in the being He was. And the wonder of His being is not in that it
offers elements for arguments as to a divine personality, but it is
that of a simple, clear, sublimely perfect manhood. It is upon this
perfection of personal character that His abiding claim to divinity
must rest; it depends not on His birth but on His being.

There is something strange about the perversity with which the church
has emphasized the least attractive aspects of its master's person.
The preachers have scolded men for not coming to church, and when they
did come they offered them pictures of an emaciated, effeminate being
for their adoration. With them the painters have conspired to set on
canvas and in church window representations from the reality of which
we would turn with repulsion or on which we would look with pity.

If Jesus is to be the leader of men He must go before them. He must
stand in the front, not set there by artificial arguments as to His
right to rule over men, but there because He belongs there, first
because He is first in all that makes manhood; He is king because He
can, and because He has overcome in life's great conflict.

If He is to show us the way we should go He must walk in that way; He
must be flesh of our flesh, true man, knowing the full fellowship of
our lives. If He was born with a halo; if He lived on angel's fare; if
somehow He belongs to another world and His perfections are not those
of our nature, then, almighty as He may be as a leader for beings of
another world, He has no value to us.

But men have ever set aside the weavings of minds so absorbed in the
wonder of their speculations that they could not see the truth. They
have seen through the dreamings of poets, painters, and preachers, who