in "colours of the rainbow," and handle them with such skill as to cheat the world into the notion that incredibilities were true, and chimeras realities? But the marvels of this unnatural achievement do not end here. Not only did this wonderful creation proceed from men whose whole moral and intellectual characteristics would seem to have made it impossible; not only was the task successfully essayed four several times, with variations of incident indeed, yet all in the same unique style; but one and all dared it in the same most difficult of all forms,—that of dramatic exhibition. They undertook to make this ideal personage, whose mere human qualities exist in a combination which would seem to lift it out of the sphere of our sympathy, and are conjoined with preternatural attributes, which would seem to do this yet more effectually, speak and act and live before us! Utterly hopeless task, one would say. Yet they have done it, and with such success that the majority of readers not only believe the character natural, but believe it historic, and have had their sympathies far more deeply moved by it than by all other dramatic personations put together! Of their own peculiarities, we know next to nothing. They are lost in their subject. But of this trait, as forming an unnatural feature, not of them only, but of the sacred writers in general, I shall take a future opportunity of speaking. Nothing of a literary character that the contemporaries of their nation, or those who succeeded them, have left, affords the faintest indication that any of them could have originated such a character, or so exhibited it. Their moral, and for the most part also their intellectual qualifications for such a task, may be measured by the Talmud; and the "Talmudic " tone and spirit are, in general, perfectly true to that form of human nature which, as I have said, might be expected under the given conditions. And that the Christians were as little capable as the Jews of originating such books as the Gospels, or rather such pamphlets-for all, put together, make less than one hundred quarto pages, though they have made such a prodigious noise in the world-is very distinctly seen in the Apocryphal Gospels. All that the Christians of after time could do with the original delineation. of Christ was to spoil it. The authors of these seem to have had the original Gospels before them as a model, and yet, in the second and third century, could do no better! The bulk of these apocryphal writings seem to have been composed with no ill design, though with execrable want of taste and judgment; but they are things which the world can hardly be prevailed upon to look into. It has been well said: "What strikes every one, whatever be his opinion of the origin and merits of these writings, is their immeasurable inferiority to the Canonical Gospels. Immeasurable, indeed, is a word which faintly expresses the extent of the difference between them. They belong to another sphere. It was short-sighted policy in the I This point is well argued in the "Essay on Mythical Theories of Christianity," by Rev. Chas. Row, M.A., inserted in the course of lectures against "Modern Scepticism," pp. 305-360. scoffing unbelievers of Voltaire's school to bring the two things into contact, in the hope of discrediting the Gospel. And the somewhat similar attempt of Strauss suggests the best refutation of his own theory. No more striking proof could be desired by Christians of the unique character of the Evangelic narrative, nor can any fair-minded sceptic fail to perceive the force of it. An impassable line separates the simple majesty, the lofty moral tone, the profound wisdom and significance of the Canonical Gospels from the qualities which we forbear further to particularise in the writings that claim to be their complement. We feel, as we turn from one region to the other, that the difference must be due to something more than lapse of years, or defect of reliable information. If the contrast between the writings of the Epistles and the apostolic fathers is so great that we are reminded perforce of the doctrine of inspiration, how much more when we turn from the sacred volume to the best of the writings before us? . . In a word, if these are the legendary records preserved by the simple faith and unassisted powers of early Christian disciples, to what power are we to ascribe the authorship of the New Testament?" I The sentiment, therefore, which Rousseau has put into the mouth of his Savoyard apologist,2—and which 1 "Edinburgh Review," July, 1868, pp. 105-109. 2 "Il seroit plus inconcevable que plusieurs hommes d' accord eussent fabriqué ce livre qu'il ne l'est qu' un seul en ait fourni le sujet."-Rousseau. "Emile." Liv. IV. Tom. iii. pp. 128, 129. Geneve, 1784. seems to have been his own, at least for the moment,is profoundly true. On the whole, the ideal origination of the character of Christ, and the world's stolid reception of it, notwithstanding, as historic, would seem one continued violation of all laws of human probability; whether we consider the antecedents, moral, intellectual, and literary, of those who produced it, or compare it with any contemporary relics of Jewish, or any subsequent performances of Christian minds; or reflect that this shadow has clothed itself with substance, and made the world think that a painting lives!-As it gazes transfixed, it exclaims, like the rapt Leontes before the supposed statue of Hermione, when Pauline proposes to draw the curtain, "Let be, let be: What was he that did make it? See, my lord, Would you not dream it breathed, and that those veins That we cannot well exaggerate the wonders of this unique creation, whether substance or shadow, real or mythical, is proved alike by the intense veneration and the intense opposition it has evoked. Indeed, it is hard to say whether the boundless admiration, or the vehement hostility to the name and claims of Christ, be the more signal tribute to His power. Is it conceivable that a bundle of myths or fictions should thus permanently stir the heart of humanity? We shovel out of the way, age after age, whole cartloads of this traditional lumber, in every other case but this one! No man, especially in enlightened and civilized ages like ours, ever thinks of standing up for any forms of mythology, least of all if they be of foreign growth and origin. If there be anything striking in them, we read about them with otiose curiosity, just as we should a nursery tale or a romance. But we should as soon think of believing that the lions and asses in Esop's fables really talked, as attach the smallest serious value to any mythology, Greek or Roman, Egyptian or Hindoo, ancient or modern. Jupiter in this respect is as Brahma, and Serapis as Vishnu. All are consigned to universal contempt or oblivion; and if any man were to undertake either to claim for them any religious significance to us, or elaborately maintain they had none, he would equally be regarded as out of his senses. But while all cultivated and civilized nations survey all mythologies with the same contempt, and even all superstitious nations look scornfully askance on all mythologies except their own, this Christian mythology (if it be mythology), and this alone, is inexhaustibly fascinating. Amidst the greatest diversities of race, nationality, tradition, culture, in modern as in more ancient times, in regions far remote from its native seat, and ages far distant from the epoch of its birth, it is still capable of exerting such an influence, that the loftiest minds, endowed with all that nature and all that culture can bestow, are not ashamed, in neverceasing and most animated controversy, to engage in impugning or defending it. Its truth or falsehood, its |