The brightness of the brightest names, pales and wanes before the radiance which shines from the person of Christ. The scenes at the tomb of Lazarus, at the gate of Nain, in the happy family at Bethany, in the "upper room" where he instituted the feast which should for ever consecrate his memory, and bequeathed to his disciples the legacy of his love; the scene in the garden of Gethsemane, on the summit of Calvary, and at the sepulchre; the sweet remembrance of the patience with which he bore wrong, the gentleness with which he rebuked it, and the love with which he forgave it; the thousand acts of benign condescension by which he well earned for himself from self-righteous pride, and censorious hypocrisy, the name of the "friend of publicans and sinners;" these, and a hundred things more, which crowd those concise memorials of love and sorrow with such prodigality of beauty, and of pathos, will still continue to charm and attract the soul of humanity, and on these the highest genius, as well as the humblest mediocrity, will love to dwell.
These things lisping infancy loves to hear on its mother's knee, and over them age, with gray locks, bends in devoutest reverence. No, before the infidel can prevent the influence of these compositions, he must get rid of the gospels themselves, or he must supplant them by fictions yet more wonderful! Ah! what bitter irony has involuntarily escaped me! But if the last be impossible, at least the gospels must cease to exist before infidelity can succeed.
Yes, before infidels can prevent men from thinking as they have ever done of Christ, they must blot out the gentle words with which, in the presence of austere hypocrisy, the Saviour welcomed that timid guilt that could only express its silent love in an agony of tears; they must blot the words addressed to the dying penitent, who, softened by the majestic patience of the mighty sufferer, detected at least the monarch under the veil of sorrow, and cast an imploring glance to be "remembered by him when he came into his kingdom;" they must blot out the scene in which the demoniacs sat listening at his feet, and "in their right mind;" they must blot out the remembrance of the tears which he shed at the grave of Lazarus—not surely for him whom he was about to raise, but in pure sympathy with the sorrows of humanity—for the myriads of desolate mourners, who could not, with Mary, fly to him and say, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my mother, brother, sister had not died!" they must blot out the record of those miracles which charm us, not only as the proof of his mission, and guarantees of the truth of his doctrine, but as they illustrate the benevolence of his character, and are types of the spiritual cures his gospel can yet perform; they must blot out the scenes of the sepulchre, where love and veneration lingered and saw what was never seen before, but shall henceforth be seen at the end of time—the tomb itself irradiated with angelic forms, and bright with the presence of him "who brought life and immortality to light;" they must blot out the scene where deep and grateful love wept so passionately, and found him unbidden at her side, type of ten thousand times ten thousand, who have "sought the grave to weep there," and found joy and consolation in him, "who, though unseen, they loved;" they must blot out the discourses in which he took leave of his disciples, the majestic accents of which have filled so many departing souls with patience and with triumph; they must blot out the yet sublimer words in which he declares himself "the resurrection and the life"—words which have led so many millions more to breathe out their spirits with child-like trust and to believe, as the gate of death closed behind them that they would see him who is invested with the "keys of the invisible world," who opens and no man shuts, and shuts and no man opens, letting in through the portals which lead to immortality the radiance of the skies; they must destroy these and a thousand other such things, before they can prevent him having the pre-eminence who loved, because he loved us, to call himself the "Son of Man," though angels call him the "Son of God."
It is vain to tell men it is an illusion. If it be an illusion, every variety of experiment proves it to be inviolate, and it will not be dissipated by a million of Strausses, Newmans! Probatum est. At his feet, guilty humanity, of diverse races and nations, for eighteen hundred years, has come to pour forth in faith and love its sorrows, and finds there "the peace which the world can neither give nor take away." Myriads of aching heads and weary hearts have found, and will find repose there, and have invested him with veneration, love and gratitude, which will never, never be paid to any other name than His.