This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

only actual basis for a good or bad opinion of him, what does it claim for him? My conviction is that it claims for him that he is God.

"Your conclusions are absurd," at once cry out certain people. "We are ready to admit that he was a great teacher—possibly the world's greatest teacher, and also its greatest ethical ideal. In no sense Divine, but merely a good man."

"No, no, not so far with your claims," say certain others who admit a little more perhaps, and make use of the Bible, with appropriate reservations and interpretations, as the text-book of their religion. "We believe in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and also in the leadership of Jesus. We admit that, as to his character and as to his teachings, Jesus is unique, but it is impossible that a human being can be God. We admit that he is Divine, as you and I and all men are Divine, but we cannot admit that he is God."

Looking on both these classes of friendly critics, who are so nearly akin, we must admit that we love them. They are so near to the truth, and yet their intellectual difficulties in many cases keep them content with shadows,