anointed; even as, at times of special enlightenment, [1]

Jacob was called Israel; and Saul, Paul.

The third event of this eventful period,—a period of

such wonderful spiritual import to mankind!—was the

advent of a higher Christianity. [5]

From this dazzling, God-crowned summit, the Naza-

rene stepped suddenly before the people and their schools

of philosophy; Gnostic, Epicurean, and Stoic. He must

stem these rising angry elements, and walk serenely over

their fretted, foaming billows. [10]

Here the cross became the emblem of Jesus' history;

while the central point of his Messianic mission was peace,

good will, love, teaching, and healing.

Clad with divine might, he was ready to stem the tide

of Judaism, and prove his power, derived from Spirit, to [15]

be supreme; lay himself as a lamb upon the altar of

materialism, and therefrom rise to his nativity in Spirit.

The corporeal Jesus bore our infirmities, and through

his stripes we are healed. He was the Way-shower, and

suffered in the flesh, showing mortals how to escape from [20]

the sins of the flesh.

There was no incorporeal Jesus of Nazareth. The

spiritual man, or Christ, was after the similitude of the

Father, without corporeality or finite mind.

Materiality, worldliness, human pride, or self-will, by [25]

demoralizing his motives and Christlikeness, would have

dethroned his power as the Christ.

To carry out his holy purpose, he must be oblivious of

human self.

Of the lineage of David, like him he went forth, simple [30]

as the shepherd boy, to disarm the Goliath. Panoplied

in the strength of an exalted hope, faith, and understand-