interpretation of religion. You see the devout old Jew, Simeon, who
met Jesus as His mother brought Him for the first time into the
temple; and there you behold the old faith interpreted by the new. All
that was best in the Hebrew religion is conserved and carried higher
in the Christian religion. Everywhere the devoutest Jews were
conscious of wants which the national faith did not meet. They waited
for the consolation of Israel, and when Christ came he supplied
satisfactions which Hebraism could not supply. Christianity commended
itself to the disciples of Christ because it seemed to be their own
faith at its best. They were carried over into it by the logic
of their previous belief and their deep human need. Paul sought
righteousness as a Jew; when he became a Christian, righteousness
was still his great quest. And Christianity commended itself to him
because the national ideal of righteousness was set before him in
a sublimer form, and because a new inspiration came to him in his
pursuit of it. The old immemorial goal of human endeavor was exalted,
and the everlasting incentives were filled with the freshness of a
divine life. Thus the religious Jew, when Christ came, was like a
convalescent patient. The process of recovery was going on, but in
a way that was discouragingly slow. The longing was for the higher
altitudes of the spirit, for the pure and bracing atmosphere of some
exalted leader, for an environment richer in healing ministry and in
restoring power. That longing Christ met. He carried His believing
countrymen on to the heights. He surrounded them with the freshness of
His own spirit. He put over them a new sky. He took them into a new
environment, rich with His truth and grace, tender with infinite
sympathy, stored with the forces that work for spiritual vigor, filled
with the love of His Father. Ask Peter or James or John or Paul, ask
any believing Jew and he will tell you that Christianity is simply the
consummation of his faith as a Jew.