He stood
forth as the representative of men, he identified himself with the cause
and with the interests of all human beings, he was destined, as he began
before long obscurely to intimate, to lay down his life for them. Few of
us sympathise originally and directly with this devotion; few of us can
perceive in human nature itself any merit sufficient to evoke it. But it
is not so hard to love and venerate him who felt it. So vast a passion
of love, a devotion so comprehensive, elevated, deliberate and
profound, has not elsewhere been in any degree approached save by some
of his imitators. And as love provokes love, many have found it possible
to conceive for Christ an attachment the closeness of which no words can
describe, a veneration so possessing and absorbing the man within them,
that they have said, "I live no more, but Christ lives in me." Now such
a feeling carries with it of necessity the feeling of love for all human
beings. It matters no longer what quality men may exhibit; amiable or
unamiable, as the brothers of Christ, as belonging to his sacred and
consecrated kind, as the objects of his love in life and death, they
must be dear to all to whom he is dear.
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