{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_40153/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_40153","id":"gutenberg_40153","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40153","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christian life","Jesus Christ","Jesus Christ -- Character","Jesus Christ -- Humanity","Jesus Christ -- Natures"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Cover]\n\n\n\n\n                               THE FIRST\n                             TRUE GENTLEMAN\n\n\n                         _A Study in the Human\n                          Nature of Our Lord_\n\n\n\n                          _With a Foreword by_\n                       EDWARD EVERETT HALE, D.D.\n\n\n\n                                 BOSTON\n                         JOHN W. LUCE & COMPANY\n                                  1907\n\n\n\n\n                        _Copyright_, 1907, _by_\n                         JOHN W. LUCE & COMPANY\n                        _Boston, Mass., U.S.A._\n\n\n\n                   _The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass._\n\n\n\n\n                               A FOREWORD\n\n\nThe dictionaries and the students of words have a great deal to\nsay,--perhaps more than is worth while,--of the origin of the word\nGentleman,--whether a gentleman in England and a _gentilhomme_ in France\nmean the same thing, and so on.  The really interesting thing is that in\na republic where a man's a man, the gentleman is not created by\ndictionaries or by laws.  You cannot make him by parchment.\n\nAs matter of philology, the original gentleman was _gentilis_. That is,\nhe belonged to a _gens_ or clan or family, which was established in\nRoman history. He was somebody.  If he had been nobody he would have had\nno name.  Indeed, it is worth observing that this was the condition\nfound among the islanders of the South Sea. Exactly as on a great farm\nthe distinguished sheep, when they were sent to a cattle fair might have\nspecific names, while for the great flock nobody pretends to name the\nindividuals, so certain people, even in feudal times, were _gentilis_,\nor belonged to a _gens_, while the great body of men were dignified by\nno such privilege.\n\nThe word gentleman, however, has bravely won for itself, as Christian\ncivilisation has gone on, a much nobler meaning.\n\nThe reader of this little book will see that the poet Dekker, surrounded\nby the gentlemen of Queen Elizabeth's Court, already comprehended the\nlarger sense of this great word.  The writer of this essay, taking the\nfamiliar language of the Established Church of England, follows out in\nsome of the great crises of the Saviour's life some of the noblest\nillustrations of the poet's phrase.\n\nIt is well worth remembering that the Received Version of the New\nTestament, which belongs to Dekker's own generation, accepts his noble\nuse of language in one of the great central passages.  In the very\nlittle which we know of the early arrangements of apostleship, we are\ngiven to understand that the Apostle James lived at Jerusalem, and that\nin what he wrote he addressed the Christians of every race and habit in\nall parts of that world of which Jerusalem is the centre.  The Epistle\nof James may be called the first encyclical addressed to all sorts and\nconditions of men who accepted Jesus of Nazareth as the leader of their\nlives. To this day its practical and straightforward simplicity\nchallenges the admiration of all those believers who know that the tree\nis to be judged by its fruits,--that it is not enough to cry \"Lord,\nLord,\"--that it is not enough to say, \"I believe in this\" or \"I believe\nin that\";--but rather that the follower of Christ must do what He says.\nAnd how does this gentle apostle of apostles define in word the \"wisdom\nwhich is from above?\"  The wisdom from above is first pure, as the\nMaster had said, \"Blessed are the pure in heart.\"  Then the Wisdom from\nabove is peaceable, as the angels said when He was born.  Then the\nwisdom from above is gentle.  The man who follows Christ is a gentle\nman.  The woman who follows Christ is a gentle woman.\n\nAnd if anyone eager for accuracy in the use of language choose to hunt\nthe Greek word which we find in St. James's Epistle through the\nlexicons, he learns that the gentleman whom St. James knew is he who in\ndealing with others \"abates something from his absolute right.\"  He is\nso large and unselfish that he can grant more than he is compelled to\ngrant by rigorous justice.  He is the man who can love his brothers\nbetter than himself.  These are phrases from the old dictionaries.\n\n\"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for\nhis friends.\"\n\nEDWARD E. HALE.\n\n\n\n\n                        The First True Gentleman\n\n\nThe Elizabethan poet Dekker said of our Lord that He was \"the first true\ngentleman that ever breathed.\"  The passage is worth quotation:--\n\n    \"Patience! why, 'tis the soul of peace,\n    Of all the virtues nearest kin to Heaven.\n    It makes men look like gods, the best of men\n    That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer--\n    A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,\n    The first true gentleman that ever breathed.\"\n\n\nAll through English literature the word \"gentleman\" has had two\nmeanings, and has been used to describe a man of certain qualities as\nwell as a man of a certain birth.  A hundred and fifty years before\nDekker wrote it was declared that \"truth, pity, freedom, and hardiness\"\nwere the essential qualities of a gentleman.  Our Lord in His human\nnature personified these things.  Every gentleman in Christendom derives\nhis ideal from Christ whatever may be his dogmatic creed.  No virtue,\nperhaps, was so characteristic of our Lord as His devotion to truth.  He\ndeclared before Pilate that it was the end for which He was born. He\ncondemned all those who hindered its diffusion and tried to make it the\nmonopoly of a caste.  He tabooed all absurd asseverations, the\noccasional use of which was but a confession of habitual lying.  He\ntaught that lies were of the Devil, and that it was the Holy Spirit who\nled men into all truth.  He said that sincerity was the great light of\nthe Spirit, that all double-minded men were in the dark, and that their\nfear of the light of day was their own sufficient condemnation. The\nideal gentleman all through the ages has conformed his conduct in the\nmatter of truth to the Christian standard. He has avoided mental\nreservation, abhorred lying, and, though he has garnished his speech\nwith oaths, his yea has meant yea, and his nay, nay, and he has regarded\nhis word as his bond.\n\nAgain, courage and pity were combined in the character of Christ as they\nhad never been combined before.  Now the combination is common enough.\nWe have the seed and can grow the flower; but every man who excels in\nboth is in some sense a follower of Christ.  The courage of our Lord,\nthough it included physical courage, was not of that calibre which is\nmore properly called animal,--animal courage implies a want of\nimagination, and is probably incompatible with pity.  Christ in the\ngarden of Gethsemane \"tasted death for every man,\" and held out a hand\nof sympathy to that vast majority who must for ever regard it with\nstrong dread.  Yet by His precepts, by His life, and by His death He\ntaught men that fear can be mastered, though it is a form of suffering\nseldom altogether spared to the highest type of man.\n\nApart from their religious significance, the trial and crucifixion of\nChrist form the scene in the world's history of which humanity has most\nreason to be proud.  Christ, in His human nature, was a Galilean\npeasant.  He excused to his face the Roman Governor who stooped to\nthreaten a prisoner in Whom he found no fault. Judge and prisoner\nchanged places.  The distinctions of the world dissolved before the\ndistinctions of God.  At Pilate's bar all gentlemen recognise their\nhero, an example for ever of the powerlessness of circumstances to\nhumiliate.\n\nOn the Cross not only did our Lord maintain that composure which\nwitnesses to the supreme power of the soul, but with still balanced\njudgment He refused to impute sin to the Roman conscripts whose orders\nwere to crucify.  He made a last effort to console the grief of His\nmother and His friend, and set Himself to give hope and encouragement to\nthe suffering thief who believed he was receiving the due reward of his\ndeeds.  A genius however great, a gentleman however perfect, could\nimagine no story of courage more noble or more inspiring than the one\nset down in the Gospels.\n\nA new pity came into the world with Christ.  The lump is not yet\nleavened; even the white race is not yet pitiful. All the same, the\nemotion of pity is a power, and does, broadly speaking, distinguish\nChristendom from the heathen world.  It is part of the ideal of all\nthose who are conscious of having an ideal at all.  Gusts of anger, both\nnational and individual, sweep it out of sight; it is paralysed by fear,\nrendered blind by use and wont; again and again its scope is narrowed by\nthe reaction which follows upon affectations and exaggerations; but it\nis never killed.  It has been part of the moral equipment of a gentleman\nsince Christ \"went about doing good,\" revealing to men the secret Nature\ncould not teach them--breaking, as it seemed to them, the uniformity of\nher relentlessness--the secret of the divine compassion.\n\nThe independence of mind and manner inculcated by our Lord still marks a\ngentleman to-day.  Did He not teach that a man's conduct must at all\ntimes be ruled by his code and not regulated by his company? He must\nmaintain the same attitude towards life whether he find himself among\njust or unjust, friends or enemies.  He must not salute his brethren\nonly, nor be only kind to those that love him.  He must remain an honest\nman among thieves, ready to rebuke an offender to his face, but still a\ngentleman, who does not \"revile again\" or suffer the passion of revenge\nto destroy his judgment.  This moral independence is the rock on which\ncharacter is built. The man whose actions depend upon his environment\nhas but a sandy foundation to his moral nature.  Upon this strong rock\nof moral independence rest also the best manners.  Self-assertion and\nself-distrust are singularly allied.  It is the ill-assured who push in\ntheir ardent desire to be like somebody else.  It is dignity rather than\nhumility which is recommended to us in the parable of those who chose\nthe chief seats at feasts. It is a common thing to hear it said by\nsimple people in praise of some one they regard as pre-eminently a\ngentleman that \"he is always the same.\"  No doubt the publicans and\nsinners whose friendly advances Christ accepted without apparent\ncondescension said this of Him. He was so entirely Himself among them\nthat the vulgar-minded Pharisees whispered to one another that He must\nbe ignorant of the sort of company He was in, or surely He would make\nplain the gulf fixed between Himself and them.  By conventionality our\nLord seems never to have been bound.  On the other hand, He did not\nwantonly overthrow the conventions of His day.  When a social custom\nstruck Him as injurious, He told those who gave in to it that it stood\nin the way of better things, substituting custom for conscience.  On the\nother hand, He fell in with the usual ways of respectable people in a\ngreat many particulars, praying in a village place of worship beside\nPharisees who stood up to bless themselves and publicans who dared not\nso much as lift their eyes to heaven, taking part in a service which was\nfar enough removed from the sincere, spiritual, and wholly\nunsuperstitious worship to which He looked forward as He talked beside\nthe well.\n\nChrist had a horror of tyranny in every form, and He seems to have\nregarded it as a peculiarly heathen vice.  \"The kings of the Gentiles\nexercise lordship over them,\" He said. Some bold translators emphasise\nHis meaning by saying \"lord it\" over them.  Dekker was right.  A true\ngentleman is not harsh, implacable, or capricious.  The breaking of\nother men's wills gives him no pleasure.  Christ's followers, He said,\nmust avoid all selfish wish for ascendency.  A ruler, He said, should\nregard himself as the servant of all.  Where ruling is concerned the\ncounsels of Christ seem, like all His most characteristic utterances, to\nbe calculated rather to inspire aspiration in the minds of good men than\ndefinitely to regulate their action, for in more than one of the\nparables His words imply that an ambition to rule is a lawful ambition,\nand that increased responsibility may be looked to as a reward.\n\nTheoretically the Christian attitude towards power has always been the\ngentlemanlike attitude.  Hall, the chronicler, writing in 1548, says in\nthe \"Chronicles of Henry VI.\": \"In this matter Lord Clyfford was\naccounted a tyrant, and no gentleman.\"\n\nIt is commonly said to-day that Christianity has never been tried.  Such\na judgment is superficial in the extreme.  The moral teaching of Christ\nhas never been entirely carried out by any community nor perhaps by any\nman, but to speak as though it had no great influence is sheer\naffectation.  The white people have wasted, it is true, their time and\ntheir blood in quarrelling about dogma; but every Christian sect has\nrecognised in the divine character of the Nazarene Carpenter who\nsuffered upon the Cross the perfectibility of the human race, and in\ntheir highest moments of aspiration and repentance peoples and rulers\nalike have pleaded His merits before God. Nothing but this recognition\ncould have curbed the cruel pride of the ancient world, have undermined\nthe barriers of race and caste with a sense of human brotherhood, have\ncast at least a suspicion upon the theory that might is right, and made\nrespect for women a necessary part of every good man's creed.  Entirely\napart from what is usually called religion in England to-day, \"truth,\npity, freedom, and hardiness\" are the ideals of the race because\nnineteen hundred years ago Christ was born in the stable of a Jewish\ninn.","title":"The First True Gentleman: A Study of the Human Nature of Our Lord","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":2296}