universe.

The explanation in most human affairs comes after the recognition of
the fact. There our great fact stands of the significance of Jesus
Christ--a more wonderful thing as we study it more. We may fail to
explain it, but we must recognize it. One of the weaknesses of the
Church to-day is--put bluntly--that Christians are not making enough
of Jesus Christ.

We find again that, where Jesus Christ is most real, and means most,
there we are apt to see the human mind reach a fuller freedom and
achieve more. There is a higher civilization, a greater emphasis on
the value of human life and character, and a stronger endeavour for
the utmost development of all human material, if we may so call the
souls and faculties of men. Why should there be this correspondence
between Jesus of Nazareth and human life? It is best brought out,
when we realize what he has made of Christian society, and contrast
it with what the various religions have left or produced in other
regions--the atrophy of human nature.

In fine, there is no figure in human history that signifies more.
Men may love him or hate him, but they do it intensely. If he was
only what some say, he ought to be a mere figure of antiquity by
now. But he is more than that; Jesus is not a dead issue; he has to
be reckoned with still; and men who are to treat mankind seriously,
must make the intellectual effort to understand the man on whom has
been centred more of the interest and the passion of the most
serious and the best of mankind than on any other. The real secret
is that human nature is deeply and intensely spiritual, and that
Jesus satisfies it at its most spiritual point.

The object before us in these pages is the attempt to know Jesus, if
we can, in a more intimate and intelligent way than we have done--at
least, to put before our minds the great problem, Who is this Jesus
Christ? and to try to answer it.

One answer to this question is that Jesus was nothing, never was
anything, but a myth developed for religious purposes; that he never
lived at all. This view reappears from time to time, but so far it
has not appealed to any who take a serious interest in history. No
historian of the least repute has committed himself to the theory.
Desperate attempts have been made to discredit the Christian writers
of the first two centuries; it has been emphasized that Jesus is not
mentioned in secular writers of the period, and the passage in
Tacitus ("Annals", XV