_
_So tender was His love to us,
(We had not learned to love before),
That we grew like to Him, and thus
Men sought His grace in us once more._
CONINGSBY WILLIAM DAWSON.
I
THE GENIUS TO BE LOVED
In the history of the last two thousand years there is but one Person
who has been, and is supremely loved. Many have been loved by
individuals, by groups of persons, or by communities; some have
received the pliant idolatries of nations, such as heroes and national
deliverers; but in every instance the sense of love thus excited has
been intimately associated with some triumph of intellect, or some
resounding achievement in the world of action. In this there is
nothing unusual, for man is a natural worshipper of heroes. But in
Jesus Christ we discover something very different; He possessed the
genius to be loved in so transcendent a degree that it appears His sole
genius.
Jesus is loved not for anything that He taught, nor yet wholly for
anything that He did, although His actions culminate in the divine
fascination of the Cross, but rather for what He was in Himself. His
very name provokes in countless millions a reverent tenderness of
emotion usually associated only with the most sacred and intimate of
human relationships. He is loved with a certain purity and intensity
of passion that transcends even the most intimate expressions of human
emotion.
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