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for it lies in undeniable potencies of life. The question, " What is truth ? " is satisfactorily answered. Jesus said, " I am the way, the truth, and the life."
4. Christ is " the Truth," and His teaching, accepted by the will and expressed in the life, is the Truth that makes us free. The truth which He taught was chiefly on three points —
(1) God. — Blot out the thought of God, a Living Person, and life becomes mean, existence unmeaning, the universe dark, and resolve is left without a stay, aspiration and duty without a support. The Son exhibited God as Love: and so that fearful bondage of the mind to the necessity of Fate was broken. A living Lord had made the world ; and its dark and unintelligible mystery meant good, not evil. He manifested Him as a Spirit ; and if so, the only worship that could please Him must be a spirit's worship. Not by sacrifices is God pleased ; nor by droned litanies and liturgies ; nor by fawning and flattery : nor is His wrath bought off by blood. Thus was the chain of superstition nent asunder ; for superstition is wrong views of God ; exaggerated or inadequate, and wrong conceptions of the way to please Him.
(2) Man. — We are a mystery to ourselves. Go to any place where nations have brought together their wealth and their inventions, and before the victories of mind you stand in rever- ence. Then stop to look at the passing crowds who have attained that civilization. Think of their low aims, their mean lives, their conformation only a little higher than that of brute creatures, and a painful sense of degradation steals upon you. So great and yet so mean ! And so of individuals. There is not one whose feelings have not been deeper than we can fathom, not one who would venture to tell out to his brother man the mean, base thoughts that have crossed his heart during a single hour. Now this riddle He solved. He looked on man as fallen, but magnificent in his ruin. We, catching that thought from Him, speak as He spoke. But none that were born of woman ever felt this or lived this like Him. Beneath the vilest outside He saw this — a human soul, capable of endless growth ; and thence He treated with what for want of a better term we may call respect all who approached Him ; not because they were titled Eabbis, or rich Pharisees, but because they were men. Here was a germ for freedom. It is not
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the shackle on the wrist that constitutes the slave, but the loss of self-respect, to be treated as degraded till he feels degraded, to be subjected to the lash till he believes that he deserves the lash. And liberty is to suspect and yet reverence self, to suspect the tendency which leaves us ever on the brink of fall, to reverence that within us which is allied to God, redeemed by God the Son, and made a temple of the Holy Ghost.
(3) Immortality. — Christ taught that this life is not all ; that it is only a miserable state of human infancy. He taught tliat in words, by His life, and by His Eesurrection. This, again, was freedom. If there is a faith that cramps and enslaves the soul, it is the idea that this life is all. If there is one that expands, and elevates, it is the thought of immortality ; and this is something quite distinct from the selfish desire of happiness. It is not to enjoy, but to he that we long for ; to enter into more and higher life — a craving which we can part with only when we sink below Humanity, and forfeit it. This was the martyrs' strength. They were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might attain a better resurrection. In that hope, and the knowledge of that truth, they were free from the fear of pain and death.
5. We must k7iow the Truth. A servant may obey his master's will without any intelligent apprehension of its meaning, or sympathy with his intentions and aims. If he is sent on an errand, he may carry correctly the words of a message which he does not understand. He may go on a mission the nature of which is quite above his apprehension, simply following out certain precise directions without any discretionary power of action. He may construct, if he has mechanical skill, an elaborate piece of mechanism, simply working, bit by bit, according to the detailed plan or drawing placed before him. But suppose that by diligent study the workman's mind has become developed and his knowledge increased, so as to enable him to understand the principle and enter with intelligent appreciation into the idea of the thing ; or even more than that, suppose advancing knowledge and culture have raised him generally into a capacity of sympathy and fellowship with the master's mind — then, in that case, though he might continue to obey the master's behests, there would be a complete change in the character of the work.
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^ Only then have I reached the deepest conviction, only then does faith stand on the impregnable rock of certitude, when I can say, "I know this to be the truth of God; its teaching has touched the deepest springs of thought and feeling within my breast, it has awakened my conscience, moved my heart, kindled my aspirations after a purer, better life, brought peace and rest to my spirit, and though a thousand authorities should contradict it, though Paul or an angel from heaven should teach another doctrine, I will not, cannot receive it." ^