In all these things He
still stands alone; for who, among the saintliest men we know, has not
some innocent pride in his ability, or some preference in friendship,
or some instinctive compliance with social usage, or some worldly hopes
and honourable aims which he shares in common with the mass of men?
But these outward dissimilarities of conduct disclose a dissimilarity
of soul. Men live for something; for what did Jesus live? And the
answer that leaps upon us like a great light from every page of the
Gospels is plain; He lived for love. If He did not care for praise or
honour; if He regarded even the preservation of His teachings with a
divine carelessness, it was because He had a nobler end in view, the
love of men. He could not live without love, and His supreme aim was
to make Himself loved. And yet it was less a conscious aim, than the
natural working out of His own character. Fishermen by the sea saw Him
but once; instantly they left their boats and followed Him. A man
sitting at the receipt of custom, a hard man we should suppose, little
likely to be swayed by sudden emotions, also sees Him once, and finds
his occupation gone. A beautiful courtesan, beholding Him pass by,
breaks from her lovers, and follows Him into an alien house, where she
bathes His feet with tears and wipes them with the hairs of her head.
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