seven, to hail that welcome sight ! It is so with sinners as soon as their eyes are gladdened with a believing sight of Christ; when they have got Christ; and with Him peace.
When the lights of life are gleaming,
Where its blossoms bud and bloom ; When each brow is bound with roses,
As we bask in their perfume : Just beyond the smiles and sunshine,
All unseen the Master stands, Waiting ever, ever waiting,
Holding out His pierced hands.
When the lights of life are darkened,
As its flowers fall and fade, And we watch our loved ones vanish
Thro' the silence, and the shade : Then the Master draweth nearer.
Thro' the circhng shadow lands ; Waiting ever, ever waiting.
Holding out His pierced hands.
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"When the shades of night are falling,
Where each heart must stand alone, And the world has left us nothing
We can call or claim ovir own : Then we turn to meet the Master,
Where a halo lights the past. Waiting ever, ever waiting,