mmon errors which assimilate them to myself and
humanity. Their faculties are those which I possess. But it is
different with Christ. Everything about Him astonishes me; His spirit
surprises me, and His will confounds me. Between Him and anything of
this world there is no possible comparison. He is really a Being
apart.

"'The nearer I approach Him and the more clearly I examine Him, the
more everything seems above me; everything continues great with a
greatness that crushes me.

"'His religion is a secret belonging to Himself alone, and proceeds
from an intelligence which assuredly is not the intelligence of man.
There is in Him a profound originality which creates a series of
sayings and maxims hitherto unknown.

"'Christ expects everything from His death. Is that the invention of a
man? On the contrary, it is a strange course of procedure, a
superhuman confidence, an inexplicable reality. In every other
existence than that of Christ, what imperfections, what changes! I
defy you to cite any existence, other than that of Christ, exempt from
the least vacillation, free from all such blemishes and changes. From
the first day to the last He is the same, always the same, majestic
and simple, infinitely severe, and infinitely gentle.

"'How the horizon of His empire extends, and prolongs itself into
infinitude! Christ reigns beyond life and beyond death. The past and
the future are alike to Him; the kingdom of the truth has, and in
effect can have, no other limit than the false. Jesus has taken
possession of the human race; He has made of it a single nationality,
the nationality of upright men, whom He calls to a perfect life.

"'The existence of Christ from beginning to end is a tissue entirely
mysterious, I admit; but that mystery meets difficulties which are in
all existences. Reject it, the world is an enigma; accept it, and we
have an admirable solution of the history of man.

"'Christ speaks, and henceforth generations belong to Him by bonds
more close, more intimate than those of blood, by a union more sacred,
more imperious than any other union beside. He kindles the flame of a
love which kills out the love of self and prevails over every other
love. Without contradiction, the greatest miracle of Christ is the
reign of love. All who believe in Him sincerely feel this love,
wonderful, supernatural, supreme. It is a phenomenon inexplicable,
impossible to reason and the power of man; a sacred fire given to the