WHAT has been set concerning the power of the teachings of Jesus to   
stir and and enlighten the conscience; what has been said of his 
 
own character and life as , and , making 
 
clear and enforcing, his ; 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 of a wonderful but very common fact of daily observation and 
 
experience, a fact that cannot be dissevered from the character, nature, 
 
and personality of Jesus himself: the effect of his and of 
 
himself upon men.
 
It is not meant that all who are called show these results; 
 
that all who are Christians show all these results; that any man or woman 
 
who ever was called has shown all the results possible to 
 
humanity as the natural sequence of receiving the doctrine of Jesus 
 
and living up to it. No more than I will plead for coins; no 
 
more than I would say that all coins that have pure gold in them are of 
 
full weight and without of baser metal. But this I do say: we do 
 
find, and always find, in those who receive and obey the teachings of 
 
Jesus the results he out as following their reception; that the 
 
results follow in proportion to the thoroughness with which these 
 
teachings are observed; that those who best keep them become most like 
 
him, the one blameless and perfect Man.
 
We will not enter into any theological discussions; we do not touch the 
 
metaphysics of the subject; but this may be affirmed roundly and without 
 
qualification: those who believe and receive and obey his words are not 
 
only changed in their manner of life, they are, so far as we can have any 
 
means of judging men, changed in their spirit of life. So it does come to 
 
pass in those who keep his words; old things become new, not only in the 
 
sphere of action, but also in the sphere of thinking, feeling, willing.
 
As it seems to me, there can be nothing in this world harder to do than to 
 
change, not men’s external lives merely, but men themselves. Changing men
 
’s hearts is like making worlds.
 
Who else who ever taught, lived, or died, does this? Does this while among 
 
men? Does this, being for nearly two thousand years gone out of the sight 
 
and hearing of men? But Jesus works this miracle now, and in men of all 
 
races and conditions, and , learned and unlearned. And 
 
their number is as the sands by the sea-shore and as the stars of heaven 
 
for multitude.
 
thinkers in for Jesus—in characterizing and classifying 
 
him—must take account of the effects produced in human character, as well 
 
as in human lives, and in human lives because in human character.
 
The men of science tell us we must take account of facts in forming our 
 
conclusions; and they are right. It was Jesus who taught this principle 
 
long before Bacon; “By their fruits ye shall know them.” In studying 
 
Jesus we must take account of those facts in human life which seem to be 
 
connected with him.
 
We have spoken of the change in character—call it by any name or none—
 
that follows to Jesus. In this connection there is another most 
 
wonderful thing to be considered. What I am to mention now is, on the  
 
grounds of common sense and worldly reasoning, the most marvelous and 
 
of all facts observed among men in relation to any being not 
 
with them in visible, form; I refer to the matchless love his 
 
true feel toward him, not as a teacher, but as a person.
 
None can deny it. Who, if Jesus was only a man, can explain it?
 
No man who knows history, or the world to-day, will doubt for one moment 
 
that millions on millions of human beings—men, women, and little children
 
—have felt and shown for the person of Jesus the most absorbing love; a 
 
love that drove out all fear and mastered every other love. Some great 
 
teachers and leaders while they were yet in the flesh have had followers 
 
and friends who loved them well enough to hazard life for them and to die 
 
for them. We can understand the soldier who, on one occasion, when a shell 
 
fell close by the first Napoleon, while it was just exploding flung 
 
himself between the fatal bomb and his loved chief, and throwing his arms 
 
about him died in his stead. But when Napoleon was an exile in St. Helena 
 
he complained one day that, among all those he had befriended in the days 
 
of his power, there were none to draw sword for him when he was an exile. 
 
Who would die for Napoleon now?
 
There have been thinkers, poets, , philosophers, who have 
 
enthusiastic admirers who contend for them in the pretty war of words. 
 
Shakespeare has as many such admirers as the foremost in all the world. 
 
But who loves him—the man—in any such deep, absorbing fashion as untold 
 
millions have loved and do now love the Man—Jesus of Nazareth? It 
 
surprises you to hear such a question. If Jesus was only a man the 
 
question should not surprise. How does it come about that such love as the 
 
great army of and confessors have shown was never felt for any 
 
except this Galilean peasant?
 
There is not now, there never was such love for or Mohammed. Such 
 
love was never for the of or Mohammedanism. 
 
Such love was never felt for any person long gone from the midst of men.
 
This love is not like the that fights for one’s own idea; it 
 
is the love of a per............