ALTHOUGH the earthly life of Jesus was brief, it is rightly regarded as the most complete life known or conceivable, as the one pure ideal of the human race. Jesus overcame sin, disease, and death while in the world, and departed from it fully assured that he had done all things well, and left undone nothing that concerned his mission. Yet with all this perfection and completeness the one great demonstration to which he had committed himself was, as far as the onlookers could judge, still incomplete. Not only was it incomplete, but to all appearances it was hopelessly overthrown.
On page 51 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says respecting Christ Jesus: "His consummate example was for the salvation of us all, but only through doing the works which he did and taught others to do. His purpose in healing was not alone to restore health, but to demonstrate his divine Principle." The purpose of Jesus' work and teaching was the salvation of the whole world from the error of mortal belief through the establishment in universal human consciousness of the reign of righteousness, of spiritual-mindedness, of the kingdom of heaven. This was the one great end toward which our Master wrought. His healing of the sick, his teaching, his miracles, his sacrifice, and his ascension, were all subsidiary to this greater demonstration, and would be of little meaning or consequence if they could be separated from it, but this demonstration was apparently incomplete ; indeed, the hour of his departure seemed the blackest of the world's benightedness. Yet he himself, praying to the Father, had declared, "I have glorified thee on the earth : I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." It mattered not how the world judged him or his mission. He had come that men might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly, and the way to that life was now open.
Students of the gospel record, however, sometimes lose sight of the Master's humanity. They forget that his wisdom was not abstract and wholly apart from mortal conditions, but concrete, born of the repeated application of spiritual faculties to profound and often disappointing human experiences. No doubt he hoped for much from his followers that reached no evident accomplishment. He undertook to bring all the world to a perfect understanding of God, yet he left the world without having seen this hope realized in the case of a single individual except himself. He had ardent partizan followers, it is true ; but it is evident that during his earthly career not one of them had an adequate concept of the purport of his teachings.
