LECTURE.

Waikato Times, Volume II, Issue 79, 31 October 1872, Page 2

LECTURE.

THE OREAT -TEACHER.

(TT.) His matter. If anything strikes us more than another in Christ's teaching, it is His originality; even the inspired penmen had little originality compared with Christ, each one uses the words common to the circle in which he moved. Hence we have the language of kings and courts with Solomon, Isaiah, and Daniel; the language of herdsmen with Amos: and the mournful strains of the exile with Jeremiah. If, therefore, we mean to find genua of originality we seek in vain for it among the Jews, and still more vain will be our search if we seek it anywhere else. But in Christ we have new thoughts, new words, and old words with new meanings. Look at Greece, for example, and you find even her highest oracle has next to nothing which he has not gathered from what was handed down by his predecessors. So much so is this the case, that in the writings of Plato we cannot tell what belongs to Plato and what to Socrates (Plato's master). But Christ has no earthly model to copy from; Hie model is in thai paradise above, on the white throne of the Eternal, in the heart of His Father. As He says Himself, "Lo I come to do Thy will, in the volume of the book that is written of me." Again, Hie oi'iginality and greatness are not confined to one rank, age, or nation, like other men's. Julius Csesar, for example, was a great man, and so was Cicero, but they were great only as Romans; iEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were undoubtedly great men, every one who knows the Greek language sufficiently will never weary in reading them, and yet their greatness was only as Greek poets ; Pericles, Demosthenes, and Alexander were great men, but only as Greek politicians; Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were great men, far surpassing the age in which they lived, and yet they were only Greek philosophers. But in Christ we see one who u!.ters truth, and that the highest and purest, not for His own people or His own time, like other men, but for all peoples and for all times, till the last age of man will have run itself info eternity. In looking at His own age. He could see the highest philosophy ever strring to keei at a distance from the common people. Who, for example, doe? not know something of the pf>ul J,-nv as. he strut? along the streets of Jerusalem, with his longj garments, or it may be his rabbinical robes, making every movement of his muscles as well as every word of his mouth to say, "Stand bv, Tor I am holier than thou art." The most speculative mind could not dare to dream of that svstem becoming extinct, yet Chri?t laid the axe to the root of the tree. With Him there is to be a universal spiritual reign, in which the whole race of man, Jew and Gentile, Greek and Barbarian, are all alike destined to the highest rank which

the heart of man can conceive. Christ and Christ alone shattered that system of class which has its shadow in our own day in the castes of India. It is to notice that in the teaching of Christ there is all that the rationalistic thinkers of our own day are seeking, but seeking in sources -where they will never find it. The fruth is, the teaching of Christ is too plain and too cheap for their fancy. Could they but listen to the words of the G-reat Teacher, then much of the mist which batiks like dark clouds around their mental vision would be cleared away. Often doe 3 He speak of G-od being known, not so much by man, as each m*vn knowing God because Gfod was in Him. And Gk>d is in a man when he loves, trusts, and obeys Him ; and were - all thus to act, so that none would need to say to his brother know ye the Lord, for all would know him from the least to the greatest, " Then earth would be an Eden, Like the world above;."

.So that from Christ there shone a light which neither l-iircre nor Kudu- cotiki knuile. True, in Sui/rates ami l'iiuy we nave some fa.nt shadow tnal in man lucre in soiucUnng more man uh.iv and biood, but Wiiat tnat aoiiieliiiug i» neither rfooruled nor JL\ulo can clearly and positively tell. To be continued.