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Entered at the Post-office, Boston, Mass., as second-class mail matter

NOTE.

The letters written to "The Commonwealth” during Mr. Savage's last summer's trip abroad bave been printed; and, though not regularly published, copies may be obtained, at 50 cents each, of Geo. H. Ellis, 141 Franklin St., Boston.

WHAT JESUS CAN BE TO US TO-DAY.

Its

My text is a letter received only a few days ago. writer is a lady who, having done a little thinking, imagined herself for a while to be a Unitarian; but the undertow of the old traditional thoughts and feelings were so strong that she was swept back by it. She writes me this letter; and the burden of it - a natural, simple, human burden — is, “I can't get along without Jesus." I have not replied to the letter yet; but, when I do, I propose to say to her that I can't get along without Jesus, either, or at any rate that I should conceive it a great sorrow, a great deprivation, to be obliged to, and because I can't is one of the main reasons why I am a Unitarian.

Let us consider this matter a little dispassionately and earnestly this morning, and find out how it is that we can keep Jesus and what he can be to us to-day.

The treating of this theme will lead me a little way afield over ground that is more or less familiar to you as having been treated in other connections; but it is necessary that I traverse it, in order to reach the conclusions to which I wish to lead you.

How Jesus came into this world, and what for; how he left this world, and what for,- these are the great central questions of Christendom. On our understanding, on our interpretation, of these depends the question as to what we shall mean by being Christians. Let us consider them.

Somewhere about eighteen hundred and ninety-eight years ago Jesus was born; that is, about four years before the Christian era, as it is popularly reckoned. No one has any idea whatever as to what month or even what time of the

year he was born. The 25th of December was settled on

mas.

at last, after some hundreds of years, as the day on which to celebrate his birth. The reason of its being chosen was not that anybody had made any critical research as to the facts, not because there was any reasonable idea as to what the day really was. It was chosen because on the 25th of December or thereabout there was a great festival held in Rome, too popular to be abandoned. So the difficulty was got over by rechristening this festival, and calling it ChristAll the early traditions as to where Jesus was born point to Nazareth. Nobody dreamed of Bethlehem as the place of his birth until after his death. When the popular belief arose that Jesus was the expected Jewish Messiah, then it was remembered that since the Jewish Messiah was to come in the line of David, and restore once more the glory of his throne and kingdom, it was fitting that he should be born in the city of David; that is, in Bethlehem. But the only good reasons for belief about it in existence point to the fact that Jesus was born at Nazareth. Any reasons for supposing him born anywhere else are without foundation.

This child, then, born in Nazareth, grew up, had the ordinary Jewish education, and, when he came to the age of thirty years, he began to preach that sweet, hopeful gospel of the divine kingdom among men. He went about doing good. He made himself of no reputation. He consorted with publicans, and showed tender sympathy with those who were outcast and despised. He taught the beautiful theories about God and human forgiveness which are contained in the parables. And then, after a brief but bright career, the prejudices of his people and the fear of Rome crucified him. This is the historic story hinted as we know it.

Soon after his disappearance the loving imaginations of his disciples, together with the philosophical speculations of the dogma-makers, began to play round his name. First they played round the idea that he was, after all, the fulfilment of the Jewish prophecy, the expected Messiah, although he did not in any single particular fulfil or answer to the popular expectation. The process then began which ended.

at last in his apotheosis, in his being turned into a god. You may remember that this was no new or strange thing to take place in that age. All over the Roman Empire was the image, the bust, or something that stood for Augustus, who was being worshipped by the people even before his death,worshipped as the household deity who had brought the great peace of Rome to the world. It was an age then when it was not strange for people to think that it was possible for a man to be deified and worshipped. But, in spite of this, it was more than three hundred years before this process was completed in the Nicene creed. Completed? It was not completed then; for the Nicene creed has not properly the finished Trinitarian doctrine. It teaches only the virgin birth, and that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. It was long after this before the Athanasian creed was finished, which contained the final statement of the Trinitarian dogma. Through the first thousand years of Christianity there were conflicting theories as to the significance of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The book of Anselm, written about the year one thousand, was the one which brought into final shape at last the doctrine of atonement which has characterized Christian history from that day to this. It was after this long process, then, that the historic Jesus of Nazareth was practically lost sight of; and the Christ of the dogma, not depending to any extent upon the actual history of the Nazarene, took its place.

There had grown up, then, this great scheme of salvation, this plan which included the entirety of human history. It included the history of creation from before the world was, and included the final destiny of man after the visible universe should have passed away. But Jesus is lost. It is the Christ, the doctrine, which has taken his place.

Note the three great essentials of this scheme, and see if to-day there is comfort in it for those who cannot live without Jesus:

First, it meant the utter ruin of God's fair creation, the fall and the endless loss of the human race.

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