21–27 December 1840

We all know why Jesus serves men so well for a deity: why pure and sublime souls like A Kempis and Herbert can expend their genius and heart so lavishly on his name and history, and feel no check; why he stands ambassador or proxy for the sovereign, and receives homage of the lieges without any cloud of shame dark- ening the brow of the noblest among them. We all know, yet we cannot easily tell. It is for the same reason that the Koran and the Vedas and Buddhism have their martyrs and their sages. It is for the same reason that Swedenborg's Mythus is so coherent and vital and true to those who dwell within ; so arrogant or limitary to those without.