HISTORY OF OUR SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 8, 21 June 1873, Page 14

HISTORY OF OUR SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST.

BY THB ABBE J. E. DARRAS.

(Translated from the original French for the New ZeaIiAHD Tabwbt.)

13. JBSTJfe CHBIST AiWAYS LIVING. Thb miracle of the Word made flesh is everywhere, then, as living to-day as it was in the Crib, in the Temple of Jerusalem, in the Cenaculum, in the Prsetorium of Pilate^ at the tribunal of Caiphas, on the Cross of Golgotha, in the sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea, in the Cave of the Resurrection, and on the mountain of the glorious Ascension. Side by side with ..the Kings from the East, who adore Him, are the Herode, who seek the infant to put him to death; with the doctors, who admire the wisdom of His answers, are the false sages, who seek to surprise Him into a manifestation of ignorance, contradiction and error ; with the faithful disciples are the Judasses, who betray Him with a kiss ; with the Pro-consul, who washes his hands with a show of indifference, are the holy souls who intercede for the Just One ; with the misguided multitudes, who shed innocent blood, are the multitudes of faithful ones, who gather up each drop to find therein lifo ; by the side of the Jews, who seal up the tomb, are the pious women, who perceive the angel of the Resurrection as he passes ; by the side of the Galileans, who stand looking for Jesus of Nazareth, vanished from their sight, are always the saints, who go to look for Him in Heaven. What! Jesus is still living ? His history, like that of Alexander or Csesar, has not passed away with the age which beheld its refulgence! No; Jesus .Christ is made flesh every day in a stable ; he is born anew in a soul up to that time sullied ; every day his voice says to the dead in sin : " Lazarus, come forth !" and Lazarus rises from the tomb ; every day he repeats to some new apostate, " My friend, wherefore art thou, come ?" and again the Son of Man permits Himself to be betrayed by a kiss. Every day He accosts a Samaritan woman ; He opens the eyes of a man born blind ; He raises to life the son of the widow of Nain ; every day he expires on Calvary, and every day he effects the conversion of a thief. Let Him be seized, bound, crucified — this dead, yet ever-living one — still cry out the seditious mob :—": — " We will not have Him ! Deliver to us Barabbas ; rid us of this God ! He troubles our slumbers. He has insulted Caesar." They scourge Him ; they crown Him with thorns ; they place a reed in Hia hand for a sceptre ; they strike Him on the lace ; they question Him on the truth of His doctrine ! He is silent, eubmitting to injuries, outrages, ignominies. They deliver Him up to derision, to sarcasm, to blasphemies ; they show Him to the people, Baying : " Behold the man !" He is led forth to be crucified. Some few tears are shea over Him as he passes on His way ; He answers always with the same meekness : " Weep not for me, but for yourselves and for your children.*' They nail Him to the infamous gibbet ; they pierce his heart with a spear ; they place hia body in the tomb. But He riaes again, as ever, and His exeoutiouers are the first to re-echo the words of the Roman soldiers: "Truly, this man was the Son of God i" For eighteen hundred years has it been so ; duriug eighteen centuries is this drama being renewed without interruption. Under new names, it is true; but the same actors, still the same hatred against the same victim 5 and still the same resurrection. If you do

not see here a miracle— a series of miracles, the permanent miracle—what, then, do you see in history ? ** 14. The Gospel axwatb Living. We know no more striking proof of the inspiration of the Gospeli than the belief in them through -so many ages. Such a demonstration, by its very nature, is within the reach of every understanding —it requires neither laborious study nor eoientifio research. The appearance of the Incarnate Word is proved by the perpetuity of the Incarnation of the Word in souls. The miracles of Jesus Christ in. Judea are the same that he renews at the present hour over the whole earth, and that he will continue to accomplish as long ac the universe Bhall subsist. The simple text of the Gospel will suffice for the history of the future, as it has sufficed for the past during twenty centuries. Do you know many book* pos« sessing this prodigious power? Tha greatest geniuse* of Greece and Rome have left us works which are proclaimed immortal. With the exception of some few learned men, who has read them? But, above all, who practises them ? Where is the soul that owes to them its spiritual resurrection — the human conscience that they have re« animated ? From time to time, an official eulogy, falling from the high regions of science, recals to the memory of man that Plato has written, — Cicero spoken, — Seneca philosophized. • Doctrine, discussion, philosophy — all is buried with these illustrious dead. Now and then, one condescends to admire, in a passing way, that extinct eloquence— the beauty of its lines, the purity of its form ; thu9, the traveller pauses a moment to salute an archaeological ruin. But the Gospel is living ; it is always the daily bread of the multitudes —the spiritual food of souls. In every language, under every sky, at all hours, this book is read ; we might say, it is written anew, in this sense, that the Divine Word, of which it is the manifestation, oonveys every day it? life to souls. In this manner the Gospel is really a fact, always reproducing itself, always faithful, always inexhaustible. It is, at the same time, a doctrine permanent, immutable, ever ancient, ever new. Point out to us a book written by the hand of man, and exercising, such • kingship !