infallibility of the Pope than all that Protestant writers have done for ages:—

"The time of the great Christian revenge was, moreover, far distant. The new sect had no part whatever in the catastrophe which Judaism was soon to undergo. The synagogue did not understand till much later to what it exposed itself in practising laws of intolerance. The empire was certainly still further from suspecting that its future destroyer was born. During nearly three hundred years it pursued its path without suspecting that at its side principles were growing destined to subject the world to a complete transformation. At once theocratic and democratic, the idea thrown by Jesus into the world was, together with the invasion of the Germans, the most active cause of the dissolution of the empire of the Cæsars. On the one hand, the right of all men to participate in the kingdom of God was proclaimed. On the other, religion was henceforth separated in principle from the state. The rights of conscience, withdrawn from political law, resulted in the constitution of a new power,-the 'spiritual power.' This power has more than once belied its origin. For ages the bishops have been princes, and the Pope has been a king. The pretended empire of souls has shewn itself at various times as a frightful tyranny, employing the rack and the stake in order to maintain itself. But the day will come when the separation will bear its fruits, when the domain of things spiritual will cease to be called a 'power,' that it may be called a 'liberty.' Sprung from the conscience of a man of the people, formed in the presence of the people, beloved and admired first by the people, Christianity was impressed with an original character which will never be effaced. It was the first triumph of revolution, the victory of the popular idea, the advent of the simple in heart, the inauguration of the beautiful as understood by the people. Jesus thus, in the aristocratic societies of antiquity, opened the breach through which all will pass.

"The civil power, in fact, although innocent of the death of Jesus (it only countersigned the sentence, and even in spite of itself), ought to bear a great share of the responsibility. In presiding at the scene of Calvary, the state gave itself a serious blow. A legend full of all kinds of disrespect prevailed, and became universally known,-a legend in which the constituted authorities played a hateful part, in which it was the accused that was right, and in which the judges and the guards were leagued against the truth. Seditious in the highest degree, the history of the Passion, spread by a thousand popular images, displayed the Roman eagles as sanctioning the most iniquitous of executions, soldiers executing it, and a prefect

commanding it. What a blow for all established powers! They have never entirely recovered from it. How can they assume INFALLIBILITY in respect to poor men, when they have on their conscience the great mistake of Gethsemane?"*

The set times have come. The "consumption of the Man of Sin" is rapidly progressing, as prophesied by Paul in Thessalonians. Had not Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel been sceptics, Renan, instead of being rewarded, would not have been tolerated. Napoleon has an eye to Rome; but it is reserved for a signal overthrow, Rev. xvi. The Beast (the Imperial Tyrant) and the false Prophet are to become unified, and continue until the end, Rev. xix. 20.

The world, at the coming of Christ, will be, it would seem, in a state of peace. Man will have received the mark of the beast (Rev. xix. 20), without which none will be allowed to buy or sell." This indicates a fearful state of despotism. But the days of it shall be shortened, "else no flesh could be saved" to welcome Christ's second Advent. It humbly appears to me that a time of great trial awaits the Church, and to all appearance the day is not far distant.

Lastly, Renan's reviewers seem to be unacquainted with Hennell's learned work. I here refer to my answers, p. 210. We cannot judge of or truly estimate the "Life of Jesus," without connecting it with, and viewing it in the light of, Prophecy. Jesus was not a character isolated and independent of all precedent. He was not at liberty, so to speak, to invent and act a character without a pattern set before him. He was, like Moses, bound to conform to all that was shewn to him on the holy mount, and herein lay the extreme difficulty of his position; yet by this very peculiarity we are enabled to judge more perfectly-even infallibly-of the validity of his claim as the Messiah promised to the Fathers, Moreover, a great portion of prophecy had reference to circumstances over which the Messiah could have had no personal control. These required to be effected by third parties, not friends, but enemies. Hence there could be no collusion, Renan has overlooked all these circumstantial details, which are so marvellously consistent, and yet so perfectly in keeping with the whole length and breadth of prophecy, that the mind of the student and honest philosopher is compelled to surrender its doubts, while the humble and illiterate inquirer is forcibly "drawn" to a character so loving and so good, by the "chords of a man" whose sympathies are all shed forth in the true interests of

**This popular sentiment existed in Brittany in the time of my childhood. The gendarme was there regarded, like the Jew elsewhere, with a kind of pious aversion, for it was he who arrested Jesus!"

suffering humanity. No marvel that the common people heard him gladly, and that their rulers feared to arrest him publicly. Why the vain multitude should have so suddenly changed their minds can only be accounted for by their mistaken hopes having been disappointed. History affords many such instances— for example, Socrates. They had expected that Jesus was he "who should have instantly redeemed Israel." They did not understand their own prophets; how then could they have understood their own suffering Messiah, whose whole life and teaching were necessarily so paradoxical, that many to this day cannot, or will not understand. Renan is in this transition state. He has made an advance in the right path. Let us pray and hope that he may be yet led, like St Paul, to preach that Christ whom he now persecutes, certainly not in his members, but by a direct antagonism towards that very "Prince of Peace" whom he so inconsistently at the same time both loves and hates! How to account for such a character as Renan, is far more difficult than it is to account for the consistent

enmity and malevolence of Voltaire. Paine, Gibbon, and Hume saw no beauty in Him, who was the chiefest among the ten thousands, and altogether lovely; hence they hated him without a cause. Renan sees wisdom, and goodness, and beauty personified in. Christ, and hence he is the more inexcusable. May be he will yet repent, believe, and live!

"Saul,

Renan is about to publish a "Life of St Paul!" Saul! thou almost persuadest me to be a Christian." No. Why so? Too much learning has made even Renan mad! Not so Paul, "I cannot but speak the things which we know and are persuaded of. I am not mad, most noble Festus, but do speak the words of soberness and truth! Thus, when Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled! King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest." But, says Renan, the raising of Lazarus was a preconcerted trick! No, said Paul, for even Agrippa knew of it, and of the resurrection as well. Hence he said to him, Is it impossible for God to raise the dead? Renan, like Agrippa, is almost persuaded to become a Christian, but the philosophy of the schools has cramped his mind, bewildered his judgment, and made him what he really is, viz.—a falling star (bright during his materialistic friction) whose tail seems to have already drawn to perdition the French and Italian portions of mankind! Renan is a materialist. Hence Jesus only lives in history! Death is an eternal sleep!

Inspiration and the Millenium. I had intended to add a section on these two subjects; but I will postpone it until I hear Renan.*

* For logic read logia, p. 220, line 30.

SUPERSTITION, PHILOSOPHY, AND RELIGION.

SUPERSTITION is more ancient than Philosophy. Ignorance is its parent, for it has no foundation in Reason. Who has not read Plutarch's appalling description of "the superstitious man"? It was drawn from the life. " Superstitious customs," said Philo," are prejudices derived not from the Father, God, but from our old mother's side." Hence we see it exemplified in the poor emaciated Hindoo, wearing his iron collar, while his rigid upright arm for ever points to heaven!—even his once bright eye is blinded by gazing on the source of light! Alas, alas! he only thinks he sees his God? Hence his very eyeballs are as if transfixed. We see it in another, when his flesh is " swinging by a hook!" We also see it in the Anchorite and the fasting, self-flagellating, and yet lazy monk! May we not justly infer that superstition is a corruption of traditional revelation? "Ye shall be as gods." Hence Buddhism teaches that men are incarnate gods, and this is pantheism. Spinoza only revived it, and Schelling and Hegel have philosophized it. Hence Brahminism—a Brahmin seeks by asceticism to attain to perfection, that he may be absorbed in God. Hence also Hamiltonian absorption law-nothing ever had a beginning; we cannot even think it as beginning! How then can a secularist believe God's word? Everything, therefore. existed in its exact quale et quantum of existence before it became a phenomenon in the mind of God! So said Hamilton. Hence man existed in God before he existed in the flesh; and so said Plato of the soul as well. The world, too, must have eternally existed (as a chaos) before it existed in its present form. This was Ovid's view; but it was a quæstio vexata to Seneca and many others in his day! What is all this but scepticism? and yet "scepticism is atheism," according to Hamilton! We have no true philosophy of history. This is a desideratum, and yet we have plenty of materials for its construction, seeing that ancient customs everywhere abound in their primitive integrity. Even the monuments of antiquity are not awanting, for, like the everlasting hills, many seem to be imperishable. What a flood of light has been cast on the pages of Holy Writ by the discoveries in Nineveh! These remind us of Daniel's vision and colossal image; these also remind us of Babylonish fire worship, for among those ruins no statues of their deities have been found. The devil had his worshippers as well. China lay far distant from Noah's locality; hence the Chinese retained very little knowledge of God. Their celestial emperor is a god. Hence also the czar of Russia claims homage as a father, and not simply as a king. He is the

Russian Brahmin. He knows not the protestant jus divinum. The Chinese sacrifice a dog in place of a lamb! This is referred to by Isaiah, lxvi. 3, "Have the nations changed their gods which are no gods?" Superstition changes not; hence it is a bar to progress, and an enemy to civil and religious liberty as well. Philosophy and superstition cannot possibly coincide. Mind is naturally free to think. Reason even judges revelation, and both agree; yet reason without true faith ends in superstition. Faith even in divine revelation, without reason, also ends in superstition or scepticism. Hence all nations have been more or less superstitions, humble slaves. The magi had borrowed their notion of celestial fire from a tradition of the flaming sword. The devil-worshippers had adopted the "serpent," Typhon, Sathan, Swithin, Satan, as their true god. Fall down and worship me, said Satan, and I will be your good god! No, said Jesus; thou shalt worship and serve (even me, the I AM); the LORD thy GOD, Mat. iv. 10. Again, "Thou shall not tempt the LORD thy GOD." Men of great minds have in all ages been the unconscious pioneers of true religion, which is the only royal law of liberty, which is divine. These so called philosophers had the courage to undermine superstition, but they failed, not having had a better to supply its place. All were sceptics! And yet how much good did these wise men accomplish! They framed laws founded on abstract justice, and composed moral aphorisms as guides to conduct. Hence Solon and Lycurgus in Greece, Zoroaster and Confucius in the Salus populi suprema est lex, the supremacy of the law is the salvation of the people. It is the exact measure of their wisdom and liberty Hence the free states of Greece, and the vast power of the vox populi in ancient Rome. Modern Rome! Ah, what a falling off is there! Law is supreme. Jesus was no revolutionist, as Hennell and Renan have said. Hence he paid the tribute money lest he should offend! Hence also "have no fellowship even with Christian extortioners, that they may be ashamed" (St Paul-Dr Candlish, p. 134). Hiss them from all platforms, even when you plead for the cause of Truth. Why so? Faith even in the Confession, without reason, is rank superstition still! All I have said was a great advance in civilization. How different was it under the absolutists of Syria, Persia, and Egypt! The pyramids in Egypt, and its city of one hundred gates the splendour of Babylon, with its thick wall and hanging gardens, all exclaimed Prodigious! But its high tower, while it told of the number of the stars, also told that the countless multitude were beastly slaves! Hence I repeat -to fetter or destroy philosophy is to establish universal superstition. To abolish superstition, without substituting revealed religion, is to establish scepticism, which is absolute atheism!

east.