Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III SOURCES SOURCES "These are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." — John xx: 31. Where can we find a subject more interesting than the Character of Jesus? It is fascinating to every human being who has the slightest ambition to advance in culture, or who has the smallest capacity for apprehending things which are of deep and enduring significance. Simply as a piece of biography what a wonderful story this is, how exciting his life, how tragic his death! Whether a man is a Christian or not he must, unless thoroughly hardened by prejudice, take an interest in the life of Jesus. No man or woman of intellect can remain unmoved by the death of Socrates. The prison in which he died is one of the holy places of history. So long as men have minds to think and hearts to pity, they will stand in awe before the old Greek philosopher while he drains the fatal cup. But the death of Jesus is more tragic than the death of Socrates. Who is not interested in the death of Julius Caesar? When will Mark Antony's speech cease to stir the blood ? So long as men are human they will stand awestruck in the presence of thatgreat tragedy enacted in the Roman capitol. But the death of Jesus is more tragic than the death of Caesar. Moreover, Jesus of Nazareth is the starting point of a thousand influences. The whole world of the last nineteen hundred years becomes unintelligible unless one knows something about him. How can you understand the great art galleries of the world, filled as they are with pictures of his face, and pictures of his mother, and pictures of his disciples, unless you know who he was and what he said and what he accomplished? Step out of the art galleries into the libraries and how will you understand the great books of history unless you a...