When a leader with vision shows that his dreams have a habit of coming true, men down tools and follow him. So long as the vision lasts, it is the same whether it is Christ with his vision of the Kingdom of God, or Napoleon with his vision of military glory, because leaders are so few and far between they seldom have to compete for followers. The difference was that Christ's vision was of supreme self-sacrifice, whereas Napoleon sacrificed everyone and everything to his overweening and treacherous ambition. The similarity was that they enabled their followers to rise above the prevailing corruption of consciousness, that settles on all static human institutions. Men cannot do without a leader; and the desire for one is so intense that men tend to forget to ask whither the leader is going to take them.

Kipling expressed it by saying that he wouldn't give his homage to kings or emperors, but he would give his homage to the dreamer whose dreams came true. This I am convinced was the attraction of the risen Christ to his early followers. It was the joy of the Easter resurrection, and not the self-sacrifice of Good Friday, that fired the imaginations of his disciples. When a man knew…