CHAPTER VII

CHRIST

THE Divine purpose in creation was the happiness of His creatures, but it was frustrated by the disobedience of man. The same woeful cause persisted through the generations that succeeded the first. Murder came with Cain, it was continued by Lamech, and doubtless these are only examples of the inception of that reign of violence and crime which all history records. Instances of exceptional uprightness and mercy there were then, as there have been in all times and in all nations, but the general corruption became so great that God decided to destroy the whole race, making as it were a fresh start from the single family which had preserved its comparative purity. This was done by the Flood. There is no reason to doubt the historical truth of the fact, though it may be supposed that some of the Scriptural details are symbolical rather than actual. Geology records many evidences of

submergence of land under water, and its subsequent emergence, and the traditions of very many nations bear witness to such an event having happened within the human period. Yet it failed to effect the purpose of raising up a new generation that should serve the Lord. Noah himself fell into sin, and many of his descendants became as depraved as their predecessors had been.

Another effort in the same direction was made by the breaking up of the human race into different tribes and nations, which is set forth in the story of the building of the tower of Babel. As men multiplied they necessarily occupied, wider and wider ranges of the world, they came under the influence of varying conditions, and they developed faculties of different nature, of which the remarkable diversities in their languages were a striking instance. It might have been expected that some at least of these variations in character and habits would have tended to the preservation of pure ideas of God, but it was not so. All alike chose evil instead of good.

One more method was resorted to by God to attain His purpose. Out of the nation of the Chaldæans, whose records still remain to show that they, in many respects, had attained a high

CHAP. VII]

THE JEWS

107

degree of what we call civilisation, and at least of intellectual cultivation, He selected one man of exceptional enlightenment and faith. He made to him special revelations and promises, and He continued to the descendants of this family a peculiar degree of personal direction and guidance. He led them into a separate settlement in Egypt, in which the hostility of the aboriginal inhabitants prevented any infection of idolatrous habits. When they had grown to sufficient numbers He led them forth, with many signs and wonders, into the deserts of Arabia; He miraculously nourished them; and He then gave them, under the most awful circumstances, the direct message of the Law. Then He guided them into the land He had selected for them; and there He fenced them round with every conceivable precaution to prevent their intermixture with or corruption by the surrounding nations. As, in spite of all warnings and safeguards, they yet fell away He from time to time recalled them; He sent special teachers and prophets to reprove and admonish them; He tried them with defeat and with victory; He made them powerful and He brought them low; and at last He gave them over to become the slaves of a conqueror and to eat the bread of affliction in

a foreign land. Again, when they turned to Him He brought them back. And now at length the lesson that they were absolutely dependent on Him seemed to be burned into their brain; for after the return from the Captivity it does not appear that to any serious extent they lapsed again into the practices of idolatry. Yet they fell into something as bad. For they lost the true spirit of holiness; they worshipped, not indeed stocks and stones, but the mere letter of the Law; and this itself they so perverted that it ceased to be the Law of God, and was made to cover their own iniquities with the cloak of hypocrisy.

Then at last the Lord said, 'Surely they will reverence My Son.' He sent His Son with miracles of healing for His credentials, and the promise of forgiveness for His message. The nation hailed Him as the Messiah foretold to be their deliverer, and believed that He was come to overthrow the foreign oppressors and restore the kingdom to Israel. But when they learned that His was no temporal kingdom, and that the deliverance offered was only from the bondage to their own sins and to the power of Satan, they turned back from following Him, and cried Crucify Him.' So the Son of God and the Son of man was

CHAP. VII] crucified.

And so ended the effort of God to make

the Jewish nation His witness to the world.

But a remnant was left. A dozen individuals, though at first with trembling and doubt, still clung to their Master's teaching. But its truth and purity made way, and drew more and more converts to their side. And the hour was favourable. For the first time in the history of the world there was universal peace, the iron peace imposed by the Roman sword. Wider ranges than ever before were opened up to civilisation. The whole of Southern Europe and Asia, of North Africa and Egypt, were safe to the traveller, and acknowledged a common authority. Thus from the Atlantic to the borders of India it was possible for enthusiasts to carry the message of God. They might be stopped by local or temporary persecutions, but they sowed the seed, and it took root and sprang up. It might be mixed with the tares of wild heresies, but it grew on to the harvest. Thus now Christianity, perhaps not everywhere pure, but at least founded on Christ's message, is the faith of almost the whole civilised world, and is the growing faith in the world.

But the method which God then finally took to achieve His purpose of the redemption and