living
and real in the heart of Christendom that even though we had no more
reliable basis than the 'Nine Foundation Pillars' which Schmiedel
condescends to leave us, we should not be wholly deprived of the
fundamental principles upon which the Christian life might be reared.
{32} If to these we add the list of 'doubly attested sayings' collected
by Burkitt,[8] which even some of the most negative critics have been
constrained to allow, we should at least have a starting-point for the
study of the teaching of Jesus. The most reputable scholars, however,
of Germany, America and Britain acknowledge that no reasonable doubt
can be cast upon the general substance and tone of the Synoptic
Gospels, compiled, as they were, from the ancient Gospel of Mark and
the source commonly called 'Q' (_i.e._ the lost common origin of the
non-Markian portions of Matthew and Luke). To these we should be
disposed to add the Fourth Gospel, which, though a less primary source,
undoubtedly records acts and sayings of our Lord attested by one, who
(whosoever he was) was in close touch with his Master's life, and had
drunk deeply of His spirit.

In the general tone and trend of these writings we find abundant
materials for what may be called the Ethics of Jesus. It is true, no
sharp line can be drawn between His religious and moral teaching. But,
taking Ethics in its general sense, as the discussion of the ideals,
virtues, duties of man, the relation of man to God and to his
fellow-men, it will at once be seen that a very large portion of
Christ's teaching is distinctly ethical. The facts of His own earthly
existence, all His great miracles, His parables, and above all, the
Sermon on the Mount, have an immediate bearing upon human conduct.
They all deal with character, and are chiefly illustrations and
enforcements of the divine ideal of life and of the value of man as a
child of God which He came to reveal. In the example of Jesus Himself
we have the best possible illustration of the translation of principles
into life. And in so far as we find our highest good embodied in Him,
He becomes for us, as J. S. Mill acknowledged, a kind of personified
conscience. No abstract statement of ethical principles can possibly
influence life so powerfully as the personal incarnation of these
principles; and if the greatest means to the true life is personal
association with the high and noble, then it need not seem strange {33}
that love and admirati