Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1906-05-03

this testimony of friend and foe alike.
He never repents, never expresses re-
gret for anything. It is clear that He
has no compunctions of conscience. no
feelings Of unworthiness. He tells us
that He goes back to God untarnished.
And all this in view of the we'll known
fact that the nearer man lives to God
the more he realizes his defects. The
measure of human perfection is the
conscience. Carlyle says that the
greatest of faults is to be conscious of
nothing. The worse man is the less
conscience speaks to him. If the shield
be dull more or less spots upon it make
little difference, but if perfectly pol
tshed one spot mars it.
Jesus never accused Himself. Abra-
ham, Moses, Samuel and Ezekiah all
had to acknowledge imperfections.
Peter wept tears and Paul speaks Of
himself as "the chief of sinners" Ed
ward Payson says he did not know
any evil Of which he did not feel the
possibility in his own nature, and
Jonathan Edwards in writing his diary
stained the manuscript with tears of
contritons as he wrote. You detect no
such thing with Jesus. Why? Be-
cause he was Pharisee, satisfied with
external righteousness? Had He fam
tastic ideas of holiness? He made the
most exalted standard for men and
yet never gave the slightest intimation
that He fell below it. He said: "If ye
(not we) repent" and "Ye mot we)
must be born again. In all matters
of human sympathy where He could
ally Himself with man He did so, but
in sin He always separated Himself.
The so-called Lords Prayer is not
the Lords prayer except that He gave
It. When He said, "Our Father, who
are in heaven, forgive us our SINS" it
was a prayer He never meant for Him.
self. The symmetry of His character,
the completeness of it and the idea Of
goodness which is presented by Him is
harmonious. There is nothing one
sided or narrow which is SO often dis
cernible in the greatest of men. AS a
rule we cannot exemplify one aspect
of human goodness except at the cost
of the rest. It would seem as if nature
exhausted itself by success in a certain
direction. The hollow answers to the
hill in human character. It was not so
with Jesus. In His character each vir-
tue was balanced by its counterpart;
He was magnificent, yet weak. humble,
yet firm; just, yet BENEVOLENT; dignified,
yet condescending; pure, yet sympa-
lnetic; commanding. yet submissive:
spiritual but not ascetc. A great
many virtues are only vices that have
gone to seed. Our Lord never went
too far. He was in perfect equipoise;
unique, but not eccentric. He was a
combination of the masculine and the
feminine like to think that He
took OH all human nature. not simply
that of the man. We need not to WOr-
ship the virgin Mary, when we have
Jesus Christ. He sympathiZes with
everything that is beautiful in human
life. He was sensitive, but not senti-
mental; brave, but not rash; always
firm, but not obstinate or ~pigheaded;
His dignity never approaching pride;
His sympathy never becomes easy-go-
ing familiarity: He unites implacable
| hatred Of sin with the warmest love FOR
! the sinner. and keeps beautiful bal
ance between severity and tenderness.
| Our human nature. even at Its pest
! can hold nothing settled. The scales
( are always slipping Off the Dalance.
| The finite nature seems to exhaust II
| self In success Ill dlv OHC li1iC "a -
/ man achievement. But this balance OF
| the character of Jesus is never dis
| turbed nor needs readjustment. In
| Him the diverse prophecies of the Old
Testament unite. In one place He Is
| described as ''a root out OF a dry
| cround;;'' in another as 1.-The living
branch" as "despised and rejected
of men, in one passage and as ''the
| desire OF all nations" in another. II
His character He combines the char
| ncteristics of moral excellence.
Think also of the universally OF TIT
| character of Jesus. No nation or race
no time or sect can claim Him as IL
own. While Hebrew. yet there doe
| not seem to be any particular Hebrew
or even Oriental, characteristic abo.l
! Him. And this is the more remark
able if we remember that the Jews
| there have been no other such peopl
in the world-have kept the mood Q