we must first of all, like a historical artist, think ourselves
into sympathy with his position and, in the technical phrase,
create his character. A historian confronted with some ambiguous
politician, or an actor charged with a part, have but one pre-
occupation; they must search all round and upon every side, and
grope for some central conception which is to explain and justify
the most extreme details; until that is found, the politician is an
enigma, or perhaps a quack, and the part a tissue of fustian
sentiment and big words; but once that is found, all enters into a
plan, a human nature appears, the politician or the stage-king is
understood from point to point, from end to end. This is a degree
of trouble which will be gladly taken by a very humble artist; but
not even the terror of eternal fire can teach a business man to
bend his imagination to such athletic efforts. Yet without this,
all is vain; until we understand the whole, we shall understand
none of the parts; and otherwise we have no more than broken images
and scattered words; the meaning remains buried; and the language
in which our prophet speaks to us is a dead language in our ears.

Take a few of Christ's sayings and compare them with our current
doctrines.

'Ye cannot,' he says, 'serve God and Mammon.' Cannot? And our
whole system is to teach us how we can!

'The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the
children of light.' Are they? I had been led to understand the
reverse: that the Christian merchant, for example, prospered
exceedingly in his affairs; that honesty was the best policy; that
an author of repute had written a conclusive treatise 'How to make