HUMAN ESTIMATE OF JESUS,

It did not fall within the purpose of Strauss to discuss the authenticity of the epistles found in the New Testament, but he acknowledges the genuineness at least of those attributed to Paul, (Vol. I. pp. 412-420). So far, however, as the present argument is concerned it ma^^ be admitted that neither he, nor James, nor Peter, nor John, nor Jude, wrote the letters severally ascribed to them. It may be further admitted, if the skeptic so desires, that these letters are not inspired, but are the productions of certain unknown men, who "collected also all sorts of legendary traditions, and embellished them in part by inventions of their own." Still no one is foolish enough to deny that they were written very near the time of Jesus, or that they express the estimate that was formed at that early day of His person and character and claims.

We open, then, the Epistle to the Romans, which is placed at the beginning of these ancient writings, and we are struck with the first clause of the first verse, which says, "Paul, a servant [literally a slave] of Jesus Christ." In the preceding book, called the Acts of the Apostles, that is so largely occupied with the labors and travels and sufferings of Paul, it is obvious at a glance that he merited the designation of a willing and free slave, for he had but one Master and one object in view, and that was Christ. He journeyed everywhere, exposed to danger in every form, stoned, beaten with rods, imprisoned, shipwrecked, yet unfaltering in his devotion, and always bearing in his hand a banner with this strange device, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world," (Gal. vi. 14). It is in perfect agreement, therefore, with his previous history to speak of himself as the slave of Jesus Christ.

In the second statement of the Epistle he announces that the gospel of God is "concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: by whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name: among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ: to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world, . . . For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." Whatever may be thought of such language by the infidel, surely amazing as exhibiting the estimate put upon the character of Jesus. The gospel is said to be concerning Him; He is called our Lord, and the Son of God; all Christians are chosen by Him; He is addressed in terms of equality with God the Father as the object of worship, and the source of grace and peace; thanks are offered through Him; and His gospel is the channel for the communication of God's power unto salvation, (i. 1-8; 16).

In the next chapter Paul alludes to "the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel," ii. 16). In the next chapter, after bringing in all the world, including both Jew and Gentile, guilty before God, he tells us of "the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time, his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus," (iii. 22-26).

In the next chapter he refers to the faith that was imputed to Abraham for righteousness, and then adds, "Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him: but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification," (iv. 23-25). In the next chapter he says, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; . . . for when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly; . . . while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; . . .  if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement, [or reconciliation]; . . . that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign, through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord," (v. 1, 6, 8, 10, 11, 21).

In the next chapter he says, "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?... Knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more; . . .  likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord;. ".. for the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord," (vi. 3, 9, 11, 23). In the next chapter he says, "Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ;" and after describing the writhings of a soul in the grasp of the law, and its fruitless efforts to attain unto holiness by struggling, he exclaims, "I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord," (vii. 4, 25). In the next chapter he says, "There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus; for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death; . . .  it is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us j who shall separate us from the love of Christ f '(viii. 1, 2, 34, 35). In the next chapter he describes the Israelites, as those "to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerniug the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen," (ix. 4, 5). In the next chapter he says, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth; . . .  if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God. hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved," x. 4, 9). In the next chapter he says, "There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob," (xi. 26). In the next chapter he says, "We, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another," (xii. 5). In the next chapter he says, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof," (xiii. 14). In the next chapter he says, "To this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living; . . .  for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ," (xiv. 9, 10). In the next chapter he mentions the name of Christ in twelve verses, closing with the entreaty, "Now I beseech you brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me," (xv. 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 29, 30). In the last chapter he mentions Christ in seventeen verses, concluding with the doxology, "To God only wise, be glory, through Jesus Christ, for ever. Amen," (xvi. 27).

Now, let it be borne in mind, that if all this is the mistaken opinion of a deluded fanatic or enthusiast, nevertheless it is a human estimate of Jesus, and such an estimate as was never placed upon any other man. From first to last lie is set forth as one with God, as so exalted in His nature and rank it is proper to address to Him our supplications, as over all, God blessed forever, as securing by His death the salvation of the soul, as the only medium through which eternal life is conveyed, as the object of faith, as the Deliverer from sin, as the Head of a new creation coming in after the ruin of the old creation under Adam, as the Judge at whose bar the countless millions of the human race must stand to hear the decision that will fix their eternal state. Truly this is wonderful, and it is the more wonderful, because it is in such marked contrast with the manner in which the writer uniformly describes human nature, as enmity against God, as having in it no good thing; because he exhibits no disposition for hero-worship when he speaks of the most distinguished men, as Abraham and David; and because it is the testimony of one who confesses that he had formerly been a bitter enemy of the crucified Nazarene. In his defence before King Agrippa, he says, "I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth," (Acts xxvi. 9); but here he wears the title of Jesus' slave, as the badge of highest honor, and the garland of immortality.

The same intense devotion, the same lofty ascription of divine attributes, titles, perfections, works and worship to Jesus, the same constant allusion to Him, as if the soul thrilled with gladness at the mention of His name, pervade all the Epistles of Paul. There is not time for an extended proof of this, which it is needless to present to those who have the least familiarity with his writings; but a glance at the opening chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, immediately following that to the Romans, will furnish an illustration of all the rest: "Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; that in everything ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: so that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. . . . The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. . . . Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption," (1 Cor. i. 1-9, 22-24, 30).

So in the opening chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, there are seven assertions concerning Jesus, which show the estimate placed upon Him by His Apostles, or at least by the early Christians. First, it is declared that He made the worlds, that He is the brightness of God's glory, or rather, the effulgence, the outshining of His glory, sustaining to the Father the relation of a sunbeam to the sun, and that He is the express image of God's person, or rather, the exact expression of His substance. Second, it is announced that He upholds all things by the word of His power, that by Himself He purged our sins, and sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Third, at His resurrection God is represented as saying, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." Fourth, He is next viewed in His personal relationship to God who says, "I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son." Fifth, this is followed by a reference to His second coming, when an imperial decree shall go forth from heaven's throne, "Let all the angels of God worship him." Sixth, a glimpse of His millennial reign succeeds, when the Father says to the Son, "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy Kingdom." Seventh, His glory through eternal ages is proclaimed, "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: they shall perish, but thou remainest: and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail," (Heb. i. 1-12).

Was there ever so high an estimate as this placed upon any other being, human or angelic? But thus it is, through the whole of Paul's writings that may be easily read in two or three hours; and yet in these brief writings he speaks of his Master 233 times under the title of *' Jesus," 416 times under the title of "the Christ "or Messiah, and nearly 300 times under the title of "Lord," as implying absolute sovereignty, supreme authority, universal dominion. By one or another of these titles he mentions the crucified One in every chapter of every Epistle, with a single exception, (1 Cor. xiii.); and that exception presents a picture of Him, so exquisite in its coloring, and so lovely in its lineaments, the most careless observer will recognize the excellence of the portrait, without the necessity of reading the name. With Paul Jesus is clearly the motive and the end, the cause and the effect, the centre and the circumference; giving sanction to every exhortation, enforcing every appeal, vitalizing every exhortation, filling every promise with sweetness and with assurance of hope. So completely was his existence absorbed in Him whom he had despised and hated and persecuted, he could truthfully say, "to me to live is Christ," (Phil. i. 21); for without Christ, life would have lost its charm and meaning and power and purpose. But this is not less true of James, and Peter, and John, and Jude, the last of whom although the "brother "of Jesus on the maternal side, calls himself His slave. They also in their short Epistles trace every blessing, every hope, every truth to Him whom they recognize as their Master, and mention Him 41 times under the name of "Jesus," 43 times under the name of "Lord," and 50 times under the name of *' Christ." He was manifestly "all in all" to those who wrote the New Testament.

Of the last book it contains, the Revelation of John, Strauss says, it is "the only writing of our New Testament which perhaps comes from an immediate disciple of Jesus," (Vol. II. p. 437). He admits, therefore, the authenticity of this last book, and yet the estimate put upon Jesus here is higher, if it were possible, than in any preceding book. It opens with a doxology "unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father;" it represents Him as saying, "I am the first and the last: I am the living One who became dead 5 and behold, I am living unto the ages of ages, and have the keys of death and of hell," (Rev. i. 5, 6, 17, 18); it exhibits Him as sending solemn and searching messages to the Church in its successive development and various phases, until in its last worldly and apostate form it shall be spued out of His mouth, (ii., iii.); it shows us the whole vast assemblage of saints in heaven, singing a new song, and bowing before the throne of Jesus with the rapturous and everlasting ascription of praise, "Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation," (v. 9); it describes Him as presiding over the judgments that shall smite the earth with the thunder-strokes of God's wrath, when the true believers of the present dispensation shall have been caught up above the terrible storm, (vi.-xviii.); it pictures His second appearing with eyes as a flame of fire, and many crowns on His head, and on His vesture and on His thigh a name written. King of kings, and Lord OF LORDS, (xix. 12-16); it closes with the prayer, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen," (Rev. xxii. 21).

Whatever treatment, therefore, the New Testament may receive at the hands of skeptical critics, none will deny that it everywhere gives to Jesus "a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and those in earth, and those under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father," (Phil. ii. 9-11). In the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the twenty-one Epistles, and the Apocalypse, He appears so prominently on every page. He is so completely the sum and substance of all doctrinal teachings and practical precepts. He is so entirely the warp and the woof of the wondrous fabric, that to tear His name away, or to lower Him to the level of ordinary humanity, would leave us only a few worthless shreds, waiting to be swept into the gutter. Take away the name of Jesus, or deny that He was supernatural, and what will you make of the immense and imposing system of Christianity, that did so much even for the intellect of Strauss although he was doubtless unconscious of it, and that has accomplished so much directly and indirectly for the human race? You will then have a magnificent edifice without a foundation, a stream imparting a fertility and beauty which all can see, and yet without a source. Will you account for the estimate placed upon Jesus by the writers of the New Testament on the theory that they were impostors? "The hypothesis of imposture," says Schaff "is so revolting to moral as well as common sense, that its mere statement is its condemnation. It has never been seriously carried out, and no scholar of any decency and self-respect would now dare to profess it openly," (Person of Christ, p. 136). Neither Banr, Strauss, Renan, nor any other skeptic, who possessed sufficient intelligence to render him worthy of the slightest notice, assumes that the men who left us this wonderful book were wilful deceivers and hypocrites; for the assertion would carry with it a thorough refutation in the light of the fact, that they sacrificed home and country and kindred and life itself for what they must have known was a falsehood, that they everywhere threaten falsehood with the vengeance of eternal damnation, and that such a supposition would commit the God of the universe to the approval of fraud and forgery, as the chosen means of communicating the richest blessings He has ever bestowed upon the world. Do you say that they were fanatics? Still the question remains, why did they bow at the feet of Jesus as the only man whom they agreed to exalt above man; and how did the writings of a few ignorant fanatics become so entrenched in the citadel of truth that the discharge of the heaviest artillery upon them has not produced the least perceptible effect in the judgment of the best minds; and what is their charm that, according to the confession of their enemies, they turn every desert in which they are really planted into an oasis, watered with springs, and lovely with verdure!

But following the writers of the Kew Testament, it may be said that during the succeeding three hundred years there were literally millions of men and women, who placed upon Jesus the same high estimate. For His sake they encountered untold agonies, exile, imprisonment, the expostulations and tears and curses of their friends, the rack, the faggot, the headsman's axe, the wild beast; and when death had done its worst, the inscriptions placed over their bones or ashes witnessed that their faith in a divine Saviour had sustained them in the last shock. These inscriptions are in marked contrast with the gloom which hung over the graves of the heathen, for they are always radiant with peace and joy and hope, as shown in the catacombs. "Asleep in Jesus," "Gone to be with Christ,'^ *' Waiting till He come," and similar expressions, indicate that when they lived they lived unto the Lord, and when they died they died unto the Lord, so that death became to them but the portals through which they entered the presence of Him they loved so well, reminding us of the sweet words written on the tomb of Dean Alford, "The inn of a traveller on his way to the New Jerusalem." The force of the argument is not weakened, even if it be conceded that the myriads who endured inconceivable sufferings for the sake of Jesus were silly enthusiasts; for none will deny that they held Him in such esteem. He absorbed every other affection, aroused them to the most intense personal devotion, incited them to deeds of unexampled heroism, and rendered them indifferent to danger. Such esteem added to a purity of life, which even Gibbon. "acknowledges, when he says, "the primitive Christian demonstrated his faith by his virtues," (Vol. I. p. 544), was absolutely essential to the remarkable spread of Christianity in the three first centuries; for nothing but a cordial belief of the testimony borne concerning Jesus by the Apostles and Evangelists could have possibly produced such stupendous results. As late as the year 325 when the Council of Nice assembled, by far the larger part of those who composed that famous Council "had lived," as Stanley tells us, "through the last and worst of the persecutions, and they now came like a regiment out of some frightful siege or battle, decimated and mutilated by the tortures or the hardships they had undergone," (History of the Eastern Church, p. 186). What but an abiding confidence that He in whom they trusted was "over all, God blessed forever," could have kept them true to Him in the midst of their sore trials, when, unlike Mahomet, He had forbidden them to use the sword, when He had held out no hope of earthly reward, and no promise of sensual delight in the paradise beyond?

Passing from these early and innumerable witnesses to the estimate placed upon Jesus by His followers, reference maybe made to the admissions of His enemies. No importance will be attached in the argument to the confession of Pilate, when "he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it;" nor to the confession of the Roman Centurion who superintended the crucifixion, "Truly this was the Son of God," (Matt, xxvii. 24, 51); for the skeptic may call in question the truth of the narrative. But he will not question the veracity of his own friends, and their statements are simply amazing as will be shown. Lardner in his "Collection of Ancient Jewish and Heathen Testimonies to the truth of the Christian Religion," filling four large volumes, quotes about seventy writers of the first six centuries, who used their pens against Christ and His cause. Of these it may be said in general that they often recognize the accuracy of the Kew Testament writings with regard to persons, places, and historical events; that they do not deny the authenticity of these writings, however earnestly they argue against their credibility; that they frequently at least manifest an exalted estimate of the character of Jesus; and that they usually express their belief in the reality of His miracles. Porphyry, for example, in his Philosophy of Oracles writes, "It will perhaps seem strange to some which we are about to say. For the Gods declared Christ to be most pious, and to be made immortal, and they spoke honorably of Him. When we inquired concerning Christ, whether He be a God, the answer was: That the soul is immortal after the death of the body, knows every body who is favored with wisdom. But the soul of that man is most eminent for piety. Him therefore he declared to be most pious, and his soul, like the souls of others, after death made immortal, which the ignorant Christians worship," (Lardner, Vol. III. p. 209).

The emperor Julian himself, the bitterest of all opposers of Christianity, "allows that Jesus was born in the reign of Augustus, at the time of the taxing made in Judea by Cyrenius: that the Christian religion had its rise, and began to be propagated in the times of the Emperors Tiberius and Claudius. He bears witness to the genuineness and authenticity of the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and the Acts of the Apostles. And he so quotes them, as to intimate that these were the only historical books received by Christians as of authority, and the only authentic memoirs of Jesus Christ, and His Apostles, and the doctrine preached by them. He allows their early date, and even argues for it. He also quotes, or plainly refers to the Acts of the Apostles, to St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans, the Corinthians, and the Galatians. He does not deny the miracles of Jesus Christ, but allows Him to have healed the blind, and the lame, and demoniacs, and walked upon the waves of the sea," (Lardner, Vol. lY. p. 93). It would be easy to cite other heathen writers of antiquity to the same effect; but the most that can be done within the limits of a single discourse is to present a mere illustration of the opinions they entertained.

Neither can anything more be done in noticing the infidel writers who swarmed in Great Britain during the early part of the preceding and the seventeenth century, nearly all of whose books have long been out of print, while the Bible still lives to bless and comfort and guide unnumbered millions. "Who," says Burke, "born within the last forty years, has read one word of Collins, and Toland, and Tindal, and Chubb, and Morgan, and that whole race who called themselves Freethinkers? Who now reads Bolingbroke? Who ever read him through? Ask the booksellers of London what has become of all these lights of the world," (Burke's Reflections. Works, Vol. Y. p. 172). Hume, who seems to have studiously avoided the mention of Jesus' name, at least indirectly admits the practical value of the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, when he refers to those who "suppose that the Deity will inflict punishments on vice, and bestow rewards on virtue, beyond what appear in the ordinary course of nature," and then adds, "Whether this reasoning of theirs be just or not, is no matter. Its influence on their life and conduct must still be the same: and those who attempt to disabuse them of such prejudices, may, for aught I know, be good reasoners, but I cannot allow them to be good citizens and politicians; since they free men from one restraint upon their passions, and make the infringement of the law of society, in one respect, more easy and secure," (Essays, p. 84).

Hobbes says that though the laws of nature are not laws as they proceed from nature, yet "as they are given by God in holy scripture, they are properly called laws; for the holy scripture is the voice of God, ruling all things by the greatest right," (Leland's Deistical Writers, Vol. I. p. 31). The Earl of Shaftesbury declares that "he who denies a Deity is daringly presumptuous, and sets up an opinion against mankind, and being of society;" and that "nothing can more highly contribute to the fixing of right apprehensions, and a sound judgment, or sense of right and wrong, than to believe a God, who is represented such, as to be a true model or example of the most exalted justice, and highest goodness and worth," (Deistical Writers, Vol. I. p. 79). Lord Bolingbroke affirms that "no system can be more simple and plain than that of natural religion as it stands in the Gospel;" and that "both the duties required to be practiced, and the propositions required to be believed, are concisely and plainly enough expressed in the original Gospel properly so called, which Christ taught, and which his four Evangelists recorded. But they have been alike corrupted by theology," (Deistical Writers, p. 164). Thomas Chubb says, "In Christ we have an example of a quiet and peaceable spirit; of a becoming modesty and sobriety; just, honest, upright, sincere; and, above all, of a most gracious and benevolent temper and behavior. . . . His life was a beautiful picture of human nature in its native purity and simplicity, and showed at once what excellent creatures men would be, when under the influence and power of that Gospel which He preached unto them." The copy of the Deistical Writers in my possession, containing extracts from Chubb's Posthumous Works, has upon the margin in ink the following note which appears to have been written in 1772: "I have been informed on very good authority that Chubb at his death left, signed with his name, a solemn declaration to this purport: 'I am extremely distressed for what I have written against the Christian religion, and implore the Divine forgiveness. I am now fully convinced of the divine authority and truth of Christianity, and in witness hereof I solemnly subscribe my name, Thomas Chubb.' The bookseller who published his Posthumous Works, when this declaration was offered to him, refused to print it, alleging that it would ruin the sale of the copies."

Crossing now the Channel to the Continent, we are met at once by the remarkable and well-known confession of Rousseau, which will surely outlive everything else he wrote: "Peruse the works of our philosophers, with all their pomp of diction, how mean, how contemptible are they, compared with the Scriptures! Is it possible that a book, at once so simple and so sublime, should be merely the work of man? Is it possible that the sacred personage, whose history it contains, should be himself a mere man? Do we find that he assumed the tone of an enthusiast, or an ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what purity, in his manner! What an affecting gracefulness in his instructions! What sublimity in his maxims! What profound wisdom in his discourses! What presence of mind, what subtlety', what fitness in his replies! How great the command over his passions! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live and so die, without weakness, and without ostentation?... Yes, if the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God. Shall we suppose the evangelical history a mere fiction 'I Indeed, my friend, it bears no marks of fiction. On the contrary, the history of Socrates, which no one presumes to doubt, is not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. Such a supposition, in fact, only shifts the difficulty without obviating it: it is more inconceivable that a number of persons should agree to write such a history, than that one should furnish the subject of it. The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality contained in the gospel. The marks of its truth are so striking and inimitable, that the inventor would be a more astonishing character than the hero," (Emile ou de L'Education).

We come next to the equally remarkable confession of Napoleon Bonaparte, as given by those who were his companions on the island of St. Helena. Of course it is impossible to vouch for the entire correctness of their reports, but it is certain that they endeavored, by comparing notes and their recollections of his remarks, to put these remarks into writing with as much accuracy as possible; and it is also certain that not one of them was capable of making the argument which is ascribed to him, and at which we can only glance. As Schaft says, his reported religious conversations '• have the grandiloquent and egotistic Napoleonic ring, and are marked by that massive grandeur and granite-like simplicity of thought and style which characterize the best of his utterances. They are, moreover, quite consistent with the undeniable fact, that he expressed himself, both in his testament and on his death-bed, a believer in the Catholic Christian religion, which always taught the divinity of Christ as a fundamental article of faith." Nothing more than the merest abstract of his statements can be presented now.

General Bertrand having expressed on one occasion his admiration of Jesus as a man, but his belief as to any higher nature, Napoleon replied, "I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and whatever religion the distance of infinity. . . . Paganism is the work of man. One can here read but our imbecility. What do these gods, so boastful, know more than other mortals? these legislators, Greek or Roman? this Numa? this Lycurgus! these priests of India or of Memphis? this Confucius? this Mohamm3d? Absolutely nothing. They have made a perfect chaos of morals. There is not one among them all who has said anything new in reference to our future destiny, to the soul, to the essence of God, to the creation. . . . It is not so with Christ. Everything in him astonishes me. His spirit overawes me, and his will confounds me. Between him and whoever else in the world, there is no possible term of comparison. He is truly a being by himself. His ideas, and his sentiments, the truths which he announces, his manner of convincing, are not explained either by human organization or by the nature of things. His birth, and the history of his life; the profundity of his doctrine, which grapples the mightiest difficulties, and which is, of those difficulties, the most admirable solution; his Gospel, his apparition, his empire, his march across the a^es and realms, everything, is for me a prodigy, a mystery insoluble, which plunges me into a reverie from which I can not escape, a mystery which is there before my eyes, a mystery which I can neither deny nor explain. Here I see nothing human.

"The nearer I approach, the more carefully I examine, everything is above me, everything remains grand — of a grandeur that overpowers. His religion is a revelation from an intelligence which certainly is not that of man. There is there a profound originality, which has created a series of words and of maxims before unknown. Jesus borrowed nothing from our sciences. . . . I search in vain in history to find the similar to Jesus Christ, or anything which can approach the Gospel. Neither history, nor humanity, nor the ages, nor nature, can offer me anything with which I am able to compare it or explain it. Here everything is extraordinary. The more I consider the Gospel, the more I am assured that there is nothing which is not beyond the march of events and above the human mind. Even the impious themselves have never dared to deny the sublimity of the Gospel, which inspires them with a sort of compulsory veneration. What happiness that book produces for them who believe it! What marvels those admire who reflect upon it! Book unique, where the mind finds a moral beauty before unknown, and an idea of the Supreme superior even to that which creation suggests! Who but God could produce that type, that ideal of perfection, equally exclusive and original?...

"You speak of Caesar, of Alexander, of their conquests, and of the enthusiasm they enkindled in the hearts of their soldiers 5 but can you conceive of a dead man making conquests with an army faithful and entirely devoted to his memory? My armies have forgotten me, even while living, as the Carthagenian army forgot Hannibal. Such is our power! A single battle lost crushes us, and adversity scatters our friends. Can you conceive of Caesar, the eternal emperor of the Roman senate, and from the depths of his mausoleum governing the empire, watching over the destinies of Rome? . . . Truth should embrace the universe. Such is Christianity, the only religion which destroys sectional prejudice, the only one which proclaims the unity and absolute brotherhood of the whole human family, the only one which is purely spiritual — in line, the only one which assigns to all, without distinction, for a true country the bosom of the Creator, God. Christ proved that he was the son of the Eternal by his disregard of time. All his doctrines signify one only and the same thing — Eternity. It is true that Christ proposed to our faith a series of mysteries. He commands with authority that we should believe them, giving no other reason than those tremendous words, 'I am God.' He declares it. What an abyss he created by that declaration between himself and all the fabricators of religion! What audacity, what sacrilege, what blasphemy, if it were not true! I say more; the universal triumph of an affirmation of that kind, if the triumph was not really that of God himself, would be a plausible excuse and a reason for atheism." . . . For a moment the Emperor was silent. As General Bertrand made no reply, he solemnly added, "If you do not perceive that Jesus Christ is God, very well, then I did wrong to make you a general," (Life of Napoleon, Vol. II., pp. 612-618.)

The next witness to be summoned is Strauss himself, who will probably be claimed by his admirers as a kind of intellectual Napoleon, performing as many wonders in the field of dialectics as the French Emperor accomplished on the field of battle. In an earlier essay quoted by Schaif, he says, "As little as humanity will ever be without" religion, as little will it be without Christ; for to have religion without Christ would be as absurd as to enjoy poetry without regard to Homer or Shakspeare. And this Christ, as far as he is inseparable from the highest style of religion, is historically not mythical; is an individual, no mere symbol. To the historical person of Christ belongs all in his life that exhibits his religious perfection, his discourses, his moral action, and his passion. . . . He remains the highest model of religion within the reach of our thought; and no perfect "Deity is possible without his presence in the heart."

Even in his larger and later work he says, "The Roman conceived of man as he ought to be differently from the Greek, the Jew differently from both, the Greek, after Socrates, differently from, and unquestionably more perfectly than before. Every man of moral pre-eminence, every great thinker who has made the active nature of man the object of his investigation, has contributed in narrow or wider circles towards correcting that idea, perfecting or improving it. And among these improvers of the ideal of humanity Jesus stands, at all events, in the first class. He introduced features into it which were wanting to it before, or had continued undeveloped; reduced the dimensions of others which prevented its universal application; imparted into it, by the religious aspect which he gave it, a more lofty consecration, and bestowed upon it, by embodying it in his own person, the most vital warmth; while the Religious 'Society which took its rise from him provided for this ideal the widest acceptance among mankind," (Vol. II. pp. 436-437).

Appropriately following Strauss, Renan may be called to the stand to express his estimate of Jesus. In opposition to his German friend, he accepts as especially authentic and trustworthy the Gospel of John; and referring to the interview, there recorded, between Jesus and the woman at Sychar's well, when our Lord said to her, "The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him," the French infidel says, "On the day when he pronounced these words, he was indeed the son of God. He for the first time gave utterance to the idea upon which shall rest the edifice of the everlasting religion. He founded the pure worship, of no age, of no clime, which shall be that of all lofty souls to the end of time. Not only was his religion, that day, the benign religion of humanity, but it was the absolute religion; and if other planets have inhabitants endowed with reason and morality, their religion can not be different from that which Jesus proclaimed at Jacob's well. Man has not been able to abide by this worship; we attain the ideal only for a moment. The words of Jesus were a gleam in thick night; it has taken eighteen hundred years for the eyes of humanity (what do I say! of an infinitely small portion of humanity) to abide it. But the gleam shall become the full day, and, after passing through all the circles of error, humanity will return to these words, as to the immortal expression of its faith and its hopes," (Life of Jesus, p. 215).

Again, alluding to His death he says, "Repose now in the glory, noble founder. Thy work is finished, thy divinity is established. Fear no more to see the edifice of thy labors fall by any fault. Henceforth, beyond the reach of frailty, thou shalt witness from the heights of divine peace, the infinite results of thy acts. At the price of a few hours of suffering, which did not even reach thy grand soul, thou hast bought the most complete immortality. For thousands of years, the world will depend on thee! Banner of our contests, thou shalt be the standard about which the hottest battle will be given. A thousand times more alive, a thousand times more beloved, since thy death than during thy passage here below, thou shalt become the corner-stone of humanity so entirely, that to tear thy name from this world would be to reud it to its foundations. Between thee and God, there will be no longer any distinction. Complete conqueror of death, take possession of thy kingdom, whither shall follow thee, by the royal road which thou hast traced, ages of worshippers," (Life of Jesus, p. 351). So he closes his rhapsody by saying, "Whatever may be the surprises of the future, Jesus will never be surpassed. His worship will grow young without ceasing; his legend will call forth tears without end; his sufferings will melt the noblest hearts; all ages will proclaim that among the sons of men there is none born greater than Jesus," (p. 376). But even this does not surpass the words of Jean Paul Richter, when speaking of that majestic One who, "being the Holiest among the mighty, and the Mightiest among the holy, has lifted with his pierced hand empires off their hinges, has turned the stream of centuries out of its channel, and still governs the ages."

Surely it is needless to present other quotations, that could be continued indefinitely. The friends and the foes of the crucified Jesus seem to vie with each other in their estimate of His worth, and in their eulogies upon His character. Would this have been possible, if He were an impostor, or a fanatic, or less than supernatural? Has any life been so closely scrutinized! Has any biography been so severely criticised? Would not a hypocrite or a charlatan have been long ago exposed, and dismissed from the attention of thoughtful men with merited contempt? It is vain to reply by referring to the regard with which the names of Mohammed, Confucius, and the authors of the Hindoo Vedas are still cherished in different parts of the earth. Very often noble opinions and sentiments are attributed to these men which they never thought of uttering; and the skeptics who are guilty of this despicable trick in order to cast discredit on the Gospel, if they really have any familiarity with their writings, are careful to conceal from the common people the monstrous errors, and wretched morals, and childish superstitions, and grotesque extravagances with which the heathen writings they profess to admire notoriously abound. This is so well known indeed that any serious attempt to substitute the religion of Mohammed or Confucius or Brahma for Christianity in Europe or the United States would be hailed with a shout of laughter as a ludicrous farce. Whatever they may be to the people of Turkey or China or India, they can never be anything to those who are blessed with the brighter light of Christian civilization. But is this true of Jesus with respect to any nation or race beneath the sun? Is He not precisely adapted to all classes of all climes? May not a Newton and a child bow together at His feet, the accomplished scholar and the untutored savage meet in sweetest sympathy at His cross? Would infidels themselves exchange His Gospel for any other religion? Nay, would they be willing to live, or to have their families live, in a laud or in a community, where His Gospel is wholly unknown, or from which His Gospel has been totally banished? Not one of them, who possesses the lowest degree of intelligence or of respect for morality. A dying infidel said to me not long ago, "I do not wish my children to accept my views;" and probably every thoughtful skeptic would say the same thing, thus bearing testimony again to the high estimate which is somehow put upon the value of Jesus even by those who do not believe on Him as their Redeemer.

There is now in my study, in manuscript, a confession read to a large assembly in Kentucky by a man who had reached his seventy-first birth-day. He was a physician of fine culture, possessing ample means and abundant leisure for the gratification of his literary tastes, and standing among his acquaintances even above the breath of reproach or suspicion. For more than sixty years he was an avowed infidel, and no argument the ablest Christians could bring to bear upon his objections to the Bible could move him a hair's breadth from his position of unbelief. His confession begins as follows: "A deist, a skeptic, with a character for integrity, probity and benevolence among men, I was a self-righteous Pharisee. Trusting in my own reason, vaunting my own ability, proud of my reputation, believing in my own worth and merits, I was as one born blind. I was self-deceived, and believed I was doing God's service, when I denied His revealed word, and controverted the truths of Scripture. If I know myself I was honest in my opposition to all supernatural knowledge. I believed that God had revealed Himself in nature, and nowhere else; but that revelation was limited, and, to my mind, unsatisfactory. I knew not what I was doing. I was as those for whom Jesus prayed in His dying agony on the cross, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' I, even I, was included in that prayer; and in the blessed Saviour, I, even I, once His enemy, but now His worshipper, 'have an advocate with the Father,' yea, an almighty friend, a mediator and intercessor, through whom I am enabled to say, 'Abba, Father.' Blessed be God for Jesus Christ, the friend and Saviour of sinners!"

That man, before he became a Christian, talked with me by the hour, and sincerely declared that he could see no proof of a divine origin stamped upon the Bible, and no beauty in Jesus that He should be desired. After he became a Christian it was my privilege to meet him again, and, as he approached, the tears were running down his manly face, while he exclaimed with tremulous voice, "Since I saw you last, I have found Jesus unutterably precious to my soul." His daughter, whom he tenderly loved, had died a Christian, and in the darkness of his skepticism, and out of the depth of his grief, he had shrieked, "Where is my child? Is she gone from me forever? Shall I see her no more, no more? Can I never press her to my bosom?" But like Baal, when the false prophets leaped upon the altar, and cut themselves, after their manner, with knives and lancets, till the blood gashed out upon them, "there was no voice, nor any that answered," (1 Kings xviii. 26-28). "Oh, sir," he said, "nature, reason, philosophy, science, were all dumb as the silent grave that held the form of my precious child: and I turned to Jesus, because He alone met and satisfied a great, crying want of my aching heart."

Yes, this is one of the many crowns that adorn the brow of our adorable Lord; He meets our wants, not by the stretch of an excited imagination reaching out to fancied help, but by the actual communications of His grace, as ten thousand times ten thousand truthful witnesses would spring to their feet to testify to-night. Theodore Parker, another infidel of the Strauss or Baur school, speaking of Jesus, said, "That mightiest heart that ever beat, stirred by the Spirit of God, how it wrought in his bosom! What words of rebuke, of comfort, counsel, admonition, promise, hope, did he pour out! -Words that stir the soul as summer dews call up the faint and sickly grass." The time is coming, and coming very soon, dear friends, when the world will present to you but the appearance of faint and sickly grass, and you will thirst for the gentle dews which only Jesus can send. Disappointment in every earthly pursuit is coming, the enforced cessation of business is coming, the desertion of those you trusted is coming, the bitterness of enemies is coming, the deep shadow of a grave, to rest upon your heart and home, is coming, disease is coming, pain is coming, the last look upon the faces of loved ones is coming, the loneliness of the tomb is coming, the vastness of eternity is coming, the judgment day is coming; and in every trying experience you will need just such a friend as Jesus in His human sympathy and divine sufficiency.

"I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me," (John xii. 32), is His own sublime assertion of the universality of His empire; and are you sure the assertion is not true? Would it not be better for you if drawn "with cords of a man, with bands of love" to dwell amid the pleasures that are at His right hand forevermore, than to be dragged by the chains of unappeased justice, to hear from the lips, that now entreat you, the sentence of a righteous condemnation, "Depart from me!" Do you believe that Christians and intelligent and respectable infidels would have agreed so nearly in their estimate of His person and character, unless He is what He claims to be? But if He is what He claims to be, and of this there are innumerable witnesses, the hour is near when at the mention of His name, heaven shall ring with the hallelujahs of the redeemed, and the shout of angels, and even the confessions of the lost, that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. May the admissions of skeptics which you have heard this evening lead you to Him whose word they reject; "for their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges!" (Deut. xxxii. 31).