n of the nature and power of prayer,
adoration, or worship, or any account, indeed, of the intimacies of the
soul which belong to the very essence of the Christian faith. While he
insists upon the possibility, nay, the necessity, of a new beginning, he
fails to reveal the power by which the great decision is made. While he
affirms with much enthusiasm and frankness the need of personal decision
and surrender, he has nothing to say of the divine authority and power
which creates our choice and wins our obedience. Nowhere does he show
that the creative redemptive force comes not from man's side, but
ultimately from the side of God. And finally, his teaching with regard
to the person and work of Jesus Christ, notwithstanding its tender
sympathy and fine discrimination, does less than justice to the
uniqueness and historical significance of the Son of Man. With profound
appreciation and rare beauty of language he depicts the life of Jesus.
'Seldom,' {125} says a recent writer, 'has the perfect Man been limned
with so persuasive a combination of strenuous thought and gracious
word.'[32] 'He who makes merely a normal man of Jesus,' he says, 'can
never do justice to His greatness.'[33] Yet while he protests rightly
against emptying our Lord's life of all real growth and temptation, and
the claim of practical omniscience for His humanity (conceptions of
Christ's Person surely nowhere entertained by first-class theologians),
he leaves us in no manner of doubt that he does not attach a divine worth
to Jesus, nor regard Him in the scriptural sense as the Supreme
revelation and incarnation of God. And hence, while the peerless
position of Jesus as teacher and religious genius is frankly
acknowledged, and His purity, power, and permanence are extolled--the
mediatorial and redemptive implicates of His personality are overlooked.

But when all is said, no one can study the spiritual philosophy of Eucken
without realising that he is in contact with a mind which has a sublime
and inspiring message for our age. Probably more than any modern
thinker, Eucken reveals in his works deep affinities with the central
spirit of Christianity. And perhaps his influence may be all the greater
because he maintains an attitude of independence towards dogmatic and
organised Christianity. Professor Eucken does not attempt to satisfy us
with a facile optimism. Life is a conflict, a task, an adventure. And
he who would engage in it must make th