recognise real miracles, and Him who performed them. Therefore, for good
or evil, we should be driven back upon that test alone, which, after all,
perhaps, is the most sure as well as the most convincing--the moral test-
-the test of character. What manner of personage would He be did He
condescend to appear among us? Of that, thank God, the Gospels ought to
leave us in no doubt. What acts He might condescend to perform, what
words He might condescend to speak, it is not for such beings as we to
guess. But how He would demean Himself we know; for Holy Writ has told
us how He demeaned Himself in Judea eighteen hundred years ago; and He is
the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and can be only like Himself.
But should we know Him merely by His bearing and character? Should we
see in Him an utterly ideal personage--The Son of Man, and therefore, ere
we lost sight of Him once more, the Son of God? Let us think. First,
therefore, we must believe that--as in Judea of old--Christ would meet
men with all consideration and courtesy. He would not break the bruised
reed, nor quench the smoking flax. He would not strive, nor cry, nor let
His voice be heard in the streets. He would not cause any of God's
little ones to offend, to stumble. In plain words, He would not shock
and repel them by any conduct of His. Therefore, as in Judea of old, He
would be careful of, even indulgent to, the usages of society, as long as
they were innocent. He would never outrage the code of manners, however
imperfect, however conventional, which this or any other civilised nation
may have agreed on, to express and keep up respect, self-restraint,
delicacy, of man toward man, of man toward woman, of the young ward the
old, of the living toward the dead. No.

As I said just now, He would never cause, by any act or word of His, one
of God's little ones to stumble and fall away.

I used just now that word MANNERS. Let me beg your very serious