The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1894-05-22

perfect man. unto the statue " a.,
fulness Of christ" Aud IL Is not ont,
the picture Of Christ's sinless humanity.
10 which the apostle points. but to the
fulness Of that humanity.
Jesus was complete in righteousness
but complete also in every human
faculty. He opened His heart to
earthly friends, as truly as lie opened
II to His Father in Heaven. lie loved
children, flowers, the stars, the de-
lights of companionship. He had
courage. strength and noble emotions
which made him conspicuous among
men.
Men respond in multitudes most read
lily TO exalted human traits in character.
The divinity which Christ exhibited in
his marvellous cures astonished the
people. but the mere power of healing
would not have drawn and kept to-
gether the crowds which followed him,
had he been a less noble specimen of a
man.
His bearing confirmed his miracles as
much as the miracles authenticated his
mission. II he had been less human in
his projections, the personal power ex.
erted by him throughout the world
to-day would scarcely suffice to keep
alive belief even in the historic record
of his life. He would soon have held
place only among the mythical person
ages of the neurological age.
The character of Jesus as a perfect
man is as much a power as the exhibit
ton of his divine authority; and the
point where the Gospel resists most sue
cessfully all skeptical assaults is just at
the point of the inimitable, transcend
ent manliness seen in Him; by this His
divine nature is commended to the in
genuous mind
Without the Deity in Him He could
not be our atoning Saviour; but with
out this perfected humanity He could
not be our true High Priest, bringing us
to God and reconciling the world to
Him.
In Jesus, then, we have the perfected
standard to which Christianity prom
ises to bring mankind through faith in
Him.
Some may ask the appearance of an
Apollo, beautiful in every attitude
and graceful in every proportion.
Others may miss the show of muscular
strength, such as Michael Angelo has
given to Christ in his picture OF the
Last Judgment, where Christ, as a
judge, is exercising superhuman power
in the destruction of the wicked; while
yet a few may require a form raised
above the weaknesses and Weaknesses of
human flesh.
But our Savior, sometimes footsore
and athirst, with the dust of the high
way on his sandals, proves that the ex-
ceiling man, under the conditions OF this
life OF struggle and growth, will never
be exempt from earthly sorrow and its
pains. He must have the marks of the
battle as well as those of the victory
upon him.
1t is an empty illusion that men are
one day, by the arts of civilized life, to
arrive at freedom from labor, exemption
from accident, and release from burden
some anxieties. Such a condition is the
Utopia OF foolish or time-serving re-
formers of the worst type.
The dying gladiator is a far truer
representative OF humanity, as it is and
always will be, than the Apollo Belvi-
dere. The Hebrew Samson must be
relegated, as an ideal OF heroism, to the
earlier ages, when men paid special def
erence to strength OF limb, and made
their kings and judges out of their
giants.
For the Christian ideal of saintship,
though spiritually above is not exempt
from the most acute sensibility to suffer
ing and sorrow. 1t is not the stole of
the Greeks, nor the mystic PROJECTIONS
of the Buddhists.
Christ the model man, as well as the
incarnation of the Deity, is figure
which developes no function at the ex.
pense of any other. as in the case OF
stoics, Buddhist and many modern
schools. His religious feeling never
drives him to an abandonment of the
haunts of busy life. His care of the
body never deters him from sacrificing
the body to the highest need of the soul
And yet, to feed and clothe the body is
duty which he indicates. The large
place in his heart for His Father in
Heaven, left room for all precious and
elevating earthly friendships, Jesus
loved Mary and her sister Martha.
Intellectual culture of the highest
order which His age admitted, He ex.
hibited even as a child in the temple
among the doctors of the law; while
at the same time, all His wisdom He
ascribes to the Divine source whence il
was derived. "What the Father saith
unto me, that do"
Concluded to mOrrO,c.)