Jesus added to it nothing durable afterward.

Indeed, in one sense, he compromised it; for every movement, in order to triumph, must make sacrifices; we never come from the contest of life unscathed.
[Footnote 1: See especially _Pirke Aboth_, ch.

i.] [Footnote 2: The Talmud, a _resume_ of this vast movement of the schools, was scarcely commenced till the second century of our era.] To conceive the good, in fact, is not sufficient; it must be made to succeed amongst men.

To accomplish this, less pure paths must be followed.

Certainly, if the Gospel was confined to some chapters of Matthew and Luke, it would be more perfect, and would not now be open to so many objections; but would Jesus have converted the world without miracles?
If he had died at the period of his career we have now reached, there would not have been in his life a single page to wound us; but, greater in the eyes of God, he would have remained unknown to men; he would have been lost in the crowd of great unknown spirits, himself the greatest of all; the truth would not have been promulgated, and the world would not have profited from the great moral superiority with which his Father had endowed him.