could the sense revive of what righteousness really was,—revive in Israel and bear fruit for the world.
Instead, then, of 'the Root of Jesse who should set up an ensign for the nations and assemble the outcasts of Israel,'[1] Jesus Christ took from prophecy and made pre-eminent 'the Servant whom man despiseth and the people abhorreth, but who bringeth good tidings, who publisheth peace, publisheth salvation.'[2] And instead of saying like the prophets: 'This people must mend, this nation must do so and so, Israel must follow such and such ways,' Jesus took the individual Israelite by himself apart, made him listen for the voice of his conscience, and said to him in effect: 'If every one would mend one, we should have a new world.' So vital for the Jews was this change of character in their religion, that the Old Testament abounds, as we have said, in pointings and approximations to it; and most truly might Jesus Christ say to his followers, that many prophets and righteous men had desired, though unavailingly, to see the things which they, the disciples, saw and heard.[3]
The desire felt by pious Israelites for some new aspect of religion such as Jesus Christ presented, is, undoubtedly, the best proof of its timeliness and salutariness. Perhaps New Testament evidence to prove the workings of this desire may be received with suspicion, as having arisen after the event and when the new ideal of the Christ had become established. Otherwise, John the Baptist's characterisation of the Messiah as 'the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world,'[4] and the bold Messianic turn given in the twelfth chapter of St. Matthew to the prophecy there quoted from the forty-second chapter of Isaiah, would be evidence of the highest importance. 'A bruised reed breaketh he not,' says Isaiah of the meek servant and
