BY ATTICUS G. HAYGOOD Lord, to whom shall we go but unto thee? Thou hast the words of eternal life.— Simon Peter. NEW YORK: HUNT & EATON CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & STOWE 1889 Copyright, 1889, by ATTICUS G. HAYGOOD, New York . TO THE “EMORY BOYS,” WHO WERE WITH ME IN THE OLD COLLEGE IN 1876–84, THIS LITTLE BOOK IS Dedicated BY ONE WHO LOVES THEM ALL. THE AUTHOR. Decatur, Ga. , April 9, 1889 ....

Decatur, Ga. , April 9, 1889 . My Dear Lundy: You and many others of my students at Emory of the years 1876–1884 have often asked me to put into permanent form the thoughts concerning “The Man of Galilee”—“Jesus of Nazareth”—I brought before you when we were together at the old college in Oxford. In this little book I have had the boys in mind all the way through, as if they were before me in my lecture-room in “Seney Hall.” Many times the very faces of the boys seemed to be about me as I have w

Who and what was Jesus of Nazareth? In this question and its answer is involved the whole of what we mean by Christianity. If it could be demonstrably proved that there never existed such a person as Jesus, Christianity, as a living force, would cease from the earth. There would indeed be a history, a literature that would interest people according to their tastes; but there would be no heart-changing, world-up-lifting system of vital and vitalizing truths and corresponding duties, binding upon

The doctrine I set forward concerning Jesus is this: Such a person must have actually lived, as the condition of conceiving such a character, for the reason that the power of creating such a character was never in the Hebrew mind, or any other. At this point let me tell you how my thoughts were directed in the lines the argument takes in this discussion. In the month of April, 1861, while a pastor in Sparta, Ga., I was reading one of Hugh Miller’s books, First Impressions of England and Its Peop

How little the evangelists were capable of inventing such a character as the Jesus of the four gospels is made very plain by comparing Jesus and his doctrines with them and their notions. It must be assumed here that you have, to some extent at least, considered what the character of Jesus is and what his teachings mean. As to your conception of him and his teachings, this I am sure of: if you continue to study him and his words your best ideas now will, by and by, seem to you to be very unworth

We will consider the notion that Jesus is the product of dramatic genius from other stand-points. Have the evangelists given form and voice to national ideals? Jesus cannot be in those writings the crystallization of national legends; there are no such legends. Had these writers constructed the character out of national legends or national hopes Jesus would have been a national deliverer, not a personal Saviour, talking to men of sin and salvation. He was not at all, as these writings and as oth

Some learned men, in seeking a way to account for the Jesus of the New Testament without accepting the reality of his existence, have sought to set up a notion like this: It is true that the evangelists did not invent this character, yet Jesus never really lived; he is only the myth of Hebrew history. We are to think of Jesus, they tell us, as we do of the Greek Theseus, of the Egyptian Isis and Osiris, of the Thor and Odin of the Scandinavian legends, of the Hindustanee Vishnu, or of Buddha, an

There are writers who see clearly that the four evangelists could not have invented the character of Jesus, and who know that the story of his manifestation violates every known law that governs the birth and growth of myths; but they tell us Jesus was nevertheless only a man. They say he did really live in Palestine in the days of Augustus, Tiberius, Herod, and Pilate, and that he was only a man after all—a man of very great gifts and virtues, the best man and the greatest teacher that ever liv

In studying the story of the evangelists let us try to come nearer to Jesus. We need not fear; he would have us find out all about him that we can; he would have us know what manner of man he is. If we love beauty, goodness, and truth, we will approach him with reverence. No good man, no man you can respect or trust, will speak of Jesus with flippant words. But we may go to him without hesitation; he who took little children in his arms and blessed and kissed them will not receive the humblest s

We will consider the method of Jesus as a teacher, and the word is appropriate now. He did have a method in teaching men the truths that he knew without reasoning about them, the truths that he did not discover by investigation, the truths he knew because they were in him. To begin with, Jesus does not seek to prove things to his hearers; he announces what is truth as God announces truth. He is a divine dogmatist; he offers no proof of what he sets forth as truth. No other teacher ever taught as

When we compare the work Jesus proposed to do in the world with the schemes of earth’s greatest ones we cannot classify him with mere men. What did he think he came into the world to do? What did he consider his mission to be? We cannot be in the least doubt for the answer; there was no confusion in his thought, no ambiguity in his words. If we ask what Jesus thought his mission was we will easily find the answer—unparalleled by the thought of any, absolutely unique, stupendous, but as unmistaka

Let us now consider briefly the magnitude of the work Jesus proposed to do as the end of his mission to men. It is the baldest commonplace to say the work Jesus proposed to accomplish transcends all the dreams of the boldest imagination. It is a deep offense that once, at St. Helena, Napoleon contrasted the work Jesus proposed to do with the dreams that he and Alexander and Julius Cæsar had indulged of world-changing conquests. It is no great thing that selfish, ambitious, and gifted men have dr

What are we to say of the means which Jesus proposes to use for the accomplishment of his vast and unheard-of ends? I say broadly, and with certain assurance, Jesus proposes none of the means which mere men would use; of the sort they have always used. His plans and methods are utterly unlike the plans and methods of men, except as they have learned most imperfectly from him in humble and earnest efforts to do his will. The methods that mere men trust in—always trust in—he will have none of. Jes

Jesus did none of the things a man would do who proposed to establish and perpetuate any sort of kingdom, or school of beliefs, even in this world. He established no institutions with formal constitutions. He did not draw up a code—not so much as a system of moral philosophy. He left no “theological institutes,” with precise definitions and exact limitations. Some of his true friends have done their best at such work; he did not. Theirs is a man’s way; his was not. He left no formal creed; he ne

If Jesus was only a man there is another marvelous thing you must have thought of before this time. He talked of a kingdom that was to endure forever, that was to conquer the world, and that was to bind the human race into a holy brotherhood; but he made no preparation for a successor. He expected to die early, as he did; he told his disciples, time and again, that he would not be with them long; but he provided for no representative or visible headship when he was gone. The idea of such a repre

So far we have been studying the character and work of Jesus as he is presented in the evangelists, just as we might study any other character of that period. We have not yet considered Jesus as he now affects the world—a presence and force of our own times. When the scientists proved the indestructibility of matter, when they discovered the doctrine of the conservation of energy, showing us how the coal measures, that warm millions of homes and drive the machinery of land and sea, are but store

There is a fact, personal to Jesus, that not only enters vitally into this argument, but more than any thing else explains the power of his words on the conscience: what was considered in another relation in the outset—the perfection of his own character; his sinlessness: his absolute purity. A perfect doctrine will no doubt affect the conscience, but a perfect doctrine uttered by one who lives a holy life has tenfold the power of the mere statement of doctrine. And it is not simply that the hea

In considering Jesus as he is now in the world, not in the story of the evangelists and in books simply, but in human life, there are other views to be taken. We can take views only; we cannot see all that they indicate. We must consider more carefully now what we looked at for a moment in the argument that compels us to believe that this character could not have been invented, and that such a personality could not have been a normal outgrowth of Hebrew life: Jesus is a universal character—the o

What has been set forth concerning the power of the teachings of Jesus to stir and stimulate and enlighten the conscience; what has been said of his own character and life as incarnating, and thereby expounding, making clear and enforcing, his doctrine; what has been suggested concerning the absolute universality of his character, making him brother to every human being and therefore as much to one as to another, all this brings us to speak briefly of a wonderful but very common fact of daily ob

OUR BROTHER IN BLACK: His Freedom and His Future. Price, post-paid, – – – – – $1. New York: HUNT & EATON; Cincinnati: CRANSTON & STOWE; Nashville, Tenn.: SOUTHERN METHODIST PUBLISHING HOUSE. It goes to the very kernel of affairs.— Atlanta (Ga.) Constitution. A most exhaustive and interesting study of the colored man, his present condition and future prospects.— New York Herald. A more powerful plea for the Negro than any Negro ever made.— Cincinnati Star-Times. We recall no other