THE FIRST
TRUE GENTLEMAN
A Study in the Human
Nature of Our Lord
With a Foreword by
EDWARD EVERETT HALE, D.D.
BOSTON
JOHN W. LUCE & COMPANY
1907
Copyright, 1907, by
JOHN W. LUCE & COMPANY
Boston, Mass., U.S.A.
The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass.
A FOREWORD
The dictionaries and thestudents of words have a greatdeal to say,--perhaps more thanis worth while,--of the origin ofthe word Gentleman,--whethera gentleman in England and agentilhomme in France meanthe same thing, and so on. Thereally interesting thing is that ina republic where a man's a man,the gentleman is not created bydictionaries or by laws. Youcannot make him by parchment.
As matter of philology, theoriginal gentleman was gentilis.That is, he belonged to a gensor clan or family, which wasestablished in Roman history.He was somebody. If he hadbeen nobody he would havehad no name. Indeed, it isworth observing that this wasthe condition found among theislanders of the South Sea.Exactly as on a great farm thedistinguished sheep, when theywere sent to a cattle fair mighthave specific names, while forthe great flock nobody pretendsto name the individuals, socertain people, even in feudal times,were gentilis, or belonged to agens, while the great body ofmen were dignified by no suchprivilege.
The word gentleman, however,has bravely won for itself,as Christian civilisation has goneon, a much nobler meaning.
The reader of this little bookwill see that the poet Dekker,surrounded by the gentlemenof Queen Elizabeth's Court,already comprehended the largersense of this great word. Thewriter of this essay, taking thefamiliar language of theEstablished Church of England,follows out in some of the greatcrises of the Saviour's life someof the noblest illustrations of thepoet's phrase.
It is well worth rememberingthat the Received Version of theNew Testament