I WILL confess that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the Gospel has its influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers, with all their pomp of diction; how mean, how contemptible are they, compared with the Scriptures! Is it possible that a book at once so simple and sublime, should be merely the work of man? Is it possible that the sacred personage whose history it contains, should be Himself a mere man? Do we find that He assumed the tone of an enthusiastic or ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what purity in His manner! What an affecting gracefulness in His delivery! What sublimity in His maxims! What profound wisdom in His discourses! What presence of mind, what subtlety, what truth in His replies! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live and so die, without weakness, without ostentation? When Plato describes his imaginary good man, loaded with all the shame of guilt, yet meriting the highest reward of virtue, he describes exactly the character of Jesus Christ; the resemblance was so striking that all the fathers perceived it. Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God.
ML 04/15/1906