i. 24; Mark viii. 34;
Luke xiv. 27, can only have been conceived after the death of Jesus.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. x. 24-31; Luke xii. 4-7.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. x. 32, 33; Mark viii. 38; Luke ix. 26, xii. 8, 9.]

In these fits of severity he went so far as to abolish all natural
ties. His requirements had no longer any bounds. Despising the healthy
limits of man's nature, he demanded that he should exist only for him,
that he should love him alone. "If any man come to me," said he, "and
hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren,
and sisters, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."[1] "So
likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath,
he cannot be my disciple."[2] There was, at such times, something
strange and more than human in his words; they were like a fire
utterly consuming life, and reducing everything to a frightful
wilderness. The harsh and gloomy feeling of distaste for the world,
and of excessive self-abnegation which characterizes Christian
perfection, was originated, not by the refined and cheerful moralist
of earlier days, but by the sombre giant whom a kind of grand
presentiment was withdrawing, more and more, out of the pale of
humanity. We should almost say that, in these moments of conflict with
the most legitimate cravings of the heart, Jesus had forgotten the
pleasure of living, of loving, of seeing, and of feeling. Employing
still more unmeasured language, he even said, "If any man will come
after me, let him deny himself and follow me. He that loveth father or
mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or
daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life
shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake and the
gospel's, shall find it. What is a man profited if he shall gain the
whole world, and lose his own soul?"[3] Two anecdotes of the kind we
cannot accept as historical, but which, although they were
exaggerations, were intended to represent a characteristic feature,
clearly illustrate this defiance of nature. He said to one man,
"Follow me!"--But he said, "Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my
father." Jesus answered, "Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou
and preach the kingdom of God." Another said to him, "Lord, I will
follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home
at my house." Jesus replied, "No man, having put his hand to the
plough, and looking back, is