Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HIS PUBLIC LIFE. THE SHORT DURATION AND MIGHTY EFFECT OF HIS MINISTRY. ABSENCE OF ALL OSTENTATION AND WORLDLY GREATNESS. We now approach the public life of Jesus. In his thirtieth year, after the Messianic inauguration through the baptism by John as his forerunner, and as the representative of the Old Covenant, both in its legal and prophetic or evangelical aspects, and after the Messianic probation by the temptation in the wilderness, ?the counterpart of the temptation of the first Adam in paradise, ?he entered upon his great work. His public life lasted only three years; and, before he had reached the age of ordinary maturity he died, in the full beauty and vigour of early manhood, without tasting the infirmities of declining years. He retained the dew of his youth upon him: he never became an old man. Both his person and his work, every word he spoke, and every act he performed, has the freshness, brilliance, and vigour of youth, and will retain it to the end oftime. All other things fade away; every book of man loses its interest after repeated reading: but the gospel of Jesus never wearies; it becomes more interesting the more it is read, and grows deeper at every attempt to fathom its depth. Even Napoleon is reported to have said on St. Helena, pointing to a copy of the Testament on his table: I never tire with reading it, - and I read it daily with equal delight. The gospel is not a book, but a living power which overwhelms every opposing force. The soul which is captivated by the beauty of the gospel does no more belong to itself or to the world, but to God. What an evidence is this of the divinity of Christ The great Orientalist, Henry Ewald, holding a Greek Testament in his hand, said to a friend: In this little book is contained the whole wisdom of th...