384 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE 3I0NTHLY, 



hosts of good, plain, practical people of all sorts who have left us a 

 constitutional heritage. '\\'e have further encouragement in the law 

 by which successive generations tend to revert to a normal type : 

 peculiarities are got rid of, defects are supplemented, excesses are re- 

 strained ; a certain amount of refuse is wrought out and cast aside age 

 after age. The blind man has children with eyes. On the whole, we 

 can not marvel that with such a mongrel ancestry of saints and sinners 

 we manifest such contradictory tendencies, and are such an enigma to 

 ourselves, as if not two men but a thousand were contending within us 

 for the dominion in the changing moods that pass over us, and in the 

 wild, irregular thoughts that shoot through the mind, and try to find 

 their way to the surface to gain their own ai>propriate expression. 

 That blessing and cursing should proceed from the same lips, that men 

 should come away from prayers at church and get into very unlovely 

 tempers at home, is doubtless very sad, but it is just what might have 

 been expected from those who reckon among their progenitors the 

 evil and the good, the best and the worst, of a whole country. 



This doctrine of the close kinship of mankind triumphantly estab- 

 lishes, apart from genealogical tables, the fact that Jesus Christ had 

 descendants from King David, but impairs the value of the fact when it 

 is established. David, the King of Israel, flourished above a thousand 

 years before Christ, and left behind him many children. The channels 

 of succession being so numerous, and having their fountain-head so far 

 back, had time before the birth of Christ to branch out in every direc- 

 tion, and could not have missed any genuine Jew in the land, especial- 

 ly if he was of the tribe of Judah. Jesus Christ, being of this tribe, 

 was undoubtedly in the succession, and had in him the blood of the 

 son of Jesse. But then was there a man of the tribe of Judah at least 

 who had not ? Is there a man living now who has not ? Of course 

 the conventional value of Christ's descent by what is termed lineal suc- 

 cession from David, and its value as a fulfillment of prophecy on that 

 ground, are independent of the generalizing proofs which would make 

 out all to be David's children. 



The evidence seems conclusive that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had 

 several children after the birth of her illustrious First-born. He had 

 brethren and sisters, and if some of these left posterity in the earth, 

 as we may reasonably suppose they did, it is certain that we are the 

 descendants, the children, of Mary, and have a kinship with Christ, 

 much closer physically than we have dared to believe. 



In his case the phrase " Son of man " had a unique significance, but 

 the doctrine which has been expounded in this paper shows that it has 

 a real and solemn significance to whomsoever applied. Each of us ia 

 " son of man " in the tremendous sense that he is descended from all 

 the people who have posterity remaining, who lived on earth a few cent- 

 uries ago. Every individual living before Christ who has descendants 

 at all has them in us. We are the oflFspring of the whole of humanity 



