Preface

My design in this book is to study, not the portraits, but the Portrait, of Christ. I am not concerned with the products of Italian art. I am not occupied with a criticism of the various views which have been taken of Christ in literature. I am not even engaged in a comparison of the four aspects of Christ in the New Testament. The Portrait which I study is one hung up in the heart — the combined effect of all the different aspects which the Gospels reveal.

The work is not critical, but introspective. I do not seek to paimt a Christ; I stand before the Christ already painted, and try to analyse its Features. Necessarily, I limit

myself to that which is human. There is vi PREFACE

something which is Divine; but, just because it is Divine, it defies my analysis. These pages confine themselves to that element in Jesus which grew. They seek to trace the steps of the process by which His earthly work was developed — from the dawning of the great resolve to the dying on the Cross. To complete the design I shall require to extend this work into another volume; the present reaches only to the Desert of Bethsaida.

G. M.

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND,