one,
too, which it is good for us to face now and then, and ask ourselves, If
this thing came to pass, what should I think, and what should I do?

I shall touch the question with all reverence and caution. I shall try
to tread lightly, as one who is indeed on hallowed ground. For the
question which I have dared to ask you and myself is none other than
this--If the Lord suddenly came to this temple, or any other in this
land; if He appeared among us, as He did in Judea eighteen hundred years
ago, what should we think of Him? Should we recognise, or should we
reject, our Saviour and our Lord? It is an awful thought, the more we
look at it. But for that very reason it may be the more fit to be asked,
once and for all.

Now, to put this question safely and honestly, we must keep within those
words which I just said--as He appeared in Judea eighteen hundred years
ago. We must limit our fancy to the historic Christ, to the sayings,
doings, character which are handed down to us in the four Gospels; and
ask ourselves nothing but--What should I think if such a personage were
to meet me now? To imagine Him--as has been too often done--as doing
deeds, speaking words, and even worse, entertaining motives, which are
not written in the four Gospels, is as unfair morally, as it is illogical
critically. It creates a phantom, a fictitious character, and calls that
Christ. It makes each writer, each thinker--or rather dreamer--however
shallow his heart and stupid his brain--and all our hearts are but too
shallow, and all our brains too stupid--the measure of a personage so
vast and so unique, that all Christendom for eighteen hundred years has
seen in Him, and we of course hold seen truly, the Incarnate God. No; we
must think of nothing save what is set down in Holy Writ.

And yet, alas! we cannot use in our days, that which eighteen hundred
years ago was the most simple and obvious test of our Lord's
truthfulness, namely His miraculous powers. The folly and sin of man
have robbed us of what is, as it were, one of the natural rights of
reasoning, man. Lying prodigies and juggleries, forged and pretended
miracles, even--oh, shame!--imitations of His most sacred wounds, have,
up to our own time, made all rational men more and more afraid of aught
which seems to savour of the miraculous; till most of us, I think, would
have to ask forgiveness--as I myself should have to ask,--if, tantalized
and