that earth can present no complication of
distress or iniquity which he cannot by the Divine forces within Him
transform into health and purity and hope.

This then is His deliberate claim. He quietly but distinctly proclaims
that He fulfils all God's promise and purpose among men; is that
promised King who was to rectify all things, to unite men to Himself,
and to lead them on to their true destiny; to be practically God upon
earth, accessible to men and identified with all human interests. Many
have tested His claim and have proved its validity. By true allegiance
to Him many have found that they have gained the mastery over the world.
They have entered into peace, have felt eternal verities underneath
their feet, and have attained a connection with God such as must be
everlasting. They are filled with a new spirit towards men and see all
things with purged eyes. Not abruptly and unintelligibly, by leaps and
bounds, but gradually and in harmony with the nature of things, His
kingdom is extending. Already His Spirit has done much: in time His
Spirit will everywhere prevail. It is by Him and on the lines which He
has laid down that humanity is advancing to its goal.

This was the claim He made; and this claim was enthusiastically admitted
by the popular instinct.[5] The populace was not merely humouring in
holiday mood a whimsical person for their own diversion. Many of them
knew Lazarus and knew Jesus, and taking the matter seriously gave the
tone to the rest. The people indeed did not, any more than the
disciples, understand how different the kingdom of their expectation was
from the kingdom Jesus meant to found. But while they entirely
misapprehended the purpose for which He was sent, they believed that He
was sent by God: His credentials were absolutely satisfactory, His work
incomprehensible. But as yet they still thought He must be of the same
mind as themselves regarding the work of the Messiah. To His claim,
therefore, the response given by the people was loud and demonstrative.
It was indeed a very brief reign they accorded to their King, but their
prompt acknowledgment of Him was the instinctive and irrepressible
expression of what they really felt to be His due. A popular
demonstration is notoriously untrustworthy, always running to extremes,
necessarily uttering itself with a loudness far in excess of individual
conviction, and gathering to itself the loose and floating mass of
people who have no convictio