JT is remarkable that no one before or since
Jesus Christ ventured to proclaim himself as
the guide to truth and life. Jesus Christ did



110 IDEA OF THE CHURCH.
more than this ; he proclaimed himself to be
" the way, the truth, and the life."

But Jesus Christ, to be the way, the truth,
and the life to all generations of men, as he was
to the generation in which he lived, must be
present to them, not in a dead book, or in an
indefinite and abstract manner, but as their
Teacher, Guide, Helper, Father, Friend, Brother,
Lover. He must meet all the wants of man's
heart, and satisfy all the demands of man's in-
tellect ; and that really and personally, for all
men have need of vital and personal relations
with their Saviour.
We, for our part, refuse to acknowledge for
our Saviour, one dead and separated from us by
eighteen centuries ; nor can we admit that a
book, written in a dead language by his disci-
ples, containing, at best, but a small part of
what ho said and did, is the fountain-source of
God's eternal and everlasting Truth.
