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THE CENTRAL TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY.•

'And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.'-John i. 14.

Ir happened, once on a time, as men went to and fro in the world who were interested in the arts, that they discovered, at different periods, and hidden away in many countries, portions, it seemed, of exquisite statues -a foot, an arm, a torso, a broken hand. Something superb in each of these made men recognise them at once as perfect. Each nation cherished their separate piece as an ideal of art; each drifted into a thousand suspicions as to the author and his intention; each completed the statue from conjecture according to their own ability. At last, owing to the decay of the nations, and to the rise of one upon their ruins, all the several pieces were collected in one museum. They were still considered as belonging to separate nations and periods of art. Dissertations were written and lectures were delivered upon them; the ideal completions which each nation had made of their several pieces were placed beside them, and the completions studied with infinite criticism.

One day, however, when the artist world were collected in the museum, a man whom no one knew,

entered, and slowly went from room to room examining the famous remnants one after another, but passing by the completions of each with some indifference. At last he approached the group of artists: Sirs,' he said, 'I have examined your famous pieces of sculpture, and their ideal restorations. The restorations are interesting as examples of art at different periods, but worthless as a foundation for any true ideal. But, did it never strike you that all your pieces are of the same time and by the same hand, and that you have but to bring them together out of their several rooms and unite them ? Your ideal statue is among you, and you know it not.' When he had thus spoken, many laughed and some mocked, but a few were found to listen; the greater part, however, as the stranger grew more earnest, became indignant-for what would become of their art theories if he were right ?—and drove him out of the museum with ignominy. But the few sought him out, and it is said that they entered the building by night and brought together the remnants, the stranger superintending, and found it even as he had said. They saw the statue grow, piece by piece, into unity, but at the end the head was wanting. A great cry of pity arose'What!' they wept, 'shall we never see the ideal realised?' But the stranger, as they wept, drew from beneath his cloak the head, and crowned the statue with completeness. And as he did so, he passed away and was seen no more. But the perfect thing remained-the pure ideal of divine art, fully realised at last. Then those few gave up their theories, and their delight in the separate remnants and their restorations, and went

abroad, taking with them the perfect thing, to preach a new kingdom of art; and when men asked them to define and theorise art, they stept aside, and unveiling the statue, said, 'Look and see; this is Art. If you can receive it, you too will become artists. This is all our definition, this is all our theory.' And some believed and others did not, but slowly the new ideal won its way, till it grew to be the rule and the model of the greater part of the artist world.

Of what took place at the museum when the mockers found their pieces gone-of how they fought against the possessors of the statue, and denied that it had anything to do with their lost remnants; of how they made counterfeits of these remnants, and clung to their ancient restorations as the true ideals-I need not tell; nor yet of a more pitiable thing-of how in after times the followers of the true ideal made false copies of it, modifying it, and introducing their own ideas into it, and held up these, and not the perfect statue, for the imitation and aspiration of the world of art. Are not these things written in history? But again and again, the one effort of all true artists since has been to bring back men to the contemplation of that single figure.

This parable illustrates what, I have been saying for some Sundays. The scattered truths of the world were truths from God. Men wove diverse religions round the diverse truths. At last Christ came, and did not reject, but brought together in Himself, the previous truths-made them for the first time fit into one another, so that each took its place; and then

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crowned them with the completing and new truththe truth of the Divine Man.

These two things-the bringing into harmony of truths and the addition of the truth of the God Man —are distinctive peculiarities of Christianity, and of these we speak to-day.

It is not difficult to illustrate what I mean by the harmonising of truth. Before the time of Newton, many isolated facts concerning the universe and its motions had been discovered, but they remained like isolated lights at a distance from each other. But when the philosopher came who saw into the life of things, and the theory of gravitation was born, it made the previous truths concordant; their separate lights shot into its brilliant beam, and the beacon blazed by which we read the secrets of the universe. It was then that the astronomer's work became practical. He had a truth which gave tenfold value to other truths, and made them instruments of tenfold power. He had a truth in which all the phenomena of nature were correlated, and as he learnt their several relations, each became a key to unlock the difficulties of the others. Much remained unexplained, but he knew now that investigation and patience were all that were needed. He had the key of the universe in his hand; he was sure of finding out all truth within the sphere of his special business.

This is that which Christ did for us. We have granted that many truths which He declared afresh existed before his time; but they were isolated, their mutual connection was not perceived. Hence they had no

regenerative power, but little practical power. Great men worked at them, carried them out into separate philosophies, but they never got any wide popular influence, and they were finally buried under a weight of conjectures and conceits. The first enthusiasm they had created died away-nor, indeed, did they ever produce that peculiar characteristic of Christianity, an active and unceasing propagandism.

But under the transforming hand of Christ, these truths came together into a perfect whole. The truth of doing good for good's sake became in harmony with the truth of doing good for the sake of immortal life. They had formerly clashed, and there are persons yet who think they clash. The truth that the soul is to be absorbed in God united itself with the truth of the distinct personality of the soul, and in uniting, the one lost its pantheism and the other its isolated self-dependence. The truth that men lived by faith, and the apparently opposed truth that they lived by works, found in the love which Christ awoke to Himself a point where they mingled into one. No truth was left to sound its note alone, but all together harmonised arose into

That undisturbed song of pure concent

Aye sung before the sapphire coloured throne.

If this be true, it forms one of the distinctive qualities of Christianity. No heathen philosophy had done it, no heathen religion had attempted it. In fact, they had not the materials. No Jewish Doctors had succeeded in it, though they had attempted it. One or two may have had, as had the heathen, glimpses of it

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