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 one and only universal character that has ever appeared in history, that has ever been described, that has ever had a place in human thought.
 
There are great differences in men. Some are so narrow and of soul as scarcely to have a thought or sympathy beyond the little circle in which they are born, in which they live, and out of which they go when they die. There are lives so localized that men out of their sphere they cannot understand, and that men out of their sphere cannot understand them. For every limited dialect in human speech there are limited thoughts and lives back of it. What do we mean by “provincialism” as to a man, or to the people of a State or country? It means limitation. Illustrations are every-where. Take a , an Irishman of some seldom-visited farming region, or, in our own country, a New Englander born and bred, never from home; or a village Georgian, a thorough-going old time Southerner. These men are . They may have admirable and indeed noble qualities, but they are limited in their views, narrow in their sympathies, and by so much they are cut off from the sympathies of their fellow-men of other conditions in life. people show us the extremes of provincialism.
 
But let us take now our illustration from the loftiest ranges of life. Among the ancients take Plato—broad-minded as any. What is he? Grecian to the core. There was no greater Roman than Julius Cæsar. But he was Roman; he was localized by race and country; there was much in him that only a Roman could understand, and therefore much that limited him in his knowledge of the men of other nations.
 
Come to more modern times. Only a few years ago the Protestant world the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther. There was enough in Luther to his influence through many generations. In every nation where the effect of the Lutheran reformation is felt there was real interest in the celebration of the anniversary of the great German’s birth. There was sympathy with Luther; moreover, more or less understanding of him. There was enough forceful life in Luther to Germany and enrich other lands; yet he was a German, and so not a universal, but a limited, character. And so it is that he means more to Germany than to England, or France, or America. It is not simply that Germans are more interested in him as a sentiment growing out of national pride in their greatest man; they understand him better than other people can. If he could come back to the world he would understand Germans better than he would other people.
 
Among great men in civil life take American Washington. Great man though he was, and having in him qualities that all true men recognize and approve, he was yet essentially American. He was also essentially Virginian, and plantation-aristocratic Virginian of his time, and no other.
 
Take English Gladstone, of living men. Broad-minded, well-informed, ripe in wisdom, rich in learning, all-accomplished, he is, it may well be supposed, second to no man of our times in greatness of heart and range of sympathies. But he is English; there is much in him that no foreigner can understand, and there is much in any foreigner that Gladstone cannot understand.
 
Take one more illustration—the man we call “myriad-minded”............