His work in life isto wander on the roads of the
world and talk about truth for ever.
Criticism is only words about words; and of what
use are wordsabout such words as these? We are meant to feel that Death was the
bride of Christas Poverty was the bride of St.
That is what really shows us the world at its
worst.
Normally speaking, the greatera man is, the less
likely he is to make the very greatest claim.
It had its poets and its martyrs; men still to be
honoured for ever.
It had its poets and its martyrs; men still to be
honoured for ever.
In short, we can say that these ideals are
impossible in themselves. Heaven and earth shall pass away,but my words shall not
pass away. But he started a movement that could exist in a world without
slavery.
Rome was almost another name for
responsibility.
Buddha said Seek first the kingdom, and then you
will need noneof these things. In other words, this modern feeling is an entirely
mystical feeling. Why wasthis claim alone exaggerated unless this alone was made.
Take a thing like the point of the parable of the tares and the wheat.
The cry of this spirit also was heardin that hour,
It is well that one man die for the people. It was the soul of the hive;a heathen
thing. Buddha said Seek first the kingdom, and then you will need noneof these
things. Death is buta stone in the road which can trip him up.
It might be uttered by a philosopher a hundred
years old, at the endof a century of Utopias. It was the crisis and the goal; it was
the hourand the power of darkness.
In this story of Good Friday it is the best things
in the world that areat their worst.
It is as human as Herrick and as democratic as
Dickens. When Jesus was brought before the judgement-seat of Pontius Pilate,he did
not vanish.
It was the end of a very great thing called human
history;the history that was merely human. There was certainly nothing in the world
around him to help himto the discovery.
For nobody supposes that Jesus of Nazareth was that
sort of person.
But the other image of the keys has an exactitude
that has hardly beenexactly noticed. The primary thing that he was going to do was
to die.
Yet he stands for ever as a sort of rocking statue
of the irresponsible.
Socrates did indeed findthe conversation
interrupted by the incident of his execution.
But they were not things particularly peculiar to
his time.