swarm with details abhorrent alike to our in its greatest richness. It is not the Horeligious feeling and to our sense of histori- mers nor even the Arctinuses of his Evancal reality; so that we are forced to regard gelic Cycle' that he holds up chiefly to our as wholly unreliable those few particulars admiration, but rather some Apollonius or which of themselves are not incredible nor Statius of a later age. In those earlier even perhaps unlikely. It may be (as specimens of Apocryphal literature there is many critics have maintained, as Dr. Tis- little or nothing of rapt imagination or dechendorf himself and even Bishop Ellicott vout afflatus. The inspiration is merely incline to think), that some grains of his- that of a prurient imitativeness, meddling torical truth may have reached us, carried with what ought to have been left alone. It down by these turbid waters; but if so, is as though a child should sit down before they are wholly unavailable for use, and the one of the masterpieces of Titian or of presumption is strong that they do not even Rembrandt, and dissatisfied with the parts exist. Judging from internal evidence, we of the painting which were left in shadowy should say, even of the most ancient of the vagueness, should attempt to fill in the supApocryphal Gospels, that they were com- posed deficiencies under the same stroug posed purposely to fill up the interstices light as the rest. The distorted outlines, cluded youth of the Saviour, are dragged forth into a false light, and delineated in a style which disgusts the educated taste as much as it shocks the religious sense; while over the sublime simplicity of the end an obtrusive mass of prodigies is hung. which the Apostolic narrative displays; the the raw glaring colours, the impossible perimagination of the authors having been spective which would result from such a stimulated, not by distant outlines just visi-process, supply no unapt illustration of the ble in the fading twilight, but simply by the effect of these Apocryphal Gospels, viewed blank which Evangelical tradition had left. simply as works of art. All is out of proThus far we are very little at issue after all portion, and all out of keeping. The mys with M. Douhaire himself, and almost en-terious birth, the hidden infancy, the setirely at one with M. Nicolas. But further questions now arise. May we, notwithstanding all this, still accord to these singular writings an indulgent admiration? May we see in them, like M. Doubaire and his disciples, the creations of a pious reverence and a tender poetic spirit? May we regard Still we so far agree with M. Douhaire them as the offspring of artless wonder, of and his followers as to believe that these spontaneous imagination, of childlike faith? Gospels were not written in the spirit of These are complicated questions, especially presumption or imposture. It was a crude in their moral aspect. It is hard to do jus- admiration, it was a species of faith, that tice to another age, with the spirit of which gave birth to them. They are so far due to we have no natural sympathy. Thus much, a kind of creative inspiration that it was at however, we may safely say: that the more least a genuine impulse which produced we concede the indulgence asked of us in a them; not deliberate falsehood, or the purmoral point of view, the more do we ex-suit of some heretical object. Rude minds clude the age which produced these stories from all intellectual claim to deference and respect. Not only in its sense of historical truth, but in its power also of forming sound religious conceptions, we show it to be unworthy of serious notice. And with regard even to the poetic faculty manifested in these productions, we confess that we are quite unable to share the French critic's estimate of its value. Indeed, we are struck with the fact, that the pieces and passages which M. Douhaire admires, and justly admires, the most -the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary,' the gentle ministry of the Virgin Mother in the Gospel of the Infancy,' the picture of the Holy Family in the History of Joseph,' the scene in Hades in the Latin Gospel of Nicodemus'. -are all the products of a later age. The vein of poetry which kindles his enthusiasm is far poorer and thinner as we ascend to the earlier periods where it ought to be found imagined what rude minds craved for, and here is the result. The cry of heresy, which the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries raised, and which modern theologians Irave repeated, did not suggest itself to earlier ages: for, indeed, it was undeserved. The French critics in this respect have supplied a useful corrective to the tone of their predecessors; or at least have boldly and plainly argued what some of their predecessors did but venture timidly to suggest. M. Nicolas, for instance, following Fabricius, aptly cites the case of the author of the Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla,' who, when reproved for his fraudulent composi tion, declared (as Tertullian informs us), and declared, it would seem, with all sincer ity, that he had done it for the love of Paul.' So these early Apocryphal evangelists worked, we must believe, for the love of Jesus. A sense of what was fitting and of what was due to him was their animating motive. This was the creative cause, both | family of Jesus strove to enhance its social posiof the legends themselves, which, doubtless, tion. Joachim is a man of wealth. Anna his were long and widely circulated before they wife has an attendant-a kind of lady companwere reduced to writing, and also of the ion. Joseph is sometimes a priest, exercising by studied compositions by which the authors the way and only for his pleasure the trade of strove to give consistency and permanence carpenter; sometimes the contractor in the chief to tales which they believed themselves. of the works in construction of the temple. This M. Nicolas well puts the case thus: puerile vanity is not in accordance with the spirit of the Jews. The most illustrious rabbis have practised handicraft labour without injuring their dignity. And the sentiment was not less unknown to the Christians of the Apostolic age. In the beginning Christianity had been the religion of the weak and of the poor; and it gloried in the fact of being so. One would not have thought then of vaunting the riches and high position of the family of the Lord.' (P. 278.) These stories are not, properly speaking, pious frauds. They did not originate in any intention of substituting error for truth, or even of overlaying the evangelic history with fictitious tales. The admiration felt for Jesus Christ had no bounds; men saw nothing extraordinary in his numerous miracles; his life was a series of prodigies; in adding to these a few more, one was merely rendering to the Lord that which was his. If he had not worked the new mira cles, he might well have done so; from assuming thus much to attributing them to him there was but a step. . The Apocryphal Gospels are for the most part works of impersonal authorship. In all, without exception, the basis of the work--and in the greater number the form itself—is such as tradition had made it at the epoch when they were severally committed to writing. The authors, if in any case it is permissible to employ a word which for the greater part of these works corresponds in no respects with the reality of things, did no more than collect the legends which were in circulation around them, and transcribe them just as they were accustomed to hear them told.' (Nicolas, pp. 9, 318.) Thus far we might be quoting from M. Douhaire himself; and our author insists no less strongly than his compatriot on the interest and importance which these writings possess to the student of antiquity. But let us see how differently, and as we think how far more truly, he judges of their significance : — And now, before dismissing the subject, we may point out a few conclusions which seem naturally to follow from the considerations we have pursued.. be his opinion of the origin and merits of First, what strikes every one, whatever 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 shortsighted policy in the 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 ians of the unique character of the Evanstriking proof could be desired by Christsceptic fail to perceive the force of it. An gelic narrative; nor can any fair-minded 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 Apostles and the Apostolic Fathers is stratum, which naturally did not descend very the doctrine of inspiration, how much more so great that we are reminded perforce of deep? Faith in prodigies, in miracles, in le- when we turn from the sacred volume to the gends. These constituted that which one might call low-life Christianity, the religion best of the writings before us? To estiof the crowd, which was little capable of compre-mate the real extent of this contrast, hending Christian spirituality, and which placed pious fables in its stead.' (P. 299.) "These legends, indicating the manner in which the mass of the faithful understood Christianity, are the only documents which permit us to form an idea of the religious state of the Christians of the first centuries. The books of the ecclesiastical writers give us a knowledge only of the Christianity of the upper class, I mean of the educated and the learned. What was below this Again: These writings are a proof, as sad as it is incontestable, of the rapidity with which Christianity degenerated, and fell into vulgarity and superstition. All the legends relative to the how ever, we must not confine ourselves to mere excerpts. Some few passages may doubtless be culled from these puerile productions, which, glowing with the light which had fallen on them from above, will bear to be placed by the side of extracts from the New Testament. But the delusive charm will be broken at once if the reader look before and after. Such a caution is not un- | canvas, so as not to tamper with the ac necessary to insist upon. The present age, knowledged original. while seeking to do justice to depreciated merit, and to rehabilitate discredited reputations, is often apt to overlook the broad lines of character which our fathers perhaps too exclusively regarded. This tendency by side, is a remarkable proof of the light needs sometimes to be met with an indignant protest. So, for instance, it has been suggested of late that a few glittering grains of truth and of moral grandeur scattered here and there over the Talmud are sufficient to raise that grotesque production into rivalry with the New Testament; and make it disputable which of the two is the true source of the divine morality which has regenerated the world. But the doubt is as futile as it is unjust. The real test in this case is not the utterances of a few wise apothegms, nor even the enunciation of a few true principles. It is the power of combining the diverse intuitions of the human mind and conscience, of reconciling them with the realities of human existence, and showing how to bring them into action. It is the success attained in seizing the focal points whence the law of the errant curves is determined, from which their directions may be traced, and their branching lines extended. This Christ has done for humanity; pouring a flood of light, which even unbelievers have habitually availed themselves of ever since, on the relations We have combated the notion of the between man and man, and between man French Catholic writers, that the Apocryphal and God. What, on the other hand, has Gospels have been a source of ennobling the Talmud done, but leave its votaries in and elevating conceptions for the Christian an ever-narrowing circle; from which it world. But we do not deny, and we cannot needs the reflex influence of Christianity, doubt, that they have served a useful purand we may almost add of Mohammedanism pose. In the mixed conditions of human also, to release them in some degree? So, society, things in themselves erroneous and too, with the Scriptural narrative of Christ's debased often prove valuable for the prelife and teaching. It is not till we contem-servation and recommendation of those acplate it as a whole, in contrast with such companying truths which else in evil days works as those before us, that we fully feel its right to the character which it claims. Nor is it only in this way, and as it were reluctantly, that the Apocryphal Gospels yield their tribute to the Canonical. They do so of their own accord, and with a willing homage. We have compared these supplementary delineations to the daubs of a child dissatisfied with the delicate chiaroscuro of some great master. But it must not be forgotten, (for the fact is a remarkable one to notice,) that in the case before us the hand of the imitator has never presumed to touch the original canvas. The homage paid by him, perhaps involuntarily, is twofold. For those parts only have been painted in detail which the great masterpieces had left undefined; and these attempts themselves are made upon a separate Nor is this all. The treatment extended on the one hand to the Evangelical text, and on the other to the Apocryphal imitations, from the first day that they stood side in which they were relatively regarded, even by those who welcomed and diffused the spurious appendages. Dr. Tischendorf has well pointed this out in his essay of 1851, and no one earned a better right to make the remark with authority. Numerous as are the various readings in the text of the New Testament, and formidable as the fact may at first appear on the statement of their numbers, it is well known that the points of doubt or difficulty which these variations involve is, after all, trifling indeed. Not so the discrepancies in the Apocryphal text. Here the differences are not such as may be due to the oversight of a copyist and the accidents of human infirmity. Version upon version, recension upon recension, are multiplied here, as MSS. come to light; some of them amounting to a reconstruction of the piece, so extensive and so thorough that its identity is a matter of dispute. What clearer proof could be adduced of the exceptional reverence paid to the true Gospels, even by the ages which produced and preserved the legendary ones? re would have found no acceptance. So it has We quire submission to oral tradition, and who recognise the truth of the very legends which these writings were the first to embody. And yet even here we should be unwilling to exact such consistency from Roman Catholic opponents. We admit the right which the Church of Rome has retained to denounce the Apocryphal Gospels as unsparingly as the most zealous Protestant. But how comes it that she has retained the legends, and glorified them with all the splendour of religion and of art, whilst she repudiates, as we do ourselves, the sources from which they sprung? | 'We have great reason to be thankful for the preservation of these stories. They enable us to test the tendencies of Christian mythology, and to ascertain not as a theory, but as a fact, that if it had gone on forever elaborating mythical creations, it would never have produced the Jesus of the Evangelists. On the contrary, when the all they succeeded in accomplishing was to demythologists had the portraiture before their eyes, grade it. The preservation of the Mythic Gospels supplies us with direct evidence as to the kind of stories which mythologists would have invented. The case stands thus. Our Gospels present us with the picture of a glorious Christ; the In a small and very sensible volume which mythic Gospels, that of a contemptible one. has lately fallen under our notice by the Rev. Our Gospels have invested him with the highest C. A. Row, the learned author has devoted conceivable form of human greatness; the mya chapter to the nature and character of the thic ones have not ascribed to him an action Mythical Gospels, in which he expresses which is elevated. In our Gospels he exhibits a opinions very similiar to those we have superhuman wisdom; in the mythic books a formed on the subject. He sums up the nearly equal superhuman absurdity. In our striking contrast between the genuine and Gospels he is arrayed in all the beauty of holithe Apocryphal records of the life of our Sa-ness; in the mythic ones, this aspect is entirely viour in the following terms: wanting. In our Gospels, not one strain of selfishness defiles his character; in the mythic ones, the boy Jesus is both pettish and malicious. 1. If these Gospels are the productions of the Our Gospels exhibit to us a sublime morality; mythic spirit during the second and subsequent not a ray of it shines in those of the mythologists. centuries, that spirit could not have produced The miracles of the one and of the other are conthe genuine Gospels in the first. 2d. Mythic mir-trasted in every point. A similar opposition of acles are invariably grotesque ones. 3d. Their character runs through the whole current of morat aspect will be a reflection of the character their thought, feeling, morality, and religion.' of their originators, and consequently a low one. - Row, p. 381. 4th. The favourite subjects in connexion with Christianity, on which mythologists have exerted their powers, are precisely those on which the Gospels are silent. . . The Jesus of the Evangelists, His Historical Character Vindicated, &c. London: 1868. 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? Handbook of Fictitious Names. By Olphar can judge, Mr. Olphar Hamst is a correct writer. Hamst, Esq. (J. R. Smith.)—Some short time ago We may safely say that his work is not complete, we noticed a biographical sketch of Quérard by inasmuch as his own real name is not given in it, the writer of this work. In this work he endea- and we cannot believe that the name on his titlevours to emulate Quérard himself, and to do for page proceeds from his godfathers and godmoththe pseudonymous literature of England and the ers. How he has managed to steer himself nineteenth century what Quérard did for a wider through the mass of such names as " A Lady," field. We cannot say that Mr. Olphar Hamst "A Layman," "Scrutator," &c., we cannot dicomes up to his predecessor, but then he is far vine; but he tells us there are at least a dozen more modest in his pretensions. What he does different writers using the last signature, and is to publish the real names of authors who have more than fifty using the first, who cannot be idenwritten under assumed names. If people wish to know who is "The Hertfordshire Incumbent or the "S. G. O." of the Times, they have only to turn to the present work, where they will find a great many similar revelations. So far as we LIVING AGE. VOL. X. 414 tified. This fact alone would be an excuse for many shortcomings. Fortunately, no one can discover the shortcomings unless he knows as much as Mr. Olphar Hamst himself on the subject. Spectator. CHAPTER XXVII. THE HOUSE BEHIND ST. CROSS. "We both thought best to keep it quiet until our circumstances justified us in commencing preparations for the event. I have looked forward to the pleasure of telling you my good fortune ever since the first of May last year; and Marian and I hope to be married on that date this year, which will allow us five months to make our very simple arrangements.' 99 At this juncture, Lieutenant Blake kindly enlightened us on the purpose of that morning's visit to Upper Mallowe village. We've been looking over a house," said he, with a wink intended to be highly comical. 66 THE weather did not mend, and we were unvisited prisoners in our house until after the New Year. But at the end of the first week in January, there came a glorious day, not bleak with wintry cold, nor rough with wind, nor yet heavy with the stifling moisture of unseasonable heat. It was almost like the first day of spring-a little too early escaped from the prison-house of the year, before the storms were passed; as Noah's dove left the ark before the flood was over. We knew. and so did the birds that it was too bright and fair to last,that to-morrow might bring back the mist and rain. But we shall have little pleasure "No," answered Mr. Marten, shaking in this life, if we do not treasure all the lit- his head with a dash of his old despondeney; tle bits we can find. Do you suppose Noah but we must. There is no better one to threw away the olive-branch because it was be had. Do know it? that small not a tree? And so the birds twittered, grey house, at the angle of the High Street and we went out. and Pleasant Lane ?" We went up the road towards St. Cross, choosing that direction for two reasons, because it was hilly, and so secure from any latent moisture, and because we wished to visit my new house behind the church. It was now completed, or at least very nearly so, for the locksmith and the varnisher were the workmen now employed. As we toiled up the ascent, we were arrested by a cheerful salute from behind, and turning round, we found Mr. Marten and his friends the Blakes hastening to overtake us and we waited till they came up. "We have intended you a visit ever since Christmas," said the rector, as he shook hands; but the weather has always forbidden it until to-day. We have just been at your house, and the servant told us where we should find you." 66 Then let us all return instantly, and have a comfortable luncheon," I answered. "Oh no," returned Mr. Marten; "we can chat as we walk, and have the benefit of the fresh air and exercise besides. We have not had a long journey-only as far as the High Street." 66 I asked. 66 Have you No," he replied with a slight hesitation; "in fact-in short," speaking briskly at last, "Mr. Garrett, I planned this morning visit as a fitting opportunity to introduce Miss Blake - as my future wife." been to the Refuge, then?" We made a slight pause, and congratulated the young lady, who was duly diffident and blushing. And I think the rector was a little disappointed to find we expressed no surprise. 66 It is no new happiness to me," he said. Yes," he replied; "we looked at a cottage in the lane by the Low Meadow, a very pretty cottage too, but that situation is damp. The kitchen walls were discoloured by it. Then we looked over a house on the high-road to Mallowe,- -a nice house, but it was only to be let on lease; and that arrangement is not always convenient for a clergyman. And there are no other unoccupied houses in the neighbourhood." "Except that behind St. Cross,” I remarked, carelessly. "You see I built it for an income of two hundred a-year, exclusive of house rent," I observed. "Ah, I remember you said so," he responded. "And I fixed on this income, because it is that of the rectors of St. Cross" "I beg your pardon," he interrupted: "we receive only two hundred, inclusive of all personal expenses." And I intend this house as a gift to the rectory of St. Cross," I continued, not heeding his interruption, "and my solicitor in London is at the present time engaged in preparing the necessary deeds." And then we made another little pause, and went through another confusion of acknowledgments and congratulations, which were all very pleasant to hear, but would make very stupid reading, and I interrupted |