forth His perfectness, in such a shape and by such acts that men might
not only adore it, but sympathise with it; not only thank Him for it, but
copy it; and become, though at an infinite distance, perfect as their
Father in heaven is perfect, and full of grace and truth, like that Son
who is the brightness of His Father's glory, and the express image of His
person. Such a satisfaction have they found in looking upon the
triumphal entry into Jerusalem of Him who knew that it would be followed
by the revolt of the fickle mob, and the desertion of His disciples, and
the Cross of Calvary, and all the hideous circumstances of a Roman
malefactor's death.

But there have been those, and there are still, who have found no such
satisfaction in the story which the Gospel tells, and still less in the
explanation which the Epistle gives; who have, as St Paul says, stumbled
at the stumblingblock of the Cross.

It would be easy to ignore such persons, were they scoffers or
profligates: but when they number among their ranks men of virtuous
lives, of earnest and most benevolent purposes, of careful and learned
thought, and of a real reverence for God, or for those theories of the
universe which some of them are inclined to substitute for God, they must
at least be listened to patiently, and answered charitably, as men who,
however faulty their opinions may be, prove, by their virtue and their
desire to do good, that if they have lost sight of Christ, Christ has not
lost sight of them.

To such men the idea of the Incarnation, and still more, that of the
Passion, is derogatory to the very notion of a God. That a God should
suffer, and that a God should die, is shocking--and, to do them justice,
I believe they speak sincerely--to their notions of the absolute majesty,