illustration: book cover] no. 26. christ in the storm. by the author of "peep of day." london: john hatchard and son. 1848 [illustration] christ in the storm. there are a great many troubles in this life. ask your father and your mother whether this is true. your father will say, "i have had a great many troubles; i have found it hard to get bread for my children." your mother will say, "i have had a great deal of sorrow in bringing up my little family." my dear child, have you had any troubles? i am sure you have had some. have you ever felt great pain? have you lost a little baby brother or sister? have you got into disgrace? have you been punished for your faults? there is one friend to whom every one may go in every trouble. it is jesus, the son of god. when we are unhappy, if we cry unto him, he will hear us and help us. once he lived down upon this earth, and was a man. now he is in heaven, and he is a man still as well as god. i will tell you how he helped some of his friends out of trouble when he lived in this world. his friends were called disciples. one evening they went into a ship. jesus did not go with them; he stayed where he was, and spent the night all alone on the top of a mountain, praying to his father. god was his father. the disciples were in their little ship on the water when the wind began to blow very hard indeed. the waves rose high, and the ship was tossed about. every moment the poor men were afraid that the water would fill their ship, and that they should sink to the bottom of the sea. all night long the disciples were in sad distress, trying with all their might to row their ship to land, but all they could do was of no use. at last they saw a man walking on the sea. there he was in the midst of the great waves, walking as on the dry land. he went faster than the ship, and seemed as if he would pass by it. the disciples did not know who it was. they thought it could not be a man with a body like ours; they supposed it was a spirit, who has no body. they were very much frightened, and they cried out in their trouble. then they heard a voice saying, "it is i, be not afraid." whose voice was that? you know, and they knew; it was the voice of jesus. though the winds were whistling and the waves roaring, his voice could be heard. one of the disciples, named peter, said, "lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water." jesus said, "come." so peter got out of the ship and walked on the water to go to jesus. he believed that jesus could help him to walk on the water, and jesus did help him. but when peter saw how high the wind was, he began to be afraid. this was wrong. he ought to have trusted in jesus. soon he felt that he was sinking, and he cried out, "lord, save me." jesus heard that short prayer; he was very near, and he stretched out his hand, and caught hold of peter. trusting in god is called faith. peter had a little faith, but not much. so he was able to walk on the water a little way, but not far. jesus went into the ship and took peter with him, and as soon as he was there the wind left off blowing. then all the disciples came round him and worshipped him, saying, "truly thou art the son of god." it is this jesus who can help you in your troubles. will you trust him? do not be like peter, and only trust him a little while, but go on trusting in him, and you will find that he will keep you safe, and make you happy. he forgives sins, which no one else can do, because he died upon the cross to save us from our sins. when we are dying he will not leave us if we trust in him, but he will comfort us and take us to heaven. this history you will find in matt. xiv. 22--33; mark vi. 45--52. i lay my sins on jesus, the spotless lamb of god; he bears them all, and frees us from the accursed load. i bring my guilt to jesus, to wash my crimson stains white in his blood most precious, till not a spot remains. i lay my wants on jesus, all fulness dwells in him, he healeth my diseases, he doth my soul redeem. i lay my griefs on jesus, my burdens and my cares; he from them all releases, he all my sorrows shares. i love the name of jesus- immanuel, christ, the lord! like fragrance on the breezes, his name is spread abroad. i long to be like jesus- meek, loving, lowly, mild; i long to be like jesus- the father's holy child. i long to be with jesus, amid the heavenly throng, to sing with saints his praises, to learn the angels' song. [_the writer unknown._] the end. macintosh, printer, great new-street, london. prayer. o father in heaven, thou hast made all things; the sun, moon, and stars, the land and sea. thou hast made me. thou hast taken care of me. i thank thee for all thy kindness. great god, thou art in every place; thou seest in the dark, as well as in the light; thou knowest all the naughty things that i have done, and said, and thought. o merciful lord, pardon my sins, because jesus christ, thy dear son, died upon the cross for sinners. give me thy holy spirit, that i may love thee, and obey thy laws. keep me from minding satan, and save me from going to hell: and whenever i die, o take my soul to heaven. when jesus comes with clouds, and with the holy angels, may i be glad to see him. may my dear parents, and brothers, and sisters, be happy with thee for ever and ever. may all people love thee, and speak of thy goodness. hear me for christ's sake. amen. [illustration] no. 35. the blind beggar of jericho. by the author of "peep of day." london: john hatchard and son. 1848. [illustration] the blind beggar of jericho. it is very common to see blind men begging in the streets. do not you pity the blind? how sad it must be never to see the light of the sun, nor the green leaves in spring, nor the faces of our dearest friends! a long while ago a blind man sat begging by the side of the road. as he sat he heard the noise of a great crowd walking along. he did not know why there was such a crowd, so he asked the people passing by why so many had come together. they told him that jesus of nazareth was passing that way. the blind man had heard before of jesus. he had heard that he could do great wonders, and he felt sure in his heart that jesus could make him see. but the blind man could not go to him--how could he dare to stir in such a crowd? he might have been pushed down and trodden upon and crushed to death. but he could speak. he cried out very loud, "have mercy on me, o lord." he did not cry out once or twice, he kept on crying out, hoping that jesus would hear him. but the lord took no notice of him, and a great many people came up to him and told him not to make such a noise. yet the poor man would not be quiet; he knew that the lord was passing by, and that he might soon be gone, and that he might never pass that way again, so he cried out more than ever, "lord, have mercy on me!" and did the lord take notice of him at last? yes, he did; he stood still, and told the people to bring that blind man to him. how kind it was in jesus to care for the blind beggar! jesus is very kind, and cares for every poor creature in the world. at last the blind man heard some one speak kindly to him, and say, "be of good comfort; rise, he calleth thee." how glad he was to hear that jesus had sent for him! he got up very quickly, and went to jesus, for now the people made room for him. no one now was rude to the poor beggar, for jesus had called for him. and what did jesus say to him? he asked him this question, "what do you wish me to do for you?" the man replied, "lord, that i may receive my sight." jesus pitied him very much, and he touched his eyes, and said, "receive thy sight." that moment he was able to see. how glad he now was that he had cried out, "lord, have mercy on me," and that he had not left off when the people told him not to make a noise! he would not leave jesus now he had found him, but went after him on the road, praising him, and thanking god for his goodness. if all people would pray as this blind man did, jesus would hear them all. the child who reads this book is not blind. if you were blind how could you read to father or to mother? but there is something which jesus could do for you, that would make you happy for ever. what is it? do you know? if he were to say, "what do you wish me to do for you?" what would you answer? i should like you to say, "forgive me my sins, and give me thy holy spirit." my dear child, do make this little prayer every day. jesus would hear you. perhaps you live in a very poor place. perhaps you live in a little room in town, up some dark and narrow stairs; perhaps there is very little furniture in it, and very little food in the cupboard, but jesus knows where you live, and he knows your name, and your father's name, and your mother's name, and he hears all you say. he would be much pleased to hear you praying to him, because he loves you, and he once died upon the cross that you might not go to hell. if you go to heaven you will see the blind beggar there--i mean the beggar who once was blind. then you will sing with him about the love of jesus in saving your souls. if you wish to read a full account of this blind man, you will find it in mark x. 46 to end, and also in luke xviii. 35 to end. when jesus christ was here below, and spread his works of love abroad, if i had lived so long ago, i think i should have loved the lord. jesus, who was so very kind, who came to pardon sinful men, who heal'd the sick, and cur'd the blind: oh, must not i have loved him then? but where is jesus? is he dead? oh, no; he lives in heaven above: "and blest are they," the saviour said, "who, though they have not seen me, love." he sees us from his throne on high as well as when on earth he dwelt; and when to him poor children cry, he feels such love as then he felt. and if the lord will grant me grace, much i will love him and adore; but when in heaven i see his face, 'twill be my joy to love him more. _jane taylor._ the end. macintosh, printer, great new-street, london. prayer. o father in heaven, thou hast made all things; the sun, moon, and stars, the land and sea. thou hast made me. thou hast taken care of me. i thank thee for all thy kindness. great god, thou art in every place; thou seest in the dark, as well as in the light; thou knowest all the naughty things that i have done, and said, and thought. o merciful lord, pardon my sins, because jesus christ, thy dear son, died upon the cross for sinners. give me thy holy spirit, that i may love thee, and obey thy laws. keep me from minding satan, and save me from going to hell: and whenever i die, o take my soul to heaven. when jesus comes with clouds, and with the holy angels, may i be glad to see him. may my dear parents, and brothers, and sisters, be happy with thee for ever and ever. may all people love thee, and speak of thy goodness. hear me for christ's sake. amen. transcriber's note * punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected. [illustration] no. 23. the child who died and lived again. by the author of "peep of day." london: john hatchard and son. 1848. [illustration] the child who died and lived again. did you ever see a person who was dead? perhaps you have seen one of your own brothers or sisters lying on a death-bed. what a change takes place when we die! no more breath comes out of the mouth, no colour is seen on the cheeks; the eye can look at us no longer, nor the tongue speak to us; the body soon grows cold and stiff; it has no more feeling than the ground on which we tread. and why? because the soul is gone out of the body. while the soul or spirit is in us we are alive, but when it is gone out then we are dead. the soul can never die, but the body is only made of dust, and it soon crumbles away and becomes dust again. no one can make a dead person alive again. yet once there was a man in this world who made dead people alive. who was that man? he was called jesus; he was not only a man, he was god too; he was the son of god. most people would not believe that he was the son of god, though he said he was. yet we are sure he said true, for if he had been a wicked man he could not have made dead people alive again. god his father was with him, and this was the reason he did such wonderful things. one day a rich man came to jesus, and fell down at his feet, and begged him to come to his house. he said, "my little daughter is dying." he was very unhappy, he loved his little girl very much, and she was his only child. his name was jairus, but i do not know the name of his little girl. i do know her age, she was twelve years old. the father thought that if jesus only put his hands upon her he could make her well. the son of god was very kind to people in trouble. he went with the father, and a great crowd followed him. as he went along the road, he was pressed on every side by those who wanted to see him and to hear what he said. before he reached the sick man's house, some people came and said to the father, "your daughter is dead." they told him it was now of no use for jesus to come. they little knew what he could do; but jesus said to the father, "do not be afraid, she shall be made well." when he came to the house, he only allowed three of his friends to come in with him. their names were peter, james, and john. there was a great noise and bustle in the house; there were men playing music, and people weeping and crying out with loud voices because the girl was dead. when jesus came into the room where she was lying, he said to these people, "why do you make this noise? the girl is not dead, she only sleeps." then they began to laugh at him, for they knew the child was dead. why did jesus say she slept? because she was soon to be made alive. her death was like sleep. jesus would not let the people who mocked, stay in the room, but he let the girl's father and mother be there, and his own three friends. there were just these five in the room with him when he went to the bed and took hold of the girl's hand and said, "girl, i say unto thee, arise." immediately her spirit (or her soul) came again into her body. then she was alive. she was now quite well; she was not weak now, as she had been; she got up out of her bed and walked about. then jesus desired that something might be given her to eat. her parents were very much surprised. they had been afraid that jesus would not be able to make her alive. they did not know he could do everything. he made all our bodies and gave us souls, and one day he will call all the dead people out of their graves. i wonder whether that young girl loved jesus. she was old enough to understand what he said. at twelve years old children can understand almost as well as men and women can; they learn more quickly, and remember better. though they love play still, they have a great deal of sense. some children at twelve years old begin to take great pains with their learning; then they get on very fast. some begin to be very useful; they can do more now than take care of the baby or run upon errands, and often they get places as servants. if they are steady, and tell no lies, they are trusted and get on well in the world. some children at twelve years old begin to think about their souls and to say, "what would become of me if i were to die?" they go and hear sermons, and they can understand them. they look in the bible, and they can understand a great deal which they read. then some begin to pray and to say, "merciful god, give me thy holy spirit, for the sake of jesus christ." but there are some who at twelve years old will mind their parents no longer. they say, "we are not little babies now, we will do as we please." they forget all the kindness their parents have shown them for twelve years, and they forget the words that god has spoken, "honour thy father and thy mother." you can read the history of the daughter of jairus in your bible in mark v. verses 23, 24, and 35 to end; luke viii. 41, 42, and 49 to end. the dying child. why do you weep? i am falling asleep, and jesus my shepherd, is watching his sheep; his arm is beneath me, his eye is above; his spirit within me says, "rest in my love: with blood i have bought thee, and wash'd thee from sin; with care i have brought thee my fold to be in; refresh'd by still waters, in green pastures fed, thy day has gone by- i am making thy bed." _extract in "the twin brothers."_ the end. macintosh, printer, great new-street, london. prayer. o father in heaven, thou hast made all things; the sun, moon, and stars, the land and sea. thou hast made me. thou hast taken care of me. i thank thee for all thy kindness. great god, thou art in every place; thou seest in the dark, as well as in the light; thou knowest all the naughty things that i have done, and said, and thought. o merciful lord, pardon my sins, because jesus christ, thy dear son, died upon the cross for sinners. give me thy holy spirit, that i may love thee, and obey thy laws. keep me from minding satan, and save me from going to hell: and whenever i die, o take my soul to heaven. when jesus comes with clouds, and with the holy angels, may i be glad to see him. may my dear parents, and brothers, and sisters, be happy with thee for ever and ever. may all people love thee, and speak of thy goodness. hear me for christ's sake. amen. a choice of miracles by james a. cox _you're down in the jungle with death staring you in the face. there is nothing left but prayer. so you ask for your life. but wait! are you sure that's really what you want above all else?_ andy larson was a hard-headed swede. he had to be, to be still alive. he hadn't been able to move anything but that hard head for what he estimated to be about three hours since he regained consciousness. and in that time he hadn't heard anything that led him to believe anyone else had survived the crash. [illustration: hurt and helpless, larson waited for death.] the only thing andy larson had heard was the water and the far-away whine of the patrol ship on its grid track search pattern. it had not reached his area yet, and he wasn't at all excited about his chances of being spotted when it did get nearer. he could turn his head, and he could see the tangled interlacing of tree branches and vines above and around him. he remembered, at the first moment of impact, just before the ship began to break apart, a tremendous geyser of mud and water. the picture was indelibly imprinted on his mind. he couldn't see the water now, but he could hear it. the litter he could see by twisting his head as far to the left as it would go told him they had crash-landed on the water--a river by the sound of it--and had skipped drunkenly, in something approximating flat stone fashion, into the forest lining the river's bank. there had been no explosion and no fire, there was no wide swath cut through the trees--and therefore no reason why he should assume the patrol would spot him. there might be pieces of the ship lying where the patrol could see them. but he doubted that, for the river was deep and the vegetation was thick. * * * * * he strained his ears, not to hear if the patrol was approaching closer, but listening for the sound of life around him. this was his one hope--another survivor, and of necessity a mobile one. someone to shout and wave, to climb a tree, to find an open space and build a fire, to light a flare, to do something--anything--that would attract the patrol's attention. andy larson wasn't afraid of dying. he felt no panic, no agonies of conscience, remorse or bitterness at the apparent inevitability of the prospect before him. but if he was not destined to die he needed a miracle or the assistance of that almost impossible--but only almost--survivor. and instead of praying for the miracle, he listened with all the hearing power at his command for the sound of human life. that would be miracle enough, and he didn't intend to stop listening until he couldn't any more. not that he didn't pray at all; back home in new jersey, while not considered a pillar of the church, andy larson was known as a good, practicing lutheran. but it was doubtful if the lutherans, or any other sect for that matter, had sent missionaries this high into the heavens yet; the misbegotten flight he had been on had been only the fourth to reach this strange little planet of abernathy since its discovery by the good professor back in '92. so andy was no longer a practicing lutheran, if practicing meant going to church. but he had prayed more than once during the long outward journey. and he was praying now, while his ears strained for sounds and his eyes strained for movement; praying for himself, yes, but even more for his wife, and for someone he had never seen. he couldn't help being afraid for elsie; he had been gone from home almost seven months, and she had been rocked with morning sickness for the last three weeks before he left, moaning over her saltines and begging him not to go even though she knew he couldn't and would not back out. she was afraid of the unknown he was going into, and he was afraid of the unknown that awaited her--it was the first time for both unknowns for both of them. in a little while he could stop straining his eyes. greenish dusk was slipping into night. soon his ears would have to do all the work. the thought of night-prowling creatures disturbed him somewhat; no-one knew for sure yet what, if anything, lived in these thick, isolated jungles. paralyzed as he was, he was fair game--his choice of words in the thought brought a grimacing smile to his face. he tried once again--was it the thousandth time yet?--to move his arms, his legs, his hands, a finger, a toe. earlier, he had thought he was moving the big toe on his left foot, but he couldn't raise his head to see past the twisted bulk of metal that lay across him, the toe had nothing to rub upon to give it feeling, and there was absolutely no feeling between it and his head to give it any meaning anyhow. but it would have been a nice feeling just to know it was still there. he gave up the attempt when sweat beaded out on his forehead and went back to listening and praying. he was tempted to pray for the miracle now, for blackness blotted out even the pitiful remains of the ship, and the whine of the patrol had muted to a singing hum in the distance. * * * * * the night turned cold and damp, but andy larson, in his sheathing of paralysis, didn't feel it. the loneliness was on him, the awesome loneliness of having to wait for death alone, with no warm hand to hold on to until the parting. he still felt no great fear or bitterness. only the loneliness, and sadness. he would never know his son, or daughter, would never know that it loved him, that he was the biggest thing in its life. and it--that was ugly; he would call it "he"; if he had a choice a son it would be--he, his son, would never know his father, or how much his father wanted to love him. and elsie--how lonely it would be for her. her time must be getting close now, and she would be frightened. the doctor hadn't told her what he had told him--that she was too slight, definitely not built for child-bearing. but she knew. and she would be brave, but frightened and alone. the hours of night trudged by. the few stars that peeped through the trees were no help in telling the time, and andy had lost interest in it anyhow. it was night, it had been night for what seemed like years, the blackness around him proclaimed it would be night still for many more years. he dozed off and on, at times waking with a start, thinking he had heard something. for a few minutes he would listen intently, feverishly. but when nothing reached his ears but the little night sounds he had become accustomed to, he would sink back into the lethargy that weighed upon his eyelids. he wondered if he could be dying. he thought he was getting weaker--but how could he tell for sure? he could feel nothing, there was no pain, no muscular failure, no falling weakly to the ground. there were no muscles left and he was on the ground already. it was a herculean effort to keep his eyes open, to listen as he had vowed he would. but that might be only fatigue, the need for sleep. and shock! of course. he had to be suffering from shock, and from exposure, too. so if he didn't die of starvation, and if some beast didn't devour him, and if whatever wounds and injuries he had didn't do him in, he would probably die anyhow from pneumonia. the thought was almost a comforting one. it took him off the hook, unburdened him of the need to worry about whether or not he lived. the thing was out of his hands, and no stubbornness on his part was going to do any good. he had prayed himself out before, prayed until the words of the prayers were nothing but imbecilic mutterings and mumblings, meaningless monosyllables swirling pointlessly and endlessly through his tired brain. the thing was out of his hands. he--andy larson--he gave up. he quit. he was nothing but a head that was hard and a body that was dead. what right did he have thinking he had any control over what happened to him? he was incapable of doing anything himself--he had to wait until something happened to him. and he knew what was going to happen. so that's what he'd do. he'd just wait. * * * * * he closed his eyes and saw elsie, and before he realized he was going to do it he was praying again, talking to god about elsie, and then talking to elsie about god, and then back to god again and to elsie again, and he knew he was crying because he could taste the tears, and he knew he was going to die because there wasn't anything else that could happen, and he knew suddenly that he was mortally afraid. he could not lay rigidly, tensely--there were no muscles to tighten. but the tension had to go somewhere. he felt a numbness creeping up the back of his neck, felt his eyes bulging as if they would burst, heard a roaring in his ears. he opened his mouth, gasping, trying to breathe deeply, the roaring in his ears reaching a crescendo and then breaking into a cold sighing wind that loudened and softened with the regularity of a pulse beat. he didn't know if he was awake or sleeping, dozing or dreaming, dying or dead. but he heard elsie. she was calling him. over the cold black nothingness that separated them she was calling his name, her voice riding on the mournful wind sighing in his ears. he could hear her--it was as simple as that. he still didn't know if he was dreaming or dead. he didn't care. she was calling to him and he could hear, and although it wasn't the miracle he had wanted to pray for, still it was a miracle. he didn't question it; the comfort of hearing her voice after the terrible loneliness was enough. he didn't wonder how it could happen, didn't doubt that she could hear him answering her, as he was doing now. at first, so overcome with joy and relief, so thankful for the miracle, he didn't even recognize the tones of pain in her voice. "elsie, elsie, elsie," he cried out with his mind, reaching for her, wanting to seize her and hold her and never let her slip away again. "i hear you, my darling. i hear you!" "thank god!" her voice broke, and the sound of sobbing carried on the wind reached his ears. for a moment it puzzled him. he had been crying, but her sobs were something different. the night suddenly seemed to turn much colder. "what is it, elsie?" he called in fright. * * * * * the sobbing became a choking cough. he heard her grunt and gasp, and then a small scream turned his blood into ice. after a long moment she spoke again, panting, her voice strained and scratchy. "thank god you can hear me, andy. i've called and called. i prayed that i didn't care what happened, just so long as you could be with me. and you are, you are. it's a miracle and i don't know how. but you're with me and i won't be afraid any more. i won't ... oh ... oh ..." * * * * * andy suddenly understood. "elsie," he cried frantically. "where are you? are you in the hospital? is everything all right? is the doctor there? _elsie!_" he shouted her name aloud, angrily, trying to force it through the immense absorbent space between them, cursing and screaming at his own helplessness. "be quiet, andy," she said at last. "stop carrying on so. i'm all right now--it's just that the pain comes and sometimes i don't know what to do." "but are you all right? did the doctor--?" "shhh, andy. of course i'm all right. i'm in the labor room and there are lots of nice people to take care of me. dr. bell says it's like this often with first babies. and since i'm smaller than i should be--that doesn't help any. but i'm going to be all right." "you called me, though. you said you were afraid of something, and prayed that--" "you know how big a sissy i can be sometimes, andy. remember the time the wasp got in the bathroom while i was taking a shower, and how we got tangled up in the shower curtain where i was trying to hide from him and you were trying to catch him? and remember what happened right after that? right there in the bathroom?" she laughed lightly. to hear her laugh again! andy smiled to himself, remembering. she had been so soft and cool and pretty, snarled in the shower curtain, her hair damp and curly, her cheeks flushed, uttering little squeals and yelps and giggles that were exciting music, and suddenly he wasn't chasing the wasp any more and she wasn't giggling because the wasp was tickling her. she had pulled his head under the shower, and he had got soaked anyway, so he climbed into the tub and she helped pull off his clothes and they soaped each other into a lather and they rinsed and they climbed out together, but they never got dried off and they never got out of the bathroom--at least not for a long time. and oh, how her laugh had tinkled then, and how he loved her when she laughed. he thought of her laughing now, and a pain shot through his head. he tried to visualize her now, as she laughed--the swollen, hurt-looking belly, the heavy breasts dragging her frail shoulders forward, the drawn, pinched look he knew must be between her eyes as it was always when she felt unwell. he could visualize her this way, but not laughing. then he heard her, and she wasn't laughing any more, and her moans were needles and her screams were knives. it lasted longer this time. it lasted so long he could taste the blood where his teeth had ground through his lip, although he couldn't remember the pain of doing it. she came back to him at last, groaning weakly, and they talked, he cheerfully for her sake, she bravely for his. they remembered things they had done together, good times, happy times. they talked of what they would do when he came home, and what would they call the baby? andy junior if a boy? elsie if a girl? or karen, or mary, or kirsten, or maybe hermione? they laughed at that, and they laughed again at the thought of twins. but the laughs turned into gasps and cries of pain. and elsie lay thrashing in the labor room of a hospital in new jersey, and andy lay rigidly under a rigidity not of his own making in a jungle far away. * * * * * she came back to him and told him the doctors had had a consultation, and had agreed to wait a little longer. she came back and told him they had decided they could not wait much longer, and would have to undertake a caesarean. she came back and told him she had begged them to give her a little more time to try and do it herself, but she was afraid they were going to give her something to knock her out. she came and she went, but even when she was gone she was never so far away that andy could not hear her. he wanted to stop his ears to the hysterical outpourings, but he was helpless, and he hated himself for wanting to. when she came back the next time, with weakness turning her voice into a hoarse whisper, he begged her to take the drugs. but she wasn't listening to him. "andy, andy," she said, "listen to me please. it's important. they've decided on the caesarean, and i haven't got much time. i've been thinking of the way we've been talking, and i think it happened because i needed you so much. that's how i got all the way to where you are. i needed you with me with every part of me, and somehow part of me found you. but andy, you must have needed me, too. you must have needed me, andy, or how did you get back to me?" * * * * * despite the weakness of her voice, the fear in it rang out loudly. he tried to laugh and told her he was perfectly fine, except for worry about her. he made up a story about lying on his bunk, sipping a cool lemonade and listening to soft music, trying to calm his nerves over the prospect of becoming a new father and wondering where he would get the cigars to distribute to the boys. but she wouldn't believe him. she insisted that he tell her the truth, pleading with him, crying out her love and her fear and her need. at last he told her of the crash, speaking lightly, pointing out that the patrol ship would be back with daylight and all would be well. he didn't mention the fact that he had no body below the neck, but he knew she knew it was worse than he described. then she was gone again, for so long a time he thought the operation had started. but the wind still blew raggedly in his ears, and she came back, slowly, but with new vibrancy in her voice. "andy, you dope," she whispered with a brave attempt at sprightliness. "why didn't you--tell--me--sooner?" she was gasping, but hurried on. "i can tell the doctor, and he can telephone somebody and they can use the radio and tell the patrol where you are. oh! andy--where are you--? hurry--" she was going again, and as quickly as he could he told her of the river and the jungle, and where approximately the ship had been just before the crash. then she was gone and he closed his eyes and let the waves of near-hysterical relief wash over him. he was exhausted, the strain of long concentration had drained his strength, but he could almost feel the nerve ends in his dead body tingling with the exhilaration that sang in his mind. it was the miracle he hadn't dared pray for. it would be the greatest miracle ever performed, and he had almost lost it, almost killed it, almost thrown it away. but elsie-he prayed feverishly now, thanking, thanking, and praying for the miracle to really happen and for elsie and his son to be all right. * * * * * then the wind was roaring blackly in his ears and the wind was turning into a shrieking demon and above it he could hear her wild scream: "they don't believe me! they say i'm delirious. andy! they're coming with something to put me to sleep. they don't believe me, andy ..." it ended. the wind stopped abruptly with her voice. the only things andy larson could hear were the blood pounding in his head and the grating of insects singing their last to the approaching dawn. it was all over, and he closed his eyes to the lightening sky. it was all over, the miracle was dead, the miracle never was, he was dead, he never was. elsie-he rocked his head back and forth, wanting to cry, to curse and shout out his hatred of life. but nothing would come out, nothing was left. it was all over. he lay under his memorial, a junk pile of twisted metal, inching his way toward death, the abortion of an abortive miracle, alone, tearless, wifeless, sonless, helpless. a faint hum drifted to his ears. he looked up, wondering that the dawn had come so soon. the sky was brilliant with light, but still he could not see the patrol ship, knew that it couldn't see him, no matter how close the hum got. the hum came closer and closer, grew louder, and then he heard her soft laugh and the hum faded away. "andy? aren't you coming?" he stared at the sky, his eyes bulging, his tongue swollen in his throat. he couldn't see anything, the light was so bright. he thought he must be dreaming--he had heard that people had strange visions when they were dying. but her voice sounded so real. "don't worry, honey," she said softly. "everything is all right now. come on, we're waiting." he strained his eyes to see, and the phrase _we're waiting_ struck him just as the other voice let out a cry. "what--?" he mumbled, stupidly, happily, afraid to believe. she laughed again, and little pieces of glittering silver tinkled through the gold of the sky. "i guess we'll have to call him andy, after his father. he was a slow-poke too." she was there beside him now--or he was beside her--he didn't know which, for he was suddenly free of the great weight that held him down, he had the sensation of floating lightly through the air. but they were together and she was radiant, and he was happier than he had ever thought he could be, even though she couldn't put her arms around him as he wanted her to because her arms were full of his son. his arms weren't full--only his eyes and his throat and his heart--and he put them around her, holding her tightly. the baby howled a protest, and elsie, laughed her wonderful laugh again. "he has a good voice, andy, don't you think?" "a lovely voice," andy agreed, and his own voice sounded to him as if he were singing. the end transcriber's note: this etext was produced from _amazing stories_ december 1957. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. the legend of sister beatrix charles nodier (1780-1844) not far from the highest peak in the jura, but descending a little down its slope facing west, one could still see, going on for half a century ago, a mass of ruins that had belonged to the church and the convent of our lady of the flowering thorns. it is at one end of a deep and narrow gorge, much more sheltered to the north, which produces each year, thanks to its favourable aspect, the rarest flowers of that region. half a league from there, from the opposite end of the gorge, the debris of an ancient manor house is visible which has itself disappeared like the house of god. we only know that it used to be lived in by a family renowned for its feats of arms and that the last of the noble knights to bear its name died in winning back the tomb of jesus christ for christians without an heir to propagate his line. his inconsolable widow would not abandon a place so conducive to the upkeep of her melancholy, but the rumour of her piety spread far and wide as did her works of charity and a glorious tradition has perpetuated her memory for future generations of christians. the people, who have forgotten all her other names, still call her the saint. on one of those days when winter, coming to an end, suddenly relaxes its rigour under the influence of a temperate sky, the saint was walking, as usual, down the long driveway leading to her castle, her mind given over to pious meditations. she came in this way to the thorny bushes that still mark its end, and saw, with no little surprise, that one of these shrubs had taken on already all its springtime finery. she hastened to get nearer to it in order to assure herself that this semblance was not produced by a remnant of snow that had failed to melt, and, delighted to see it crowned, in effect, by an innumerable multitude of beautiful little white stars with rays of crimson, she carefully detached a branch to hang it in her oratory before a picture of the virgin mary she had held in great reverence since childhood, and went back joyfully to take to her this innocent offering. whether this modest tribute really pleased the divine mother of jesus or whether a special pleasure, which it is difficult to define, is reserved for the least outpouring of a tender heart to the object of its affection, never had the soul of the chatelaine been as open to more ineffable emotions than those she felt that mild evening. she promised herself, with a joy that was ingenuous, to go back every day to the bush in bloom in order to daily bring back a fresh garland. we may well believe that she was faithful to that promise. one day, however, when her care for the poor and sick had kept her busy longer than usual, it was in vain that she hurried to reach her wild flowerbed. night got there before her, and it is said that she started to regret having let herself be taken over quite so much by this solitary place, when a clarity calm and pure, like that which comes to us with daylight, suddenly showed her all her flowering thorns. she stopped walking for a moment, struck by the thought that this light might emanate from a camp fire made by bandits, for it was impossible to imagine it having been produced by myriads of glow-worms, hatched before their time. the year was not far gone enough for the warm and peaceful nights of summer. nevertheless, her self-imposed obligation came to mind and gave her courage. she walked lightly, holding her breath, towards the bush with the white flowers, seized in a trembling hand a branch which seemed to fall of itself between her fingers, so little resistance it offered to her, and went back to her manor house without daring to look behind her. for the whole of the subsequent night, the saintly lady pondered this phenomenon without being able to explain it, and, as she was determined to solve this mystery, no sooner than the following day, at the same time in the evening, she went back to the bushes with a faithful servant and her old personal chaplain. the gentle light shone there as it had the day before, and seemed, as they drew near to it, to grow brighter and more radiant. they stopped then and knelt down, as it seemed to them this light was coming down from heaven. after they had done this, the good priest got up by himself and took a few respectful steps towards the flowering thorns singing a hymn of the church and brushed them aside easily for they opened like a veil. the spectacle that offered itself to their sight at that moment inspired such admiration in them that they stayed for a long time without moving, totally filled with joy and gratitude. it was an image of the virgin mary, simply carved in common wood, brought to life by colours given to it by a brush that was rudimentary and wearing clothes that gave a naive idea of luxury, but it was from her that emanated the wondrous splendour that illumined these precincts. "hail mary, full of grace," said the chaplain, who had now prostrated himself, at last, and, to judge by the harmonious murmur which promptly arose through all the woods thereabouts after he had uttered these words, one could have thought them taken up by a choir of angels. he then solemnly proceeded to recite those admirable litanies in which faith has, unknowingly, spoken the language of the most elevated poetry, and, following on from new acts of worship, he picked the statue up so as to take it to the castle, where it was to find a sanctuary worthy of it, while the lady and the servant, hands joined together and with heads slightly bowed, slowly came after, merging their prayers with his. i do not need to say that the wonderful image was placed in an elegant niche, that it was surrounded by odorous candles, bathed in perfumes, laden with a rich crown, and acknowledged, till half way through the night, by the hymns of the faithful. but, in the morning, it could no longer be found and all the christians who, by gaining her, had been filled with such pure happiness, were much alarmed. what secret sin could have brought down this disgrace on the manor house of the saint? why had the virgin mary left it? what new resting place had she chosen? we may doubtless guess. the blessed mother of jesus preferred the modest shadow of her favourite bushes to the dazzle of an earthly dwelling. she had gone back, in the midst of the coolness of the woods, to taste the peace of solitude and the sweet exhalations of the flowers. all the people who lived in the castle went there at dusk and found her there, even more resplendent than she had been the previous night. they fell on their knees in respectful silence. "potent queen of angels!" said the chatelaine. "this is the abode you prefer. your will be done." and indeed, not long afterwards, a shrine embellished by all the adornments that an inspired architect could lavish on it in those centuries of feeling and imagination rose around that venerated image. the great and good of the earth wanted to enrich it with their gifts. kings endowed it with a tabernacle of pure gold. the fame of our lady's miracles spread far and wide throughout the christian world and summoned to the valley a multitude of pious women who dwelt there according to a monastic rule. the saintly widow, more touched than ever by the light of grace, could not refuse the title of mother superior of this convent. she died there full of days after a life of good works, good examples and sacrifices which rose up like a perfume from the foot of our lady's altars. such was, according to the handwritten records of the province, the origin of the church and convent of our lady of the flowering thorns. two centuries had passed since the death of the saint, and a young virgin in her extended family was still, according to custom, the sister custodian of the holy tabernacle, which means that she took care of it, and that it was her job to open the tabernacle on feast days when the miraculous image was shown to the faithful. she it was who had the care of maintaining the ever new elegance of our lady's ornaments, of removing the dust from them and the harmful insects, of picking, to compose her crown or to adorn her altar, the most gracious flowers in the garden in their growth and the most chaste in their colour, forming chains, garlands and bouquets that attracted in their turn, through the great stained glass window open to the rising sun, a multitude of purple and azure butterflies, aerial flowers indicative of solitude. among these tributes the flowering thorn was always given preference when in season, and, imitated in lieu of all the others with an art that the good nuns had stolen the secret of from nature, it rested on the breast of the beautiful madonna as a thick clump knotted with a silver ribbon. the butterflies themselves might have slipped up sometimes, but they did not dare to dwell on these celestial flowers which were not made for them. the sister custodian at that time was called beatrix. eighteen years old at most, she had scarcely been told how pretty she was, for she had entered our lady's house when she was only fifteen, as pure and unspoilt as her flowers. there is a happy or disastrous age at which a young girl's heart understands that it was created to love, and beatrix had reached it. but this need, initially vague and anxious, had only made her duties more dear to her. unable to explain then the secret motions that agitated her so much, she had taken them to be the symptoms of a pious fervour which accuses itself of not being ardent enough, and which feels obliged to love enthusiastically and to the point of madness. the unknown object of these loving tendencies eluded her lack of experience, and among the objects that occupied the senses of her ingenuous heart, if we can put it like that, our lady alone seemed to her worthy of that deep adoration for which life itself could scarcely suffice. this cult of every passing moment had become the one thing her mind dwelt on, the one thing that charmed her solitude. it filled even her dreams with mysterious languors and ineffable acts of worship. she was often to be seen stretched out in front of the tabernacle, breathing out to her divine patron prayers that were interspersed with sobs, or wetting the space around the altar with her tears, and the celestial virgin smiled no doubt, from the top of her eternal throne, at that happy and tender mistake on the part of the innocent, for the holy virgin loved beatrix and liked to be loved by her. besides, she had perhaps discerned in beatrix's heart that she always would be loved by her. about that time there occurred an event that raised the veil under which beatrix's secret had remained so long hidden to herself. a young lord in those parts, having been attacked by murderous footpads, was left in the forest for dead, and, though he had only preserved at most the feeble semblance of a life about to be extinguished, the convent servants transported him to their infirmary. as the daughters of chatelaines at that time were, from their earliest years, in receipt of formulas and recipes with respect to the healing art, beatrix was sent by her sisters to the bedside of the dying man to help him. she put into practice all she had learned of that useful body of knowledge, but she counted more on the intercession of the miraculous virgin mary, and her long and laborious vigils, divided between the cares of a sick nurse and the prayers of a servant of mary, obtained for her all the success she had hoped for. raymond re-opened his eyes to the light and, in doing so, recognized his benefactress. he had already seen her occasionally in the very castle she had been born in. "what's this?" he cried. "is it you, beatrix? is it you i loved so much in my childhood years and that the too soon forgotten acknowledgement of that love by your father and mine had permitted me to hope for as a wife? what grievous twist of fate has let me see you again, chained by the links of a life which is not made for you, and cut off, without any going back, from that brilliant world that you were the principal ornament of? if you yourself chose this state of solitude and abnegation, beatrix, i swear to you, you have my word, that it was because you did not yet know your own heart. the commitment that you made in your then ignorance of those feelings that are natural to all that breathes, is null and void before god as it is before men. you have carelessly betrayed your destiny as a wife, as a lover, and as a mother! you condemned yourself, you poor, dear child, to long days of boredom, bitterness, disgust that no pleasure henceforth will be able to assuage the long sadness of! it is however so sweet to love, so sweet to be loved, so sweet to live again through what one loves in the objects that one loves! the pure joys of affection add to life twofold, threefold, fourfold. what tenderness there is in having a friend who worships you, who enhances each moment with ever new causes for pleasure, who only lives to cherish you or please you. the innocent caresses of pretty children, so fresh, gracious, happy to be alive, and that a barbarous whim would then have sent into oblivion! this is what you have lost! this is what you would have lost, beatrix, if blind obstinacy keeps you in the abyss you have plunged in! no," he continued even more exaltedly, "you will not be ignorant of the plans of your god and mine, who has only brought us back together that we may be forever reunited! you will willingly submit yourself to the vows of a love that begs to enlighten you! you will be raymond's wife as you are his sister and his beloved! do not turn away from him your eyes full of tears! do not pull back your hand that trembles in his! tell him that you are willing to follow him and never to leave him again!" beatrix did not answer. she could not put into words what she felt. she escaped from raymond's weakened arms and went away troubled, trembling and distraught to fall at the feet of the virgin, her consolation and her support. she wept as she had previously, but now it was no longer with an aimless and obscure emotion, but with a feeling stronger than piety, stronger than shame, stronger, alas, than that holy virgin whose aid she called upon in vain, and her tears, this time, were hot and bitter. many days in a row she was seen, prostrate and a supplicant, and no-one was surprised because all of them in the convent knew of her passionate devotion to our lady of the flowering thorns. she spent the rest of her time in the sick room of the wounded man whose recovery now no longer depended on assiduous nursing. one night when the church was closed, when all the nuns had gone back to their cells, when everything, including prayer, was silent, beatrix went slowly into the choir stalls, put her lamp down on the altar, opened the door of the tabernacle with a trembling hand, turned away with a shiver, lowering her eyes, as if she were afraid that the queen of the angels would strike her down with a look and threw herself on her knees. she wanted to speak and the words died on her lips or were strangled by her sobs. she drew her veil and her hands to her brow. she tried to compose herself and calm down. she made one final effort. she managed to tear from her heart a few mixed up sounds, without knowing if she was uttering a prayer or a blasphemy. "oh celestial benefactress of my youth!" she said. "you that i have so long loved alone, and who will always remain the sovereign of my soul, whatever the unworthy sharing i involve you in! mary! heavenly mary! why have you forsaken me? why have you allowed your beatrix to fall prey to the awful passions of hell? you know i have not given in without a struggle to the passion that devours me! today the die is cast, mary, and cast forever! i shall serve you no longer, for i am no longer worthy to serve you. i shall go far away to hide from you the eternal regret my sin fills me with, the eternal bereavement of my innocence which you are unable to restore to me. let me still now worship you! have mercy on the tears i shed and which at least prove how remote i have been from the cowardly betrayals of my senses! welcome the last of my tributes as you have welcomed all the others! if zeal for your altars is worth some gratitude on your part, send death to this wretch who implores you for it before she leaves you!" having spoken these words, beatrix got up, and, with fear and trembling, approached the image of the holy virgin. she adorned it with new flowers, seized those that she had just replaced, and, ashamed for the first time in her life of the pious use she made of them that she no longer had the right to, she pressed them to her heart, in a scapular that had been blessed, so as never to part with them. after that she gazed one last time at the tabernacle, cried out in terror and fled. the following night a coach whisked away at high speed from the convent the handsome wounded knight and a young nun in breach of her vows who accompanied him. the first year that succeeded this event was almost entirely given over to the exaltation of a love requited. the world itself for beatrix was a new experience of pleasures that were inexhaustible. love multiplied around her all the means of seduction able to perpetuate her error and encompass her loss. she only emerged from voluptuous dreams in order to awake amid the joy of banquets, among entertainments devised by strolling players and the concerts of minstrels. her life was one long crazy feast in which the serious voice of reflexion, stifled by an orgy's clamours, could only have struggled to make itself heard. and yet she had not quite forgotten mary. more than once, as she prepared to dress, her scapular had opened at the touch of her fingers. more than once she had let drop on the withered posy of the virgin a gaze and a tear. prayer had come more than once to her lips, like a hidden flame lurking under ash and embers, but it had been extinguished there by the kisses of her abductor, and, even in her ecstasy, a voice still told her that a prayer might have saved her! it was not long before she felt the only lasting love is that which is purified by religion, that only the love of our lord and mary gives the lie to the ups and downs of our emotions. alone among our affections, it seems to grow and get stronger with time, while other loves burn so brightly and are spent so quickly in our hearts of ash. nevertheless she loved raymond as much as she could love anyone, but a day came when she saw that raymond no longer loved her. that day made her foresee the even more atrocious day when she would be quite abandoned by the man for whom she herself had abandoned the honours of the altar, and that dreaded day also came. beatrix now found herself, alas, with no-one to turn to on earth or in heaven. she sought in vain to console herself with memories and to take refuge in hopes. the flowers in the scapular had withered like those of her happiness. the well spring of her tears and her prayer had dried up. the fate that beatrix had made for herself had been realised. the unfortunate woman accepted her damnation. the higher the fall on the path to virtue, the more ignominious it is, the more irreparable it is, and beatrix had fallen from on high. at first her opprobrium frightened her, and then she ended up by getting used to it, the spring in her soul having broken. fifteen years went by like this, and for fifteen years the guardian angel that baptism had granted to her cradle, the angel with the heart of a brother who had loved her so much, covered his eyes with his wings and wept. oh! how many treasures those fleeting years carried away with them! innocence, modesty, youth, beauty, love, those roses in life that only flower once, and, in addition, conscience that compensates for all other losses! the jewels that had formerly adorned her, the impious tributes that debauchery pays to crime, provided her, for a time, with a resource too apt to dwindle. she was left alone, abandoned, an object of contempt for others as for herself, given over to the insolent disdain of vice, and hateful to virtue, a repellent example of shame and misery that mothers showed their children to turn them away from sin! she wearied of being a burden to pity, of only getting alms that a pious repugnance often nailed to the hands of charity, of only being helped on one side by people whose brows blushed to give her a piece of bread. one day she wrapped herself in her rags, which had been when new luxurious clothes. she decided to ask for her daily bread or a bed for the night from those who had not known her! she flattered herself that she could hide her infamy behind her wretchedness. she set out, the poor beggar, possessing nothing but the flowers that she had formerly taken from the virgin's bouquet, falling now, one by one, into dust under her dried up lips! beatrix was still young, but shame and hunger had left on her brow the imprint of those hideous marks that reveal premature ageing. when her pale and mute face timidly begged help from passers-by, when her white and delicate hand opened jerkily to receive their gifts, there were none who did not feel that her life must have been very different at some stage. those who were the most indifferent to her halted before her with a harsh look that seemed to say: oh my daughter! how was it you fell from what you were? and yet her own look could no longer reply to them, for it had been a long time now since she had been able to weep. she walked on and on, on and on: her journey seemed as though it would only ever end with her death. one particular day she had been climbing since sun-up, at a bare mountain's back, a rough and rugged path, without a single house in sight to assuage her weariness. all she had eaten were some flavourless roots torn from cracks in the rocks. her shoes, worn to shreds, had just come away from her bloodied feet. she felt herself faint with fatigue and need when, night having come, she was all of a sudden struck by the appearance of a long line of lights that were indicative of a large building. towards these lights she made her way with all the strength left to her, but, at the chime of a silvery bell, the sound of which awoke in her heart a strange and vague memory, all the lights went out at once, and all that now remained around her were silence and night. she nevertheless took a few more steps with outstretched arms, and her trembling hands rested on a closed door. she leaned against it for a moment as if to catch her breath and tried to hold onto it so as not to fall. her debilitated fingers let her down. they gave way under the weight of her body. "oh holy mary!" she cried. "why did i leave you?" and the unhappy beatrix passed out on the threshold. may the wrath of heaven go easy on the guilty! nights like this expiate a whole lifetime of sin! the keen coolness of the morning had scarcely begun to bring back to life in her a blurred and painful sense of her own identity, when she perceived that she was not alone. a woman knelt at her side was raising her head carefully, and staring at her with anxious curiosity, waiting for her to come round completely. "god be praised," said the good sister at the convent gate, "for having sent to us so early in the day an act of mercy to perform and a sadness to alleviate! it's a happy omen for the glorious feast of the holy virgin that we celebrate today! but how is it, my dear child, that you did not think to pull on the bell or to use the knocker? at no time would your sisters in jesus christ not have been ready to receive you. well, there we are! don't answer me just yet, you poor lost sheep! fortify yourself with this beef broth that i warmed up in a hurry as soon as i saw you. taste this full-bodied wine that will put the heat back in your stomach and help you move your sore limbs again. let me see that you're better. drink, drink down all of it, and now, before you get up, if you don't feel strong enough to yet, put this cloak on i've thrown over your shoulders. put those little, oh so cold hands of yours in mine so that i can restore blood and life to them. can you feel already the circulation coming back into your fingers as i breathe on them? oh! you'll soon be yourself again!" beatrix, imbued with tender feeling, grasped the hands of the worthy nun, and pressed them several times to her lips. "i am myself again," she said, "and i feel well enough to go to thank god for the favour he has done me by guiding my steps to this holy house. only, so that i can include it in my prayers, can you please tell me where i am?" "and where could you be," the keeper of the gate replied, "if it is not at the convent of our lady of the flowering thorns, since there is no other monastic building in this wilderness for more than five leagues around." "our lady of the flowering thorns!" exclaimed beatrix with a cry of joy followed immediately by marks of the deepest consternation: "our lady of the flowering thorns!" she repeated, letting her head fall onto her bosom. "may the lord have mercy on me!" "what's this, my daughter?" said the charitable angel of mercy. "didn't you know? it's true that you seem to come from far away, for i have never seen a lady's clothing that looks like yours. but our lady of the flowering thorns does not limit her protection to those who live locally. you must know, if you have heard speak of her, that she is good to everyone." "i know her, and i have served her," answered beatrix, "but i come from far away, as you say, reverend mother, and you must not wonder that my eyes did not recognize at first this place of peace and blessing. and yet here is the church and the convent, and the thorn bushes where i gathered so many flowers. even now they still flower! but i was so young when i left them! it was during the time," she continued, lifting her forehead to heaven with that determined look that imparts self-denial to christian remorse, "it was during the time when sister beatrix was the custodian of the holy basilica. do you remember that time, reverend mother?" "how could i have forgotten it, my child, since sister beatrix has never stopped being the custodian of the holy basilica? she has stayed among us till today, and will remain for a long time, i hope, a subject of edification for the whole community, since, apart from the protection of the holy virgin, we know of no surer support under heaven." "i'm not talking about her," beatrix broke in, sighing bitterly, "i'm talking about another beatrix who ended up living a sinful life, and who occupied the same post sixteen years ago." "god will not punish you for those demented words," said the nun as she drew her to her breast. "the distress and the illness that have affected your mind, have troubled your memory with these sad visions. i have lived in this convent for more than sixteen years, and i have never known anyone in charge of looking after the holy basilica apart from sister beatrix. being as you are determined to perform an act of worship for our lady, while i'm making a bed up for you, go, my sister, go to the foot of the tabernacle. you will find beatrix there already, and you will recognize her easily, for divine goodness has allowed her not to lose in ageing a single one of her youthful graces. i'll come back for you presently and won't leave you then till you're completely well again." having spoken these words the keeper of the gate made her way back to the cloister. beatrix stumbled as far as the steps leading up to the church, knelt down on the approach to them and banged her head against it. then she grew a little bolder, got up, and, from pillar to pillar, went up to the grille where she once more fell upon her knees. through the cloud that had darkened her vision she had discerned the sister custodian standing in front of the tabernacle. little by little the sister drew nearer to her as she made her daily inspection of the holy place, rekindling the flame in burnt-out candles, or replacing the garlands of the day before with new garlands. beatrix could not believe her eyes. this sister was herself, not as age, vice and despair had made her, but as she must have been in the innocent days of her youth. was it an illusion produced by remorse? was it a divine punishment, a foretaste of those reserved for her by a celestial curse? racked by doubt, she hid her head in her hands, and rested it motionless against the bars of the grille, stammering from quivering lips the most tender of her prayers from time gone by. and yet the sister custodian kept on moving. already the folds of her clothes had brushed against the bars. beatrix, overcome with emotion, did not dare even to breathe. "it's you, dear beatrix," said the sister in a voice for the dulcet tones of which there is no word in any language known to man. "i don't need to see you to know who you are, for i hear your prayers now as i heard them then. i've been waiting for you for a long time, but, as i was sure you would return, i took your place the day you left me, so that no-one would know that you'd gone. you know now what they are, the pleasures and happiness whose picture so seduced you, and you will not go away again. you're here, between ourselves, for the duration and for all eternity. come back with confidence to the position that you occupied among my daughters. you will find in your cell, the way to which you have not forgotten, the habit that you left there, and you will put on with it your primordial innocence, of which it is the emblem. i owed to your love a grace that was out of the ordinary and which i have obtained for your repentance. farewell, sister custodian of mary! love mary as she has loved you!" it was indeed mary, and when beatrix, distraught, raised towards her eyes flooded with tears, when she stretched out to her her trembling arms making to her an act of thanksgiving broken by her sobs, she saw the holy virgin go up the steps of the altar, re-open the door to the tabernacle, and sit down again there in her heavenly glory under her golden halo and under her festoons of thorn flowers. beatrix did not go back down to the choir without emotion. she went back to see her companions whose faith she had betrayed, and who had aged, immune to reproach, in the practice of an austere duty. she slid among her sisters lowering her head, and ready to humble herself at the first shout to announce her fault. her heart greatly troubled, she lent an attentive ear to their voices, and she heard nothing. as none of them had noticed her departure, none of them paid any heed to her return. she threw herself at the feet of the holy virgin, who had never looked so beautiful to her, and who seemed to be smiling. in the dreams of her illusory life, she had grasped nothing that came anywhere near such happiness. the divine feast of mary (i think i have already said that this took place on the feast of the assumption) was celebrated in a mixture of of contemplation and ecstasy, the finest moments of which far excelled past celebrations of the feastday by this community of virgins, without stain or blemish like their queen. some had seen miraculous lights emanating from the tabernacle, others had heard songs of angels mixed in with their pious canticles, and had, out of respect, stopped their singing so as not to disturb the celestial harmony. it was said that there had been that day a feast in paradise as there had been in the convent of the flowering thorns, and, due to a phenomenon foreign to that season, all the thorn bushes in the area had burst into flower again so that, outside as well as inside, there were only the scents of spring. it was because a soul had come back to the bosom of the lord, shorn of all the defects and ignominious shortcomings of our human condition, and there is no feastday in heaven more agreeable to saints there. only one thing disturbed for a moment the innocent joy of this flock of virginal doves. a poor woman, sickly and ill, had been sitting in the morning on the threshold of the convent. the nun at the entrance had seen her and had partially relieved her suffering by making up for her a nice warm bed for her to rest her weary limbs in, weakened by privation, and, since then, she had looked for her in vain. this wretched creature had disappeared without a trace, but it was thought that sister beatrix might have seen her in the church where she had gone to pray. "have no fear, my sisters," said beatrix, moved to tears by this tender concern on their part. "have no fear," she went on, as she pressed the gatekeeper sister to her bosom, "i have seen that poor woman and i know what has become of her. she is well, my sisters, she is happy, happier than she deserves, and happier than any of you could have hoped for her to be." this answer allayed all their fears, but it was noted because it was the first severe word to come from beatrix's mouth. after that, the whole of beatrix's life went by like a single day, like that day in the future that is promised to the lord's elect, without boredom, without regret, without fear, without any emotions, for sensitive hearts cannot wholly do without them, other than those of piety towards god and charity towards man. she lived for a century without seeming to have aged, for only the soul's bad passions add years to the body. the life of the good is an eternal youth. beatrix died nevertheless, or rather calmly fell asleep in that ephemeral sleep of the tomb that separates time from eternity. the church honoured her memory by crowning her with a posthumous glory. it made her a saint. bzovius, who has examined this story with that solemn critical spirit that canonical writers offer so many examples of, is quite convinced that she was worthy of this honour by reason of the tender fidelity she showed to our lady, for it is, he said, purity of love that makes saints, and i would affirm, not with much authority admittedly, but in the sincerity of my mind and heart, that, as long as the school of luther and voltaire cannot offer me a more poignant story than hers, i will agree with the opinion expressed by bzovius. little blue book no. 215 edited by e. haldeman-julius the miraculous revenge bernard shaw haldeman-julius company girard, kansas printed in the united states of america the miraculous revenge [illustration: bernard shaw] the miraculous revenge i arrived in dublin on the evening of the fifth of august, and drove to the residence of my uncle, the cardinal archbishop. he is like most of my family, deficient in feeling, and consequently averse to me personally. he lives in a dingy house, with a side-long view of the portico of his cathedral from the front windows, and of a monster national school from the back. my uncle maintains no retinue. the people believe that he is waited upon by angels. when i knocked at the door, an old woman, his only servant, opened it, and informed me that her master was then officiating at the cathedral, and that he had directed her to prepare dinner for me in his absence. an unpleasant smell of salt fish made me ask her what the dinner consisted of. she assured me that she had cooked all that could be permitted in his holiness's house on friday. on my asking her further why on friday, she replied that friday was a fast day. i bade her tell his holiness that i had hoped to have the pleasure of calling on him shortly, and drove to the hotel in sackville-street, where i engaged apartments and dined. after dinner i resumed my eternal search--i know not for what: it drives me to and fro like another cain. i sought in the streets without success. i went to the theatre. the music was execrable, the scenery poor. i had seen the play a month before in london with the same beautiful artist in the chief part. two years had passed since, seeing her for the first time, i had hoped that she, perhaps, might be the long-sought mystery. it had proved otherwise. on this night i looked at her and listened to her for the sake of that bygone hope, and applauded her generously when the curtain fell. but i went out lonely still. when i had supped at a restaurant, i returned to my hotel, and tried to read. in vain. the sound of feet in the corridors as the other occupants of the hotel went to bed distracted my attention from my book. suddenly it occurred to to me that i had never quite understood my uncle's character. he, father to a great flock of poor and ignorant irish; an austere and saintly man, to whom livers of hopeless lives daily appealed for help heavenward; who was reputed never to have sent away a troubled peasant without relieving him of his burden by sharing it; whose knees were worn less by the altar steps than by the tears and embraces of the guilty and wretched: he refused to humor my light extravagances, or to find time to talk with me of books, flowers, and music. had i not been mad to expect it? now that i needed sympathy myself, i did him justice. i desired to be with a true-hearted man, and mingle my tears with his. i looked at my watch. it was nearly an hour past midnight. in the corridor the lights were out, except one jet at the end. i threw a cloak upon my shoulders, put on a spanish hat and left my apartment, listening to the echoes of my measured steps retreating through the deserted passages. a strange sight arrested me on the landing of the grand staircase. through an open door i saw the moonlight shining through the windows of a saloon in which some entertainment had recently taken place. i looked at my watch again: it was but one o'clock; and yet the guests had departed. i entered the room, my boots ringing loudly on the waxed boards. on a chair lay a child's cloak and a broken toy. the entertainment had been a children's party. i stood for a time looking at the shadow of my cloaked figure on the floor, and at the disordered decorations, ghostly in the white light. then i saw there was a grand piano still open in the middle of the room. my fingers throbbed as i sat down before it and expressed all i felt in a grand hymn which seemed to thrill the cold stillness of the shadows into a deep hum of approbation, and to people the radiance of the moon with angels. soon there was a stir without too, as if the rapture were spreading abroad. i took up the chant triumphantly with my voice, and the empty saloon resounded as though to the thunder of an orchestra. "hallo sir!" "confound you, sir--" "do you suppose that this--" "what the deuce--?" i turned; and silence followed. six men, partially dressed, with disheveled hair, stood regarding me angrily. they all carried candles. one of them had a bootjack, which he held like a truncheon. another, the foremost, had a pistol. the night porter was behind trembling. "sir," said the man with the revolver, coarsely, "may i ask whether you are mad, that you disturb people at this hour with such unearthly noise?" "is it possible that you dislike it?" i replied courteously. "dislike it!" said he, stamping with rage. "why--damn everything--do you suppose we were enjoying it?" "take care: he's mad," whispered the man with the bootjack. i began to laugh. evidently they did think me mad. unaccustomed to my habits, and ignorant of the music as they probably were, the mistake, however absurd, was not unnatural. i rose. they came closer to one another; and the night porter ran away. "gentlemen," i said, "i am sorry for you. had you lain still and listened, we should all have been the better and happier. but what you have done, you cannot undo. kindly inform the night porter that i am gone to visit my uncle, the cardinal archbishop. adieu!" i strode past them, and left them whispering among themselves. some minutes later i knocked at the door of the cardinal's house. presently a window opened and the moonbeams fell on a grey head, with a black cap that seemed ashy pale against the unfathomable gloom of the shadow beneath the stone sill. "who are you?" "i am zeno legge." "what do you want at this hour?" the question wounded me. "my dear uncle," i exclaimed, "i know you do not intend it, but you make me feel unwelcome. come down and let me in, i beg." "go to your hotel," he said sternly. "i will see you in the morning. goodnight." he disappeared and closed the window. i felt that if i let this rebuff pass, i should not feel kindly towards my uncle in the morning, nor indeed at any future time. i therefore plied the knocker with my right hand, and kept the bell ringing with my left until i heard the door chain rattle within. the cardinal's expression was grave nearly to moroseness as he confronted me on the threshold. "uncle," i cried, grasping his hand, "do not reproach me. your door is never shut against the wretched. let us sit up all night and talk." "you may thank my position and my charity for your admission, zeno," he said. "for the sake of the neighbors, i had rather you played the fool in my study than upon my doorstep at this hour. walk upstairs quietly if you please. my housekeeper is a hard-working woman: the little sleep she allows herself must not be disturbed." "you have a noble heart, uncle. i shall creep like a mouse." "this is my study," he said as we entered an ill-furnished den on the second floor. "the only refreshment i can offer you, if you desire any, is a bunch of raisins. the doctors have forbidden you to touch stimulants, i believe." "by heaven----!" he raised his finger. "pardon me: i was wrong to swear. but i had totally forgotten the doctors. at dinner i had a bottle of grave." "humph! you have no business to be traveling alone. your mother promised that bushy should come over here with you." "pshaw! bushy is not a man of feeling. besides, he is a coward. he refused to come with me because i purchased a revolver." "he should have taken the revolver from you, and kept to his post." "why will you persist in treating me like a child, uncle? i am very impressionable, i grant you; but i have gone around the world alone, and do not need to be dry-nursed through a tour in ireland." "what do you intend to do during your stay here?" i had no plans and instead of answering i shrugged my shoulders and looked round the apartment. there was a statue of the virgin upon my uncle's desk. i looked at its face, as he was wont to look in the midst of his labor. i saw there eternal peace. the air became luminous with an infinite net-work of the jeweled rings of paradise descending in roseate clouds upon us. "uncle," i said, bursting into the sweetest tears i had ever shed, "my wanderings are over. i will enter the church, if you will help me. let us read together the third part of faust; for i understand it at last." "hush, man," he said, half rising with an expression of alarm. "control yourself." "do not let tears mislead you. i am calm and strong. quick, let us have goethe: das unbeschreibliche, hier ist gethan; das ewig-weibliche, zieht uns hinan." "come, come. dry your eyes and be quiet. i have no library here." "but i have--in my portmanteau at the hotel," i said, rising. "let me go for it. i will return in fifteen minutes." "the devil is in you, i believe. cannot----" i interrupted him with a shout of laughter. "cardinal," i said noisily, "you have become profane; and a profane priest is always the best of good fellows. let us have some wine; and i will sing you a german beer song." "heaven forgive me if i do you wrong," he said; "but i believe god has laid the expiation of some sin on your unhappy head. will you favor me with your attention for awhile? i have something to say to you, and i have also to get some sleep before my hour of rising, which is half-past five." "my usual hour for retiring--when i retire at all. but proceed. my fault is not inattention, but over-susceptibility." "well, then, i want you to go to wicklow. my reasons----" "no matter what they may be," said i, rising again. "it is enough that you desire me to go. i shall start forthwith." "zeno! will you sit down and listen to me?" i sank upon my chair reluctantly. "ardor is a crime in your eyes, even when it is shewn in your service," i said. "may i turn down the light?" "why?" "to bring on my sombre mood, in which i am able to listen with tireless patience." "i will turn it down myself. will that do?" i thanked him and composed myself to listen in the shadow. my eyes, i felt, glittered. i was like poe's raven. "now for my reasons for sending you to wicklow. first, for your own sake. if you stay in town, or in any place where excitement can be obtained by any means, you will be in swift's hospital in a week. you must live in the country, under the eye of one upon whom i can depend. and you must have something to do to keep you out of mischief and away from your music and painting and poetry, which, sir john richard writes to me, are dangerous for you in your present morbid state. second, because i can entrust you with a task which, in the hands of a sensible man might bring discredit on the church. in short, i want you to investigate a miracle." he looked attentively at me. i sat like a statue. "you understand me?" he said. "nevermore," i replied, hoarsely. "pardon me," i added, amused at the trick my imagination had played me, "i understand you perfectly. proceed." "i hope you do. well, four miles distant from the town of wicklow is a village called four mile water. the resident priest is father hickey. you have heard of the miracles at knock?" i winked. "i did not ask you what you think of them but whether you have heard of them. i see you have. i need not tell you that even a miracle may do more harm than good to the church in this country, unless it can be proved so thoroughly that her powerful and jealous enemies are silenced by the testimony of followers of their heresy. therefore, when i saw in a wexford newspaper last week a description of a strange manifestation of the divine power which was said to have taken place at four mile water, i was troubled in my mind about it. so i wrote to father hickey, bidding him give me an account of the matter if it were true, and, if it were not, to denounce from the altar the author of the report, and contradict it in the paper at once. this is his reply. he says, well, the first part is about church matters: i need not trouble you with it. he goes on to say----" "one moment. is this his own hand-writing? it does not look like a man's." "he suffers from rheumatism in the fingers of his right hand; and his niece, who is an orphan, and lives with him, acts as his amanuensis. well----" "stay. what is her name?" "her name? kate hickey." "how old is she?" "tush, man, she is only a little girl. if she were old enough to concern you, i should not send you into her way. have you any more questions to ask about her?" "i fancy her in a white veil at the rite of confirmation, a type of innocence. enough of her. what says reverend hickey of the apparitions?" "they are not apparitions. i will read you what he says. ahem! 'in reply to your inquiries concerning the late miraculous event in this parish, i have to inform you that i can vouch for its truth, and that i can be confirmed not only by the inhabitants of the place, who are all catholics, but by every persons acquainted with the former situation of the graveyard referred to, including the protestant archdeacon of baltinglas, who spends six weeks annually in the neighborhood. the newspaper account is incomplete and inaccurate. the following are the facts: about four years ago, a man named wolfe tone fitzgerald settled in this village as a farrier. his antecedents did not transpire, and he had no family. he lived by himself; was very careless of his person; and when in his cups as he often was, regarded the honor neither of god nor man in his conversation. indeed if it were not speaking ill of the dead, one might say that he was a dirty, drunken, blasphemous blackguard. worse again, he was, i fear, an atheist; for he never attended mass, and gave his holiness worse language even than he gave the queen. i should have mentioned that he was a bitter rebel, and boasted that his grandfather had been out in '98, and his father with smith o'brien. at last he went by the name of brimstone billy, and was held up in the village as the type of all wickedness. "'you are aware that our graveyard, situate on the north side of the water, is famous throughout the country as the burial-place of the nuns of st. ursula, the hermit of four mile water, and many other holy people. no protestant has ever ventured to enforce his legal right of interment there, though two have died in the parish within my own recollection. three weeks ago, this fitzgerald died in a fit brought on by drink; and a great hullabaloo was raised in the village when it became known that he would be buried in the graveyard. the body had to be watched to prevent its being stolen and buried at the crossroads. my people were greatly disappointed when they were told i could do nothing to stop the burial, particularly as i of course refused to read any service on the occasion. however, i bade them not interfere; and the interment was effected on the 14th of july, late in the evening, and long after the legal hour. there was no disturbance. next morning, the graveyard was found moved to the south side of the water, with the one newly-filled grave left behind on the north side; and thus they both remain. the departed saints would not lie with the reprobate. i can testify to it on the oath of a christian priest; and if this will not satisfy those outside the church, everyone, as i said before, who remembers where the graveyard was two months ago, can confirm me. "'i respectfully suggest that a thorough investigation into the truth of this miracle be proposed to a committee of protestant gentlemen. they shall not be asked to accept a single fact on hearsay from my people. the ordnance maps shew where the graveyard was; and anyone can see for himself where it is. i need not tell your eminence what a rebuke this would be to those enemies of the holy church that have sought to put a stain on her by discrediting the late wonderful manifestations at knock chapel. if they come to four mile water, they need cross-examine no one. they will be asked to believe nothing but their own senses. "'awaiting your eminence's counsel to guide me further in the matter, "'i am, etc.' "well, zeno," said my uncle: "what do you think of father hickey now?" "uncle: do not ask me. beneath this roof i desire to believe everything. the reverend hickey has appealed strongly to my love of legend. let us admire the poetry of his narrative and ignore the balance of probability between a christian priest telling a lie on his own oath and a graveyard swimming across a river in the middle of the night and forgetting to return." "tom hickey is not telling a lie, you may take my word on that. but he may be mistaken." "such a mistake amounts to insanity. it is true that i myself, awakening suddenly in the depth of night have found myself convinced that the position of my bed had been reversed. but on opening my eyes the illusion ceased. i fear mr. hickey is mad. your best course is this. send down to four mile water a perfectly sane investigator; an acute observer; one whose perceptive faculties, at once healthy and subtle, are absolutely unclouded by religious prejudice. in a word, send me. i will report to you the true state of affairs in a few days; and you can then make arrangements for transferring hickey from the altar to the asylum." "yes i had intended to send you. you are wonderfully sharp; and you would make a capital detective if you could only keep your mind to one point. but your chief qualifications for this business is that you are too crazy to excite the suspicion of those whom you have to watch. for the affair may be a trick. if so, i hope and believe that hickey has no hand in it. still, it is my duty to take every precaution." "cardinal: may i ask whether traces of insanity have ever appeared in our family?" "except in you and in my grandmother, no. she was a pole; and you resemble her personally. why do you ask?" "because it has often occurred to me that you are perhaps a little cracked. excuse my candor; but a man who has devoted his life to the pursuit of a red hat; who accuses everyone else beside himself of being mad; and is disposed to listen seriously to a tale of a peripatetic graveyard, can hardly be quite sane. depend upon it, uncle, you want rest and change. the blood of your polish grandmother is in your veins." "i hope i may not be committing a sin in sending a ribald on the church's affairs," he replied, fervently. "however, we must use the instruments put into our hands. is it agreed that you go?" "had you not delayed me with the story, which i might as well have learned on the spot, i should have been there already." "there is no occasion for impatience, zeno. i must send to hickey and find a place for you. i shall tell him you are going to recover your health, as, in fact, you are. and, zeno, in heaven's name be discreet. try to act like a man of sense. do not dispute with hickey on matters of religion. since you are my nephew, you had better not disgrace me." "i shall become an ardent catholic, and do you infinite credit, uncle." "i wish you would, although you would hardly be an acquisition to the church. and now i must turn you out. it is nearly three o'clock; and i need some sleep. do you know your way back to your hotel?" "i need not stir. i can sleep in this chair. go to bed, and never mind me." "i shall not close my eyes until you are safely out of the house. come, rouse yourself and say good-night." * * * * * the following is a copy of my first report to the cardinal:- "four mile water, county wicklow, 10th august. "my dear uncle, "the miracle is genuine. i have affected perfect credulity in order to throw the hickeys and countryfolk off their guard with me. i have listened to their method of convincing the sceptical strangers. i have examined the ordnance maps, and cross-examined the neighboring protestant gentlefolk. i have spent a day upon the ground on each side of the water, and have visited it at midnight. i have considered the upheaval theories, subsidence theories, volcanic theories, and tidal wave theories which the provincial savants have suggested. they are all untenable. there is only one scoffer in the district, an orangeman; and he admits the removal of the cemetery, but says it was dug up and transplanted in the night by a body of men under the command of father tom. this is also out of the question. the interment of brimstone billy was the first which had taken place for four years; and his is the only grave which bears the trace of recent digging. it is alone on the north bank; and the inhabitants shun it after night fall. as each passer-by during the day throws a stone upon it, it will soon be marked by a large cairn. the graveyard, with a ruined stone chapel still standing in its midst, is on the south side. you may send down a committee to investigate the matter as soon as you please. there can be no doubt as to the miracle having actually taken place, as recorded by hickey. as for me, i have grown so accustomed to it that if the county wicklow were to waltz off with me to middlesex, i should be quite impatient of any expression of surprise from my friends in london. "is not the above a businesslike statement? away, then, with this stale miracle. if you would see for yourself a miracle which can never pall, a vision of youth and health to be crowned with garlands for ever, come down and see kate hickey, whom you suppose to be a little girl. illusion, my lord cardinal, illusion! she is seventeen, with a bloom and a brogue that would lay your asceticism in ashes at a flash. to her i am an object of wonder, a strange man bred in wicked cities. she is courted by six feet of farming material, chopped off a spare length of coarse humanity by the almighty, and flung into wicklow to plough the fields. his name is phil langan; and he hates me. i have to consort with him for the sake of father tom, whom i entertain vastly by stories of your wild oats sown at salamanca. i exhausted my authentic anecdotes the first day; and now i invent gallant escapades with spanish donnas, in which you figure as a youth of unstable morals. this delights father tom infinitely. i feel that i have done you a service by thus casting on the cold sacerdotal abstraction which formerly represented you in kate's imagination a ray of vivifying passion. "what a country this is! a hesperidean garden: such skies! adieu, uncle. "zeno legge." * * * * * behold me, at four mile water, in love. i had been in love frequently; but not oftener than once a year had i encountered a woman who affected me so seriously as kate hickey. she was so shrewd, and yet so flippant! when i spoke of art she yawned. when i deplored the sordidness of the world she laughed, and called me "poor fellow!" when i told her what a treasure of beauty and freshness she had she ridiculed me. when i reproached her with her brutality she became angry, and sneered at me for being what she called a fine gentleman. one sunny afternoon we were standing at the gate of her uncle's house, she looking down the dusty road for the detestable langan, i watching the spotless azure sky, when she said: "how soon are you going back to london?" "i am not going back to london. miss hickey. i am not yet tired of four mile water." "i am sure that four mile water ought to be proud of your approbation." "you disapprove of my liking it, then? or is it that you grudge me the happiness i have found here? i think irish ladies grudge a man a moment's peace." "i wonder you have ever prevailed on yourself to associate with irish ladies, since they are so far beneath you." "did i say they were beneath me, miss hickey? i feel that i have made a deep impression on you." "indeed! yes, you're quite right. i assure you i can't sleep at night for thinking of you, mr. legge. it's the best a christian can do, seeing you think so mightly little of yourself." "you are triply wrong, miss hickey: wrong to be sarcastic with me, wrong to discourage the candor with which you think of me sometimes, and wrong to discourage the candor with which i always avow that i think constantly of myself." "then you had better not speak to me, since i have no manners." "again! did i say you had no manners? the warmest expressions of regard from my mouth seem to reach your ears transformed into insults. were i to repeat the litany of the blessed virgin, you would retort as though i had been reproaching you. this is because you hate me. you never misunderstand langan, whom you love." "i don't know what london manners are, mr. legge; but in ireland gentlemen are expected to mind their own business. how dare you say i love mr. langan?" "then you do not love him?" "it is nothing to you whether i love him or not." "nothing to me that you hate me and love another?" "i didn't say i hated you. you're not so very clever yourself at understanding what people say, though you make such a fuss because they don't understand you." here, as she glanced down the road she suddenly looked glad. "aha!" i said. "what do you mean by 'aha!'" "no matter. i will now show you what a man's sympathy is. as you perceived just then, langan--who is too tall for his age, by-the-by--is coming to pay you a visit. well, instead of staying with you, as a jealous woman would, i will withdraw." "i don't care whether you go or stay, i'm sure. i wonder what you would give to be as fine a man as mr. langan?" "all i possess: i swear it! but solely because you admire tall men more than broad views. mr. langan may be defined geometrically as length without breadth; altitude without position; a line on the landscape, not a point in it." "how very clever you are!" "you don't understand me, i see. here comes your lover, stepping over the wall like a camel. and here go i out through the gate like a christian. good afternoon, mr. langan. i am going because miss hickey has something to say to you about me which she would rather not say in my presence. you will excuse me?" "oh, i'll excuse you," he said boorishly. i smiled, and went out. before i was out of hearing, kate whispered vehemently to him, "i hate that fellow." i smiled again; but i had scarcely done so when my spirits fell. i walked hastily away with a coarse threatening sound in my ears like that of the clarionets whose sustained low notes darken the woodland in "der frieschutz." i found myself presently at the graveyard. it was a barren place, enclosed by a mud wall with a gate to admit funerals, and numerous gaps to admit peasantry, who made short cuts across it as they went to and fro between four mile water and the market town. the graves were mounds overgrown with grass: there was no keeper; nor were there flowers, railings, or any other conventionalities that make an english graveyard repulsive. a great thornbush, near what was called the grave of the holy sisters, was covered with scraps of cloth and flannel, attached by peasant women who had prayed before it. there were three kneeling there as i enterd; for the reputation of the place had been revived of late by the miracle; and a ferry had been established close by, to conduct visitors over the route taken by the graveyard. from where i stood i could see on the opposite bank the heap of stones, perceptibly increased since my last visit, marking the deserted grave of brimstone billy. i strained my eyes broodingly at it for some minutes, and then descended the river bank and entered the boat. "good evenin t'your honor," said the ferryman, and set to work to draw the boat over hand by a rope stretched across the water. "good evening. is your business beginning to fall off yet?" "faith, it never was as good as it might a been. the people that comes from the south side can see billy's grave--lord have mercy on him!--across the wather; and they think bad of payin a penny to put a stone over him. it's them that lives towrst dublin that makes the journey. your honor is the third i've brought from the south to north this blessed day." "when do most people come? in the afternoon, i suppose?" "all hours, sur, except afther dusk. there isn't a sowl in the counthry ud come within sight of the grave wanst the sun goes down." "and you! do you stay here all night by yourself?" "the holy heavens forbid! is it me stay here all night? no, your honor: i tether the boat at siven o'hlyock, and lave brimstone billy--god forgimme!--to take care of it t'll mornin." "it will be stolen some night, i'm afraid." "arra, who'd dar come next or near it, let alone stale it? faith, i'd think twice before lookin at it meself in the dark. god bless your honor, an gran'che long life." i had given him sixpence. i went on to the reprobate's grave and stood at the foot of it, looking at the sky, gorgeous with the descent of the sun. to my english eyes, accustomed to giant trees, broad lawns, and stately mansions, the landscape was wild and inhospitable. the ferryman was already tugging at the rope on his way back (i had told him that i did not intend to return that way), and presently i saw him make the painter fast to the south bank; put on his coat; and trudge homeward. i turned to the grave at my feet. those who had interred brimstone billy, working hastily at an unlawful hour and in fear of molestation by the people, had hardly dug a grave. they had scooped out earth enough to hide their burden, and no more. a stray goat had kicked away the corner of the mound and exposed the coffin. it occurred to me, as i took some of the stones from the cairn, and heaped them to repair the breach, that had the miracle been the work of a body of men, they would have moved the one grave instead of the many. even from a supernatural point of view, it seemed strange that the sinner should have banished the elect, when, by their superior numbers, they might so much more easily have banished him. it was almost dark when i left the spot. after a walk of half a mile i recrossed the water by a bridge and returned to the farm house in which i lodged. here, finding that i had enough of solitude, i only stayed to take a cup of tea. then i went to father hickey's cottage. kate was alone when i entered. she looked up quickly as i opened the door, and turned away disappointed when she recognized me. "be generous for once," i said. "i have walked about aimlessly for hours in order to avoid spoiling the beautiful afternoon for you by my presence. when the sun was up i withdrew my shadow from your path. now that darkness has fallen, shed some light on mine. may i stay half an hour?" "you may stay as long as you like, of course. my uncle will soon be home. he is clever enough to talk to you." "what! more sarcasm! come, miss hickey, help me to spend a pleasant evening. it will only cost you a smile. i am somewhat cast down. four mile water is a paradise; but without you it would be lonely." "it must be very lonely for you. i wonder why you came here." "because i heard that the women here were all zerlinas, like you, and the men masettos, like mr. phil--where are you going to?" "let me pass, mr. legge, i had intended never speaking to you again after the way you went on about mr. langan today; and i wouldn't either, only my uncle made me promise not to take any notice of you, because you were--no matter; but i won't listen to you any more on the subject." "don't go. i swear never to mention his name again. i beg your pardon for what i said: you shall have no further cause for complaint. will you forgive me?" she sat down evidently disappointed by my submission. i took a chair, and placed myself near her. she tapped the floor impatiently with her foot. i saw that there was not a movement that i could make, not a look, not a tone of voice, which did not irritate her. "you were remarking," i said, "that your uncle desired you take no notice of me because----" she closed her lips and did not answer. "i fear that i have offended you again by my curiosity. but indeed, i had no idea that he had forbidden you to tell me the reason." "he did not forbid me. since you are so determined to find out----" "no; excuse me. i do not wish to know, i am sorry i asked." "indeed! perhaps you would be sorrier if you were told i only made a secret of it out of consideration for you." "then your uncle has spoken ill of me behind my back. if that be so there is no such thing as a true man in ireland, i would not have believed it on the word of any woman alive save yourself." "i never said my uncle was a backbiter. just to shew you what he thinks of you, i will tell you, whether you want to know or not, that he bid me not mind you because you were only a poor mad creature, sent down here by your family to be out of harm's way." "oh, miss hickey!" "there now! you have got it out of me; and i wish i had bit my tongue out first. i sometimes think--that i mayn't sin!--that you have a bad angel in you." "i am glad you told me this," i said gently. "do not reproach yourself for having done so, i beg. your uncle has been misled by what he has heard of my family, who are all more or less insane. far from being mad, i am actually the only rational man named legge in the three kingdoms. i will prove this to you, and at the same time keep your indiscretion in countenance, by telling you something i ought not to tell you. it is this. i am not here as an invalid or a chance tourist. i am here to investigate the miracle. the cardinal, a shrewd and somewhat erratic man, selected mine from all the long heads at his disposal to come down here, and find out the truth of father hickey's story. would he have entrusted such a task to a madman, think you?" "the truth of--who dared to doubt my uncle's word? and so you are a spy, a dirty informer." i started. the adjective she had used, though probably the commonest expression of contempt in ireland, is revolting to an englishman. "miss hickey," i said: "there is in me, as you have said, a bad angel. do not shock my good angel--who is a person of taste--quite away from my heart, lest the other be left undisputed monarch of it. hark! the chapel bell is ringing the angelus. can you, with that sound softening the darkness of the village night, cherish a feeling of spite against one who admires you?" "you come between me and my prayers" she said hysterically, and began to sob. she had scarcely done so when i heard voices without. then langan and the priest entered. "oh, phil," she cried, running to him, "take me away from him: i cant bear----" i turned towards him, and shewed him my dog-tooth in a false smile. he felled me at one stroke, as he might have felled a poplar-tree. "murdher!" exclaimed the priest. "what are you doin, phil?" "he's an informer," sobbed kate. "he came down here to spy on you, uncle, and to try and show that the blessed miracle was a makeshift. i knew it long before he told me, by his insulting ways. he wanted to make love to me." i rose with difficulty from beneath the table where i had lain motionless for a moment. "sir," i said, "i am somewhat dazed by the recent action of mr. langan, whom i beg, the next time he converts himself into a fulling-mill, to do so at the expense of a man more nearly his equal in strength than i. what your niece has told you is partly true. i am indeed the cardinal's spy; and i have already reported to him that the miracle is a genuine one. a committee of gentlemen will wait on you tomorrow to verify it, at my suggestion. i have thought that the proof might be regarded by them as more complete if you were taken by surprise. miss hickey: that i admire all that is admirable in you is but to say that i have a sense of the beautiful. to say that i love you would be mere profanity. mr. langan: i have in my pocket a loaded pistol which i carry from a silly english prejudice against your countrymen. had i been the hercules of the ploughtail, and you in my place, i should have been a dead man now. do not redden: you are safe as far as i am concerned." "let me tell you before you leave my house for good," said father hickey, who seemed to have become unreasonably angry, "that you should never have crossed my threshold if i had known you were a spy: no, not if your uncle were his holiness the pope himself." here a frightful thing happened to me. i felt giddy, and put my hand on my head. three warm drops trickled over it. i instantly became murderous. my mouth filled with blood; my eyes were blinded with it. my hand went involuntarily to the pistol. it is my habit to obey my impulses instantaneously. fortunately the impulse to kill vanished before a sudden perception of how i might miraculously humble the mad vanity in which these foolish people had turned upon me. the blood receded from my ears; and i again heard and saw distinctly. "and let me tell you," langan was saying, "that if you think yourself handier with cold lead than you are with your fists, i'll exchange shots with you, and welcome, whenever you please. father tom's credit is the same to me as my own; and if you say a word against it, you lie." "his credit is in my hands," i said, "i am the cardinal's witness. do you defy me?" "there is the door," said the priest, holding it open before me. "until you can undo the visible work of god's hand your testimony can do no harm to me." "father hickey," i replied, "before the sun rises again upon four mile water, i will undo the visible work of god's hand, and bring the pointing finger of the scoffer upon your altar." i bowed to kate, and walked out. it was so dark that i could not at first see the garden gate. before i found it, i heard through the window father hickey's voice, saying, "i wouldn't for ten pounds that this had happened, phil. he's as mad as a march hare. the cardinal told me so." i returned to my lodging, and took a cold bath to cleanse the blood from my neck and shoulder. the effect of the blow i had received was so severe, that even after the bath and a light meal i felt giddy and languid. there was an alarum-clock on the mantle piece: i wound it; set the alarum for half-past twelve; muffled it so that it should not disturb the people in the adjoining room; and went to bed, where i slept soundly for an hour and a quarter. then the alarum roused me, and i sprang up before i was thoroughly awake. had i hesitated, the desire to relapse into perfect sleep would have overpowered me. although the muscles of my neck were painfully stiff, and my hands unsteady from my nervous disturbance, produced by the interruption of my first slumber, i dressed myself resolutely, and, after taking a draught of cold water, stole out of the house. it was exceedingly dark; and i had some difficulty in finding the cow-house, whence i borrowed a spade, and a truck with wheels, ordinarily used for moving sacks of potatoes. these i carried in my hands until i was beyond earshot of the house, when i put the spade on the truck, and wheeled it along the road to the cemetery. when i approached the water, knowing that no one would dare come thereabout at such an hour i made greater haste, no longer concerning myself about the rattling of the wheels. looking across to the opposite bank, i could see a phosophorescent glow, marking the lonely grave of brimstone billy. this helped me to find the ferry station, where, after wandering a little and stumbling often, i found the boat, and embarked with my implements. guided by the rope, i crossed the water without difficulty; landed; made fast the boat; dragged the truck up the bank; and sat down to rest on the cairn at the grave. for nearly a quarter of an hour i sat watching the patches of jack-o-lantern fire, and collecting my strength for the work before me. then the distant bell of the chapel clock tolled one. i arose; took the spade; and in about ten minutes uncovered the coffin, which smelt horribly. keeping to windward of it, and using the spade as a lever, i contrived with great labor to place it on the truck. i wheeled it without accident to the landing place, where, by placing the shafts of the truck upon the stern of the boat and lifting the foot by main strength, i succeeded in embarking my load after twenty minutes' toil, during which i got covered with clay and perspiration, and several times all but upset the boat. at the southern bank i had less difficulty in getting the coffin ashore, dragging it up to the graveyard. it was now past two o'clock, and the dawn had begun; so that i had no further trouble for want of light. i wheeled the coffin to a patch of loamy soil which i had noticed in the afternoon near the grave of the holy sisters. i had warmed to my work; my neck no longer pained me; and i began to dig vigorously, soon making a shallow trench, deep enough to hide the coffin with the addition of a mound. the chill pearl-coloured morning had by this time quite dissipated the darkness. i could see, and was myself visible, for miles around. this alarmed, and made me impatient to finish my task. nevertheless, i was forced to rest for a moment before placing the coffin in the trench. i wiped my brow and wrists, and again looked about me. the tomb of the holy women, a massive slab supported on four stone spheres, was grey and wet with dew. near it was the thornbush covered with rags, the newest of which were growing gaudy in the radiance which was stretching up from the coast on the east. it was time to finish my work. i seized the truck; laid it alongside the grave; and gradually pried the coffin off with the spade until it rolled over into the trench with a hollow sound like a drunken remonstrance from the sleeper within. i shovelled the earth round and over it, working as fast as possible. in less than a quarter of an hour it was buried. ten minutes more sufficed to make the mound symmetrical, and to clear the adjacent ward. then i flung down the spade; threw up my arms; and vented a sigh of relief and triumph. but i recoiled as i saw that i was standing on a barren common, covered with furze. no product of man's handiwork was near me except my truck and spade and the grave of brimstone billy, now as lonely as before. i turned towards the water. on the opposite bank was the cemetery, with the tomb of the holy women, the thornbush with its rags stirring in the morning breeze, and the broken mud wall. the ruined chapel was there, too, not a stone shaken from its crumbling walls, not a sign to shew that it and its precinct were less rooted in their place than the eternal hills around. i looked down at the grave with a pang of compassion for the unfortunate wolf tone fitzgerald, with whom the blessed would not rest. i was even astonished, though i had worked expressly to this end. but the birds were astir, and the cocks crowing. my landlord was an early riser. i put the spade on the truck again, and hastened back to the farm, where i replaced them in the cow-house. then i stole into the house, and took a clean pair of boots, an overcoat, and a silk hat. these with a change of linen, were sufficient to make my appearance respectable. i went out again, bathed in four mile water, took a last look at the cemetery, and walked to wicklow, whence i traveled by the first train to dublin. * * * * * some months later, at cairo, i received a packet of irish newspapers, and a leading article, cut from the times, on the subject of the miracle. father hickey had suffered the meed of his inhospitable conduct. the committee, arriving at four mile water the day after i left, had found the graveyard exactly where it formerly stood. father hickey, taken by surprise, had attempted to defend himself by a confused statement, which led the committee to declare finally that the miracle was a gross imposture. the times, commenting on this after adducing a number of examples of priestly craft, remarked, "we are glad to learn that the rev. mr. hickey has been permanently relieved of his duties as the parish priest of four mile water by his ecclesiastical superior. it is less gratifying to have to record that it has been found possible to obtain two hundred signatures to a memorial embodying the absurd defence offered to the committee, and expressing unabated confidence in the integrity of mr. hickey." london, 1885. * * * * * transcriber's notes: pg. 8: statute changed to statue (there was a statue of the virgin) pg. 10: dangenerous changed to dangerous (are dangerous for you in your present morbid state.) all other questionable or quaint spellings have been kept as in the original book. miracles and supernatural religion by james morris whiton, ph.d. (yale) _portentum non fit contra naturam, sed contra quam est nota natura_ --augustine new york the macmillan company london: macmillan & co., ltd. 1903 _all rights reserved_ copyright, 1903, by the macmillan company. set up, electrotyped, and published may, 1903. norwood press j. s. cushing & co.--berwick & smith co. norwood, mass., u.s.a. transcriber's note: minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. variant spellings have been retained. {=e} represents e with upper macron. to m. b. w. prefatory note while the present subject of discussion tempts to many an excursion into particulars, its treatment is restricted to general outlines, with an aim simply to clarify current ideas of miracle and the supernatural, so as to find firm holding ground for tenable positions in the present "drift period" of theology. the chief exception made to this general treatment is the discussion given to a class of miracles regarded with as much incredulity as any, yet as capable as any of being accredited as probably historical events--the raisings of the "dead." the insistence of some writers on the virgin birth and corporeal resurrection of jesus as essential to christianity has required brief discussion of these also, mainly with reference to the reasonableness of that demand. as to the latter miracle, it must be observed that in the biblical narratives taken as a whole, whichever of their discordant features one be disposed to emphasize, the psychical element clearly preponderates over the physical and material. j. m. w. new york, april 11, 1903. contents page introductory 13 the argument i the gradual narrowing of the miraculous element in the bible by recent discovery and discussion.--the alarm thereby excited in the church.--the fallacy which generates the fear.--the atheistic conception of nature which generates the fallacy.--the present outgrowing of this conception. 25 ii the present net results of the discussion of the miraculous element in the bible.--evaporation of the former evidential value of miracles.--further insistence on this value a logical blunder.--the transfer of miracles from the artillery to the baggage of the church.--probability of a further reduction of the list of miracles.--also of a further transfer of events reputed miraculous to the domain of history. 37 iii arbitrary criticism of the biblical narratives of the raising of the "dead."--facts which it ignores.--the subject related to the phenomena of trance, and records of premature burial.--the resuscitation in elisha's tomb probably historical.--jesus' raising of the ruler's daughter plainly such a case.--his raising of the widow's son probably such.--the hypothesis that his raising of lazarus may also have been such critically examined.--the record allows this supposition.--further considerations favoring it: 1. the supposition threatens no real interest of christianity.--2. enhances the character of the act as a work of mercy.--3. is independent of the belief of the witnesses of the act.--4. is coherent with the general conception of the healing works of jesus as wrought by a peculiar psychical power.--other cases.--the resurrection of jesus an event in a wholly different order of things.--the practical result of regarding these resuscitations as in the order of nature. 47 iv a clearer conception of miracle approached.--works of jesus once reputed miraculous not so reputed now, since not now transcending as once the existing range of knowledge and power.--this transfer of the miraculous to the natural likely to continue.--no hard and fast line between the miraculous and the non-miraculous.--miracle a provisional word, its application narrowing in the enlarging mastery of the secrets of nature and of life. 75 v biblical miracles the effluence of extraordinary lives.--life the world's magician and miracle-worker; its miracles now termed _prodigies_.--miracle the natural product of an extraordinary endowment of life.--life the ultimate reality.--what any man can achieve is conditioned by the psychical quality of his life.--nothing more natural, more supernatural, than life.--the derived life of the world filial to the self-existent life of god; "begotten, not made."--miracle as the product of life, the work of god. 85 vi the question, old and new, now confronting theologians.--their recent retreat upon the minimum of miracle.--the present conflict of opinion in the church.--its turning-point reached in the antipodal turn-about in the treatment of miracles from the old to the new apologetics.--revision of the traditional idea of the supernatural required for theological readjustment. 95 vii account to be made of the law of atrophy through disuse.--the virgin birth and the corporeal resurrection of jesus, the two miracles still insisted on as the irreducible minimum, affected by this law.--the vital truths of the incarnation and immortality independent of these miracles.--these truths now placed on higher ground in a truer conception of the supernatural.--the true supernatural is the spiritual, not the miraculous.--scepticism bred from the contrary view.--the miracle-narratives, while less evidential for religion, not unimportant for history.--psychical research a needed auxiliary for the scientific critic of these. 107 viii the cardinal point in the present discussion the reality not of miracles, but of the supernatural.--fallacy of pointing to physical events as essential characteristics of supernatural revelation.--the character of a revelation determined not by its circumstances, but by its contents.--moral nature supernatural to physical.--nature a hierarchy of natures.--supernatural religion historically attested by the moral development it generates.--transfer of its distinctive note from moral ideals to physical marvels a costly error.--jesus' miracles _a_ revelation, of a type common with others before and after.--the unique revelation of jesus was in the higher realm of divine ideas and ideals.--these, while unrealized in human life, still exhibit the fact of a supernatural revelation.--the distinction of natural and supernatural belongs to the period of moral progress up to the spiritual maturity of man in the image of god.--the divine possibilities of humanity, imaged in jesus, revealed as our inheritance and our prize. 131 introductory in a historical retrospect greater and more revolutionary changes are seen to have occurred during the nineteenth century than in any century preceding. in these changes no department of thought and activity has failed to share, and theological thought has been quite as much affected as scientific or ethical. especially remarkable is the changed front of christian theologians toward miracles, their distinctly lowered estimate of the significance of miracle, their antipodal reverse of the long established treatment of miracles. referring to this a british evangelical writer[1] observes that "the intelligent believer of our own day, ... instead of accepting christianity on the ground of the miracles, accepts it in spite of the miracles. whether he admits these miracles, or rejects them, his attitude toward them is toward difficulties, not helps." by this diametrical change of christian thought a great amount of scepticism has already been antiquated. a once famous anti-christian book, _supernatural religion_, regarded as formidable thirty years ago, is now as much out of date for relevancy to present theological conditions as is the old smooth-bore cannon for naval warfare. that many, indeed, are still unaware of the change that has been experienced by the leaders of christian thought, no one acquainted with current discussions will deny; the fact is indubitable. it is reviewed in the following pages with the constructive purpose of redeeming the idea of supernatural religion from pernicious perversion, and of exhibiting it in its true spiritual significance. the once highly reputed calculations made to show how the earth's diurnal revolution could be imperceptibly stopped for joshua's convenience, and the contention that the mediterranean produced fish with gullets capable of giving passage to jonah, are now as dead as the chemical controversy about phlogiston. yet some sceptical controversialists are still so far from cultivating the acquaintance with recent thought which they recommend to christian theologians, as to persist in affirmations of amazing ignorance, _e.g._ "it is admitted that miracles alone can attest the reality of divine revelation."[2] sponsors for this statement must now be sought among unlearned christians, or among a few scholars who survive as cultivators of the old-fashioned argument from the "evidences." even among these latter the tendency to minimize miracle is undeniably apparent in a reduction of the list classified as such, and still more in the brevity of the list insisted on for the attestation of christianity. a transitional state of mind is clearly evidenced by the present division and perplexity of christian thought concerning the christian miracles. many seem to regard further discussion as profitless, and are ready to shelve the subject. but this attitude of weariness is also transitional. there must be some thoroughfare to firm ground and clear vision. it must be found in agreement, first of all, on the real meaning of a term so variously and vaguely used as _miracle_. in the present imperfect state of knowledge it may be impossible to enucleate miracle, however defined, of all mystery. but even so will much be gained for clear thinking, if miracle can be reasonably related to the greater mystery which all accept, though none understand,--the mystery of _life_. this view of the dynamic relation of life to miracle[3] is here suggested for what it may prove to be worth. the great and general change that transfigured theology during the nineteenth century was characteristically ethical. this, indeed, is the distinctive feature of the so-called new theology, in contrast with that which the protestant reformers inherited from st. augustine. god and man, faith, salvation and inspiration, redemption and atonement, judgment and retribution,--all these themes are now presented in orthodox pulpits far more conformably to ethical principles, though in degrees varying with educated intelligence, than was customary in the sermons of half a century ago. "one great source and spring of theological progress," says professor bowne, in his recent work on _theism_, "has been the need of finding a conception of god which the moral nature could accept. the necessity of moralizing theology has produced vast changes in that field; and the end is not yet." the ethical character of the theological change will perhaps be most obvious in the field of biblical study, to which the present subject belongs. the traditional solution of such moral difficulties in the old testament as commands, ostensibly divine, to massacre idolaters has been quite discarded. it is no longer the mode to say that deeds seemingly atrocious were not atrocious, because god commanded them. writers of orthodox repute now say that the _thus saith the lord_, with which samuel prefaced his order to exterminate the amalekites, must be understood subjectively, as an expression of the prophet's belief, not objectively, as a divine command communicated to him. this great change is a quite recent change. if a personal reference may be indulged, it is not twenty years since the present writer's published protest against "the anti-christian use of the bible in the sunday school,"[4] the exhibition to children of some vestiges of heathen superstition embedded in the old testament narratives as true illustrations of god's ways toward men, drew forth from a religious journal a bitter editorial on "the old testament and its new enemies." but a great light has since dawned in that quarter. it is no longer deemed subversive of faith in a divine revelation to hold that the prophet gad was not infallible in regarding the plague which scourged jerusalem as sent to punish david's pride in his census of the nation. a significant fact is presented in the comparison of these two aspects of the theological change that has come to pass,--the growing importance of the ethical, and the dwindling importance of the miraculous in the religious thought of to-day. this may reassure those who fear whereto such change may grow. the inner significance of such a change is most auspicious. it portends the displacement of a false by the true conception of supernatural religion, and the removal thereby of a serious antagonism between science and christian theology, as well as of a serious hindrance of many thoughtful minds from an intelligent embrace of christianity. footnotes: [1] professor w. t. adeney in the _hibbert journal_, january, 1903, p. 302. [2] see the recent new edition of _supernatural religion_, "carefully revised." [3] for an earlier statement of this by the present writer, see a discourse on "miracle and life," in _new points to old texts_. london: james clarke & co., 1889. new york: thomas whittaker. [4] _the new englander_, september, 1884. miracles and supernatural religion i i synopsis.--the gradual narrowing of the miraculous element in the bible by recent discovery and discussion.--the alarm thereby excited in the church.--the fallacy which generates the fear.--the atheistic conception of nature which generates the fallacy.--the present outgrowing of this conception. it is barely forty years since that beloved and fearless christian scholar, dean stanley, spoke thus of the miracles recorded of the prophet elisha: "his works stand alone in the bible in their likeness to the acts of mediæval saints. there alone in the sacred history the gulf between biblical and ecclesiastical miracles almost disappears."[5] it required some courage to say as much as this then, while the storm of persecution was raging against bishop colenso for his critical work on the pentateuch. the evangelical clergymen in england and the united states then prepared to confess as much as this, with all that it obviously implies, could have been seated in a small room. but time has moved on, and the church, at least the scholars of the church, have moved with it. no scholar of more than narrowly local repute now hesitates to acknowledge the presence of a legendary element both in the old testament and in the new. while the extent of it is still undetermined, many specimens of it are recognized. it is agreed that the early narratives in genesis are of this character, and that it is marked in such stories as those of samson, elijah, and elisha. even the conservative revisers of the authorized version have eliminated from the fourth gospel the story of the angel at the pool of bethesda, and in their marginal notes on the third gospel have admitted a doubt concerning the historicity of the angel and the bloody sweat in gethsemane. furthermore, some events, recognized as historical, have been divested of the miraculous character once attributed to them,--the crossing of the red sea, for instance, by the hebrew host. a landslip in the thirteenth century a.d. has been noted as giving historical character to the story of the hebrew host under joshua's command crossing the jordan "on dry ground," but in a perfectly natural way. other classes of phenomena once regarded as miraculous have been transferred to the domain of natural processes by the investigations and discoveries that have been made in the field of psychical research. the forewarning which god is said to have given the prophet ahijah of the visit that the queen was about to pay him in disguise[6] is now recognized as one of many cases of the mysterious natural function that we label as "telepathy." the transformations of unruly, vicious, and mentally disordered characters by hypnotic influence that have been effected at the salpêtrière in paris, and elsewhere, by physicians expert in psychical therapeutics are closely analogous to the cures wrought by jesus on some victims of "demoniac possession."[7] the cases of apparition,[8] also, which have been investigated and verified by the society for psychical research have laid a solid basis of fact for the biblical stories of angels, as at least, a class of phenomena to be regarded as by no means altogether legendary, but having their place among natural though mysterious occurrences. but this progressive paring down of the miraculous element in the bible has caused outcries of unfeigned alarm. christian scholars who have taken part in it are reproached as deserters to the camp of unbelief. they are accused of banishing god from his world, and of reducing the course of events to an order of agencies quite undivine. "miracle," writes one of these brethren,[9] "is the personal intervention of god into the chain of cause and effect." but what does this mean, except that, when no miracles occur, god is not personally, _i.e._ actively, in the chain of natural causes and effects? as professor drummond says, "if god appears periodically, he disappears periodically." it is precisely this view of the subject that really banishes god from his world. those who thus define miracle regard miracles as having ceased at the end of the apostolic age in the first century. except, therefore, for the narrow range of human history that the bible covers in time and place, god has not been personally in the chain of natural causes and effects. thus close to an atheistic conception of nature does zeal for traditional orthodoxy unwittingly but really come. the first pages of the bible correct this error. "while the earth remaineth," so god is represented as assuring noah, "seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease." the presence of god in his world was thus to be evinced by his regular sustentation of its natural order, rather than by irregular occurrences, such as the deluge, in seeming contravention of it. to seek the evidence of divine activity in human affairs and to ground one's faith in a controlling providence in sporadic and cometary phenomena, rather than in the constant and cumulative signs of it to be seen in the majestic order of the starry skies, in the reign of intelligence throughout the cosmos, in the moral evolution of ancient savagery into modern philanthropy, in the historic manifestation throughout the centuries of a power not our own that works for the increase of righteousness, is a mode of thought which in our time is being steadily and surely outgrown. it is one of those "idols of the tribe" whose power alike over civilized and uncivilized men is broken less by argument than by the ascent of man to wider horizons of knowledge. it is for the gain of religion that it should be broken,--of the spiritual religion whose god is not a tradition, a reminiscence, but a living presence, inhabiting alike the clod and the star, the flower in the crannied wall and the life of man. so thinking of god the religious man may rightly say,[10] "if it is more difficult to believe in miracles, it is less important. if the extraordinary manifestations of god recounted in ancient history appear less credible, the ordinary manifestations of god in current life appear more real. he is seen in american history not less than in hebrew history; in the life of to-day not less than in the life of long ago." footnotes: [5] _lectures on the history of the jewish church_, vol. ii, p. 362, american edition. [6] 1 kings xiv. 1-7. [7] it is not intended to intimate that there is no such darker reality as a "possession" that is "demoniac" indeed. it cannot be reasonably pronounced superstitious to judge that there is some probability for that view. at any rate, it is certain that the problem is not to be settled by dogmatic pronouncement. it is certain, also, that the burden of proof rests on those who contend that there can be no such thing. on the other hand, it may be conceded that the cases recorded in the new testament do not seem to be of an essentially devilish kind. on the general subject of "possession" see f. w. h. myers's work on _human personality and survival after death_, vol. i. (longmans, green & co., new york and london.) professor william james half humorously remarks: "the time-honored phenomenon of diabolical possession is on the point of being admitted by the scientist as a fact, now that he has the name of hysterodemonopathy by which to apperceive it." _varieties of religious experience_, p. 501, note. [8] see _dictionary of psychology_, art. "psychical research." [9] dr. peloubet, _teachers' commentary on the acts_, 1902. [10] dr. lyman abbott in _the outlook_, february 14, 1903. ii ii synopsis.--the present net results of the discussion of the miraculous element in the bible.--evaporation of the former evidential value of miracles.--further insistence on this value a logical blunder.--the transfer of miracles from the artillery to the baggage of the church.--probability of a further reduction of the list of miracles.--also of a further transfer of events reputed miraculous to the domain of history. the cultivation of scientific and historical studies during the last century, especially in its latter half, has deepened the conviction that "through the ages one increasing purpose runs;" has disposed a growing number of thoughtful minds to regard occasional signs and wonders, reported from ancient times, as far less evidential for the reasonableness of religious faith than the steady sustentation of the providential order and the moral progress of the world. fully convinced of this, we should now estimate, before proceeding further, the present net results of the discussion, so far as it has gone, of what is called the miraculous element in the bible. first, its former evidential value in proof of divine revelation is gone for the men of to-day. the believer in a divine revelation does not now, if he is wise, rest his case at all on the miracles connected with its original promulgation, as was the fashion not very long since. this for two reasons; chiefly this: that _the decisive criterion of any truth, ethical or physical, must be truth of the same kind_. ethical truth must be ethically attested. the moral and religious character of the revelation presents its credentials of worth in its history of the moral and religious renovations it has wrought both in individuals and in society. this is its proper and incontrovertible attestation, in need of no corroboration from whatever wonderful physical occurrences may have accompanied its first utterance. words of god are attested as such by the work of god which they effect. it may well be believed that those wonderful occurrences--the biblical name for which is "signs," or "powers," terms not carrying, like "miracles," the idea of something contra-natural[11]--had an evidential value for those to whom the revelation originally came. in fact, they were appealed to by the bearers of the revelation as evidencing its divine origin by the mighty works of divine mercy which they wrought for sufferers from the evils of the world. but whatever their evidential value to the eye-witnesses at that remote day, it was of the inevitably volatile kind that exhales away like a perfume with lapse of time. historic doubts attack remote events, especially when of the extraordinary character which tempts the narrator to that magnifying of the marvellous which experience has found to be a constantly recurring human trait. it is simply impossible that the original evidential value of the "signs" accompanying the revelation should continue permanently unimpaired. to employ them now as "evidences of christianity," when the revelation has won on ethical grounds recognition of its divine character and can summon history to bear witness of its divine effects in the moral uplift of the world, is to imperil the christian argument by the preposterous logical blunder of attempting to prove the more certain by the less certain. a second net result consequent on the preceding may be described as the transference of miracles from the ordnance department to the quartermaster's department of the church. until recently they were actively used as part of its armament, none of which could be dispensed with. now they are carried as part of its baggage, _impedimenta_, from which everything superfluous must be removed. it is clearly seen that to retain all is to imperil the whole. that there are miracles and miracles is patent to minds that have learned to scan history more critically than when a scholar like john milton began his _history of england_ with the legend of the voyage of "brute the trojan." one may reasonably believe that jesus healed a case of violent insanity at gadara, and reasonably disbelieve that the fire of heaven was twice obedient to elijah's call to consume the military companies sent to arrest him. cultivated discernment does not now put all biblical miracles on a common level of credibility, any more than the historical work of herodotus and that of the late dr. gardiner. to defend them all is not to vindicate, but to discredit all alike. the elimination of the indefensible, the setting aside of the legendary, the transference of the supposedly miraculous to the order of natural powers and processes so far as vindicable ground for such critical treatment is discovered, is the only way to answer the first of all questions concerning the bible: how much of this is credible history? thus it is not only thoroughly reasonable, but is in the interest of a reasonable belief that divine agency is revealed rather by the upholding of the established order of nature than by any alleged interference therewith. with what god has established god never interferes. to allege his interference with his established order is virtually to deny his constant immanence therein, a failure to recognize the fundamental fact that "nature is spirit," as principal fairbairn has said, and all its processes and powers the various modes of the energizing of the divine will. a third net result now highly probable is a still further reduction of the list of reputed miracles. the critical process of discriminating the historical from the legendary, and the natural from the non-natural, is still so comparatively recent that it can hardly be supposed to have reached its limit. nor can it be stayed by any impeachment of it as hostile to christianity, whose grand argument appeals to its present ethical effects, not to ancient thaumaturgical accompaniments. there is, however, a considerable class of cases in which the advancing critical process is likely even to gain credibility for the biblical narrative in a point where it is now widely doubted--the resuscitations of the apparently dead. among all the biblical miracles none have more probably a secure historical basis. footnotes: [11] the anglicized latin word, "miracle," indiscriminately used in the authorized version, denotes the superficial character of the act or event it is applied to, as producing wonder or amazement in the beholders. the terms commonly employed in the new testament (_s{=e}meion_, a sign; _dunamis_, power; less frequently _teras_, a portent) are of deeper significance, and connote the inner nature of the occurrence, either as requiring to be pondered for its meaning, or as the product of a new and peculiar energy. iii iii synopsis.--arbitrary criticism of the biblical narratives of the raising of the "dead."--facts which it ignores.--the subject related to the phenomena of trance, and records of premature burial.--the resuscitation in elisha's tomb probably historical.--jesus' raising of the ruler's daughter plainly a case of this kind.--his raising of the widow's son probably such.--the hypothesis that his raising of lazarus may also have been such critically examined.--the record allows this supposition.--further considerations favoring it: 1. the real interests of christianity secure.--2. the miracle as a work of mercy.--3. incompetency of the bystanders' opinion.--4. congruity with the general conception of the healing works of jesus, as wrought by a peculiar psychical power.--other cases.--the resurrection of jesus an event in a wholly different order of things.--the practical result of regarding these resuscitations as in the order of nature. of resuscitation from apparent death seven cases in all are recorded,--three in the old testament and four in the new. some critics arbitrarily reject all but one of these as legendary. thus oscar holzmann, in his recent _leben jesu_, treats the raising of the widow's son, and of lazarus. but he accepts the case of the ruler's daughter on the ground that jesus is reported as saying that it was not a case of real but only of apparent death,--"the child is not dead, but sleepeth." but for the preservation of this saving declaration in the record, this case also would have been classed with the others as unhistorical. and yet the admission of one clear case of simulated death, so like real death as to deceive all the onlookers but jesus, might reasonably check the critic with the suggestion that it may not have been a solitary case.[12] the headlong assumption involved in the discrimination made between these two classes, viz. that in a case of apparent but unreal death the primitive tradition can be depended on to put the fact upon record, is in the highest degree arbitrary and unwarrantable. the scepticism which lightly contradicts the biblical narratives of the raising of the "dead" to life is seemingly ignorant of facts that go far to place these upon firm ground as historical occurrences. catalepsy, or the simulation of death by a trance, in which the body is sometimes cold and rigid, sensation gone, the heart still, is well known to medical men.[13] in early times such a condition would inevitably have been regarded and treated as actual death, without the least suspicion that it was not so. even now, the dreadful mistake of so regarding it sometimes occurs. so cautious a journal as the london _spectator_ a few years ago expressed the belief that "a distinct percentage" of premature burials "occurs every year" in england. the proper line of critical approach to the study of the biblical narratives of the raising of the "dead" is through the well-known facts of the deathlike trance and premature burial. where burial occurred, as in the east, immediately after the apparent death,[14] resuscitation must have been rare. yet cases of it were not unknown. pliny has a chapter "on those who have revived on being carried forth for burial." lord bacon states that of this there have been "very many cases." a french writer of the eighteenth century, bruhier, in his "_dissertations sur l'incertitude de la mort et l'abus des enterrements_," records seventy-two cases of mistaken pronouncement of death, fifty-three of revival in the coffin before burial, and fifty-four of burial alive. a locally famous and thoroughly attested case in this country is that of the rev. william tennent, pastor in freehold, new jersey, in the eighteenth century, who lay apparently dead for three days, reviving from trance just as his delayed funeral was about to proceed. one who keeps a scrap-book could easily collect quite an assortment of such cases, and of such others as have a tragic ending, both from domestic and foreign journals. a work published some years ago by dr. f. hartmann[15] exhibits one hundred and eight cases as typical among over seven hundred that have been authenticated.[16] facts like these have been strangely overlooked in the hasty judgment prompted by prejudice against whatever has obtained credence as miraculous. some significant considerations must be seriously entertained. it cannot be that no such facts occurred in the long periods covered by the biblical writers. occurring, it is extremely improbable that they should have altogether escaped embodiment in popular tradition and its record. furthermore, while on one hand the custom of speedy burial rendered them much rarer than they are now under other conditions, and so much the more extraordinary, the universal ignorance of the causes involved would have accepted resuscitation as veritable restoration from actual death. as such it would have passed into tradition. in cases where it had come to pass in connection with the efforts of a recognized prophet, or through any contact with him, it would certainly have been regarded as a genuine miracle. among the raisings of the "dead" recorded in the scriptures probably none has been so widely doubted by critical readers as the story in the thirteenth chapter of the second book of kings, in which a corpse is restored to life by contact with the bones of elisha. dean stanley's remark upon the suspicious similarity between the miracles related of elisha and those found in roman catholic legends of great saints here seems quite pertinent. let the record speak for itself. "and elisha died and they buried him. now the bands of the moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. and it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of elisha; and as soon as the man touched the bones of elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet." the bizarre character of such a story excusably predisposes many a critic to stamp it as fabricated to enhance the glory of the great prophet who had been a pillar of the throne. yet nothing is more likely than that tradition has here preserved a bit of history, extraordinary, but real. there is not the least improbability in regarding the case as one of the many revivals from the deathlike trance that have been noted by writers ancient and modern. it is entirely reasonable to suppose that the trance in which the seemingly dead man lay was broken either by the shock of his fall into the prophet's tomb, or coincidently therewith; and stranger coincidences have happened. such a happening would be precisely the sort of thing to live in popular tradition, and to be incorporated into the annals of the time. here it may be rejoined that this is only a hypothesis. only that, to be sure. but so is the allegation that the story is a mere fantastic fabrication only a hypothesis. demonstration of the actual fact past all controversy being out of the question, all that can be offered for the attempt to rate the narrative at its proper value, either as history or as fiction, is hypothesis. the choice lies for us between two hypotheses. surely, that hypothesis is the more credible which is based on a solid body of objective facts, and meets all the conditions of the case. will it be replied to this that the critics can show for their hypothesis the admitted fact of the human proclivity to invent legends of miracle? the decisive answer is that the burden of proof rests on him who contests any statement ostensibly historical. if such a statement be found to square with admitted objective facts, it must be accepted notwithstanding considerations drawn from the subjective tendency to invent extraordinary tales. were raisings of the "dead" recorded in the old testament alone, objection would less often be offered to this transference of them, along with other occurrences once deemed miraculous, to a place in the natural order of things. the statistics of premature burial and of the resuscitation of the apparently dead before burial are sufficiently strong to throw grave doubt on any contention that the resuscitations narrated of elijah[17] and elisha[18] do not belong in that historical series. it has been frequently observed, however, that there is much reluctance to apply to the new testament the methods and canons of criticism that are applied to the old. it will be so in the present case, through apprehension of somehow detracting from the distinctive glory of christ. that fear will not disturb one who sees that glory not in his "mighty works," the like of which were wrought by the prophets, but in the spiritual majesty of his personality, the divineness of his message to the world, and of the life and death that illustrated it. one case, at least, among jesus' raisings of the "dead," that of the young daughter of the ruler of the synagogue,[19] is admitted even by sceptical critics to have been a resuscitation from the trance that merely simulates death. but the fact that there is a record of his saying in this case, "the child is not dead, but sleepeth," and no record of his saying the same at the bier of the widow's son,[20] is slight ground, yet all the ground there is, against the great probabilities to the contrary, for regarding the latter case as so transcendently different from the former as the actual reëmbodiment of a departed spirit recalled from another world. were these the only two cases of restoration to life in the ministry of jesus, it is most probable that they would be regarded as of the same kind. the raising of lazarus[21] presents peculiar features, in view of which it is generally regarded as of another kind, and the greatest of miracles, so stupendous that the rev. w. j. dawson, in his recent _life of christ_, written from an evangelical standpoint, says of it: "even the most devout mind may be forgiven occasional pangs of incredulity." but the considerations already presented are certainly sufficient to justify a reëxamination of the case. and it is to be borne in mind that the question at issue is, not what the eye-witnesses at that time believed, not what the church from that time to this has believed, not what we are willing to believe, or would like to believe, but what all the facts with any bearing on the case, taken together, fully justify us in believing as to the real nature of it. what jesus is recorded as saying of it is, of course, of prime importance. "our friend lazarus is fallen asleep, but i go that i may awake him out of sleep." were this all, the case might easily have been classed as one of trance. the disciples, however, understood jesus to speak of natural sleep. "then jesus therefore said unto them plainly, _lazarus is dead_." tradition puts the maximum meaning into this word "dead." but if this word here qualifies the preceding word, "fallen asleep," so also is it qualified by that; the two are mutually explanatory, not contradictory. these alternatives are before us: is the maximum or the minimum meaning to be assigned to the crucial word "dead"? for the minimum, one can say that a deathly trance, already made virtual death by immediate interment, would amply justify jesus in using the word "dead" in order to impress the disciples with the gravity of the case, as not a natural but a deathly, and, in the existing situation, a fatal sleep. for the maximum, no more can be advanced than the hazardous assertion that jesus _must_ have used the word with technical precision in its customary sense; an assertion of course protected from disproof by our ignorance of the actual fact.[22] but whatever support this view of the case derives from such ignorance is overbalanced by the support supplied to the other view by the long history of revivals from the deathly trance, and by the probabilities which that history creates. many, to whom the view here proposed seems not only new, but unwelcome, and even revolutionary, may reasonably prefer to suspend judgment for reflection; but meanwhile some further considerations may be entertained. 1. aside from the unwillingness to abandon a long-cherished belief on any subject whatever, which is both a natural, and, when not pushed to an unreasonable length, a desirable brake on all inconsiderate change, no practical interest is threatened by the adoption of the view here suggested. religious interest, so far as it is also intelligent, is certainly not threatened. the evidences of jesus' divine character and mission resting, as for modern men it rests, not on remote wonders, but on now acknowledged facts of an ethical and spiritual kind, is altogether independent of our conclusion whether it was from actual or only apparent death that lazarus was raised. since all the mighty works wrought by jesus, and this among them, were identical in type with those wrought by the ancient prophets, with whom his countrymen classed him in his lifetime, their evidential significance could be, even for the eye-witnesses at that tomb, no greater for him than for an elisha,--signs of a divine mission attesting itself by works of mercy. 2. as works of mercy these raisings from the "dead," including that of lazarus, rank far higher in the view of them here proposed than in the traditional view. this regards them as the recall of departed spirits from what is hoped to be "a better world." yet this, while it turns sorrow for a time into joy, involves not only the recurrence of that sorrow in all its keenness, but also a second tasting of the pains preliminary to the death-gate, when the time comes to pass that gate again. but in the other view, a raising from the death that is only simulated is a merciful deliverance from a calamity greater than simple death, if that be any calamity at all,--the fate of burial alive. in the former view, therefore, the quality of mercy, distinctive of the mighty works of jesus, is imperfectly demonstrable. in the present view, as the rescue of the living from death in one of its most horrible forms, it is abundantly conspicuous. 3. the onlookers by the tomb of lazarus doubtless regarded his awakening as revival from actual death. their opinion, however, does not bind our judgment any more than it is bound by the opinion of other onlookers, that jesus' healing of the insane and epileptic was through the expulsion of demons that possessed them. in each instance it was understood as a sign of control over beings belonging to another world. but such an attestation of jesus' divine mission, having been superseded for us by proofs of higher character, is now no more needful for us in the case of the "dead" than in the case of the "demons." 4. the power of breaking the deathly trance, of quickening the dormant life, reënergizing the collapsed nervous organism, and ending its paralysis of sensation and motion, may be reasonably regarded as power of the same psychical kind that jesus regularly exerted in healing the sufferers from nervous disorders who were reputed victims of demoniac possession.[23] in this view these resuscitations from apparent death appear in natural coherence with the many other works of mercy that jesus wrought as the great physician of his people, and may be regarded as the crown and consummation of all his restorative ministries. jesus' thanksgiving after the tomb had been opened--"father, i thank thee that thou hast heard me"--shows that he had girded himself for a supreme effort by concentrating the utmost energy of his spirit in prayer. physically parallel with this was the intensity of voice put into his call to the occupant of the tomb. this is better represented in the original than in our translation: "he shouted with a great voice, 'lazarus, come forth.'" the whole record indicates the utmost tension of all his energies, and closely comports with the view that this stood to the sequel in the relation of cause to effect.[24] another circumstance not without bearing on the case is the energizing power of the intense sympathy with the bereaved family that stirred the soul of jesus to weep and groan with them. and it is not without significance that this strong factor appears active in the larger number of the biblical cases,--three of them only children, two of these the children of the pitiable class of widows. peculiar, then, as was the case of lazarus, our examination of it reveals no substantial ground for insisting that it was essentially unlike the previous case of the ruler's daughter, that it was the bringing back into a decaying body of a spirit that had entered into the world of departed souls. the actual fact, of course, is indemonstrable. our conclusion has to be formed wholly upon the probabilities of the case, and must be formed in a reasonable choice between the greater probability and the less. the restoration of dorcas to life by peter, recorded in the book of acts,[25] needs no special discussion beyond the various considerations already adduced in this chapter. the case of eutychus, recorded in the same book,[26] requires mention only lest it should seem to have been forgotten, as it is not in point at all. the record makes it highly probable that the supposed death was nothing more than the loss of consciousness for a few hours in consequence of a fall from the window. * * * * * if one should here suggest that no mention has yet been made of the resurrection of jesus himself, it must be pointed out that this is a fact of a totally different kind from any of the foregoing cases. to speak, as many do, of the "resurrection of lazarus" is a misuse of words. resuscitation to life in this world, and resurrection, the rising up of the released spirit into the life of the world to come, are as distinct as are the worlds to which they severally belong. we here consider only the _raisings_ which restored to the virtually dead their interrupted mortal life. the _rising_ from the mortal into the immortal state belongs to an entirely different field of study. * * * * * apart, then, from traditional prepossessions, examination of the biblical narratives discloses nothing to invalidate the hypothesis which one who is acquainted with the copious record of apparent but unreal death must seriously and impartially consider. the reputedly miraculous raisings of the "dead" related in both the old and the new testament may, with entire reason, and without detriment to religion, be classed with such as are related outside of the scriptures, in ancient times as well as modern, and as phenomena wholly within the natural order, however extraordinary. the practical result of such a conclusion is likely to be a gain for the historicity of the scripture narratives in the estimate of a large class of thoughtful minds. footnotes: [12] an objection to the historicity of the raising of lazarus which is made on the ground that so great a work, if historical, would have been related by more than one of the evangelists, yields on reflection the possibility that jesus may have effected more than the three raisings recorded of him. john is the sole narrator of the raising of lazarus. but he omits notice of the two raisings recorded by the other evangelists, while matthew and mark do not record the raising of the widow's son recorded by luke. all this suggests that the record may have preserved for us specimens rather than a complete list of this class of miracles. (compare john xxi. 25.) [13] "we have frequent cases of trance, ... where the parties seem to die, but after a time the spirit returns, and life goes on as before. in all this there is no miracle. why may not the resuscitations in christ's time possibly have been similar cases? is not this less improbable than that the natural order of the universe should have been set aside?"--_the problem of final destiny_, by william b. brown, d.d., 1899. [14] on account of the ceremonial "uncleanness" caused by the dead body. see numbers v. 2, and many similar passages. [15] _buried alive_ (universal truth publishing co., chicago). see also _premature burial_, by d. walsh (william wood & co., new york), and _premature burial_, by w. tebb and e. p. vollum (new amsterdam book co., new york). [16] other writers might be mentioned, as mme. necker (1790), dr. vigné (1841). yet on the other hand it is alleged, that "none of the numerous stories of this dreadful accident which have obtained credence from time to time seem to be authentic" (_american cyclopedia_, art. "burial"). allowing a wide margin for exaggeration and credulity, there is certainly a residuum of fact. a correspondent of the (london) _spectator_ a few years since testified to a distressing case in his own family. [17] kings xvii. 17-23. [18] kings iv. 32-36. [19] mark v. 35-43. [20] luke vii. 12-16. [21] john xi. 11-44. [22] was jesus aware that lazarus was really not dead? it is impossible to reach a positive conclusion. in some directions his knowledge was certainly limited. that he was not aware of the reality might be inferred from his seeming to have allowed his act to pass for what, in the view of it here suggested, it was not,--the recall to life of one actually dead. this, however, assumes the completeness of a record whose silence on this point cannot be pressed as conclusive. it is, indeed, unlikely that jesus knew all that medical men now know. but awareness of any fact may be in varying degrees from serious suspicion up to positive certitude. while far from positiveness, awareness may exist in a degree that gives courage for resolute effort resulting in clear and full verification. jesus may have been ignorant of the objective reality of lazarus's condition, and yet have been very hopeful of being empowered by the divine aid he prayed for (john xi. 41) to cope with it successfully. [23] see pages 28, 29, note. [24] jesus' works of healing are explicitly attributed by the evangelists to a peculiar power that issued from him. in mark v. 30, luke vi. 19, and viii. 46, the original word _dunamis_, which the authorized version translates "virtue," is more correctly rendered "power" in the revised version. especially noticeable is the peculiar phraseology of mark v. 30: "jesus perceiving in himself that the power proceeding from him had gone forth (r. v.)." the peculiar circumstances of the case suggest that the going forth of this power might be motived sub-consciously, as well as by conscious volition. [25] acts ix. 36-42. [26] acts xx. 9-13. iv iv synopsis.--a clearer conception of miracle approached.--works of jesus once reputed miraculous not so reputed now, since not now transcending, as once, the existing range of knowledge and power.--this transfer of the miraculous to the natural likely to continue.--no hard and fast line between the miraculous and the non-miraculous.--miracle a provisional word, its application narrowing in the enlarging mastery of the secrets of nature and life. at this point it seems possible to approach a clearer understanding of the proper meaning to attach to the generally ill-defined and hazy term _miracle_.[27] matthew arnold's fantastic illustration of the idea of miracle by supposing a pen changed to a pen-wiper may fit some miracles, especially those of the catholic hagiology, but, if applied to those of jesus, would be a caricature. in the new testament a reputed miracle is not any sort of wonderful work upon any sort of occasion, but an act of benevolent will exerted for an immediate benefit,[28] and transcending the then existing range of human intelligence to explain and power to achieve. the historic reality of at least some such acts performed by jesus is acknowledged by critics as free from the faintest trace of orthodox bias as keim: "the picture of jesus, the worker of miracles, belongs to the first believers in christ, and is no invention." it has already been noted that a considerable number of the then reputed miracles of jesus, particularly his works of healing, do not now, as then, transcend the existing range of knowledge and power, and accordingly are no longer reputed miraculous. and one cannot reasonably believe that a limit to the understanding and control of forces in nature and mind that now are more or less occult has been already reached. it is, therefore, not incredible that some of the mighty works of jesus, which still transcend the existing limits of knowledge and power, and so are still reputed miraculous, and are suspected by many as unhistorical, may in some yet remote and riper stage of humanity be transferred, as some have already been, to the class of the non-miraculous and natural. dr. robbins, dean of the general theological seminary, new york, after remarking that "the word _miracle_ has done more to introduce confusion into christian evidences than any other," goes on to say: "to animals certain events to them inexplicable are signs of the presence of human intelligence and power. to men these miracles of christ are signs of divine intelligence and power. but how is miracle to be differentiated from other providential dealings of god? not by removing him further from common events. abstruse speculations concerning the relation of miracles to other physical phenomena may be safely left to the adjustment of an age which shall have advanced to a more perfect synthesis of knowledge than the present can boast."[29] the truth to which such considerations conduct is, that no hard and fast line can be drawn between the miraculous and the non-miraculous. to the untutored mind, like that of the savage who thought it miraculous that a chip with a message written on it had talked to the recipient, the simplest thing that he cannot explain is miraculous: "_omne ignotum pro mirifico_," said tacitus. as the range of knowledge and power widens, the range of the miraculous narrows correspondingly. some twenty years since, the international sunday-school lessons employed as a proof of the divinity of christ the reputedly miraculous knowledge which he evinced in his first interview with nathanael of a solitary hour in nathanael's experience.[30] since then it has been demonstrated[31] by psychical research that the natural order of the world includes telepathy, and the range of the miraculous has been correspondingly reduced without detriment to the argument for the divinity of christ, now rested on less precarious ground. under such conditions as we have reviewed a miracle cannot always be one and the same thing. miracle must therefore be defined as being what our whole course of thought has suggested that it is: in general, an elastic word; in particular, a provisional word,--a word whose application narrows with the enlarging range of human knowledge[32] and power which for the time it transcends; a word whose history, in its record of ranges already transcended, prompts expectation that ranges still beyond may be transcended in the illimitable progress of mankind. professor le conte says that miracle is "an occurrence or a phenomenon according to a law higher than any yet known." thus it is a case of human ignorance, not of divine interference. on the other hand, we must believe that the goal of progress is a flying goal; that human attainment can never reach finality unless men cease to be. and so all widening of human knowledge and power must ever disclose further limitations to be transcended. there will always be a _beyond_, in which dwells the secret of laws still undiscovered, that underlie mysteries unrevealed and marvels unexplained. this will have to be admitted, especially, by those to whom the marvellous is synonymous with the incredible. we have not been able to eviscerate even these prosaic and matter-of-fact modern times of marvels whose secret lies in the yet uncatalogued or indefinable powers of the mysterious agent that we name _life_: witness many well verified facts recorded by the society for psychical research.[33] how, then, is it consistent to affirm that no such marvels in ancient records are historical realities? nay, may it not be true that the ancient days of seers and prophets, the days of jesus, days of the sublime strivings of great and lonely souls for closer converse with the infinite spirit behind his mask of nature, offered better conditions for marvellous experiences and deeds than these days of scientific laboratories and factories, and world-markets and world-politics? footnotes: [27] "early and mediæval theologians agree in conceiving the miraculous as being above, not contrary to, nature. the question entered on a new phase when hume defined a miracle as a violation of nature, and asserted the impossibility of substantiating its actual occurrence. the modern discussion has proceeded largely in view of hume's destructive criticism. assuming the possibility of a miracle, the questions of fact and of definition remain."--_dictionary of psychology._ "when we find the definition for which we are searching, the miraculous will no longer be a problem."--professor w. sanday, at the anglican church congress, 1902. [28] for exceptions see matthew xxi. 19; acts xiii. 10, 11. [29] _a christian apologetic_, p. 97. [30] john i. 47-50. [31] in the opinion of such psychologists as professor william james, of harvard, the late professor henry sidgwick, of cambridge, england, and others of like eminence. [32] a hint of this was given by augustine: "portentum non fit contra naturam, sed contra quam est nota natura."--_de civitate dei._ [33] consult the late f. w. h. myers's remarkable volumes on _human personality and survival after death_ (longmans, green & co.). v v synopsis.--biblical miracles the effluence of extraordinary lives.--life the world's magician and miracle worker; its miracles now termed _prodigies_.--miracle the natural product of an extraordinary endowment of life.--life the ultimate reality.--what any man can achieve is conditioned by the psychical quality of his life.--nothing more natural, more supernatural, than life.--the derived life of the world filial to the self-existent life of god, "begotten, not made."--miracle, as the product of life, the work of god. be it noted, now, that the marvellous phenomena of the biblical record, whatever else be thought of them, are, even to a superficial view, the extraordinary effluence of extraordinary lives. here at length we gain a clearer conception of miracle. _life_ is the world's great magician,--life, so familiar, yet so mysterious; so commonplace, yet so transcendent. no miracle is more marvellous than its doings witnessed in the biological laboratory, or more inexplicable than its transformation of dead matter into living flesh, its development of a shakespeare from a microscopic bit of protoplasm. but its mysterious processes are too common for general marvel; we marvel only at the uncommon. the boy zerah colburn in half a minute solved the problem, "how many seconds since the beginning of the christian era?" we prefer to call this a prodigy rather than a miracle,--a distinction more verbal than real; and we fancy we have explained it when we say that such arithmetical power was a peculiar endowment of his mental life. now all of the inexplicable, inimitable reality that at any time has to be left by the baffled intellect as an unsolved wonder under the name of miracle is just that,--_the natural product of an extraordinary endowment of life_. more of its marvellous capability is latent in common men, in the subconscious depths of being, than has ever yet flashed forth in the career of uncommon men. some scientists say that it depends on chemical and physical forces. it indeed uses these to build the various bodies it inhabits, but again it leaves these to destroy those bodies when it quits them. the most constant and ubiquitous phenomenon in the world, the ultimate reality in the universe, is _life_, revealing its presence in innumerable modes of activity, from the dance of atoms in the rock to the philosophizing of the sage and the aspirations of the saint,--the creator of nature, the administrator of the regular processes we call the laws of nature, the author of the wonders men call miraculous because they are uncommon and ill understood. the works of which any man is naturally capable are conditioned by the psychical quality of his life, and its power to use the forces of nature. through differences of vital endowment some can use color, as wonderful painters, and others employ sound, as wonderful musicians, in ways impossible to those otherwise endowed. so "a poet is born, not made." so persons of feeble frame, stimulated by disease or frenzied by passion, have put forth preternatural and prodigious muscular strength. by what we call "clairvoyant" power life calls up in intelligent perception things going on far beyond ocular vision. by what we call "telepathic" power life communicates intelligence with life separated by miles of space. such are some of the powers that have been discovered, and fully attested, but not explained, as belonging to the world's master magician, _life_. and when the poet asks,- "ah, what will our children be, the men of a hundred thousand, a million summers away?" we can only answer with the apostle: "it doth not yet appear what we shall be." but we cannot deem it likely that the powers of life, "deep seated in our mystic frame," and giving forth such flashes of their inherent virtue, have already reached their ultimate development. we look with wonder and awe into the secret shrine of life, where two scarcely visible cells unite to form the human being whose thought shall arrange the starry heavens in majestic order, and harness the titanic energies of nature for the world's work. there we behold the real supernatural. nothing is more natural than life, and nothing also more supernatural. biology studies all the various forms that the world shows of it, and affirms that life, though multiform, is one. this embryology attests, showing that the whole ascent of life through diverse forms from the lowest to the highest, during the millions of years since life first manifested its presence on this globe, is recapitulated in the stages of growth through which the human being passes in the few months before its birth. and philosophy, which does not seek the living among the dead, affirms, _omne vivum ex vivo_. the varied but unitary life of the world is the stream of an exhaustless spring. it is filial to the life of god, the father almighty. what the ancient creed affirmed of the christ as the son of god--whom his beloved disciple recognized as "the eternal life which was with the father and was manifested unto us[34]"--may be truly affirmed of the mysterious reality that is known as life: "begotten not made; being of one substance with the father; through whom [or which] all things were made." looking from the derived and finite life of the world, visible only in the signs of its presence, but in its reality no more visible than him "whom no man hath seen, nor can see," up to the life underived, aboriginal, infinite, we recognize _god_ and _life_ as terms of identical significance. how superficial the notion of miracles as "the personal intervention of god into the chain of cause and effect," in which he is the constant vital element. if an event deemed miraculous is ever ascribed, as of old, to "the finger of god," the reality behind the phenomenon is simply a higher or a stronger power of life than is recognized in an event of a common type--life that is one with the infinite and universal life, "life that in me has rest, as i, undying life, have power in thee." footnotes: [34] 1 john i. 2. vi vi synopsis.--the question, both old and new, now confronting theologians.--their recent retreat upon the minimum of miracle.--the present conflict of opinion in the church.--its turning-point reached in the antipodal turn-about in the treatment of miracles from the old to the new apologetics.--revision of the traditional idea of the supernatural required for theological readjustment. the present line of thought has now reached the point where an important question confronts us,--a question not wholly new. within the memory of living men theologians have been compelled to ask themselves: what if the geologists should establish facts that contradict our biblically derived doctrine that the universe was made in a week? again have they been constrained to put to themselves the question: what if the evolutionists should supersede our doctrine that the creation is the immediate product of successive fiats of the creator by showing that it came gradually into existence through the progressive operation of forces immanent in the cosmos? still again have they had to face the question: what if modern criticism by the discovery of demonstrable errors in the sacred writings should fault our doctrine that, as the word of god, the bible is free from all and every error? in every instance the dreaded concession, when found at length to be enforced by modern learning, has been found to bring, not the loss that had been apprehended, but clear gain to the intellectual interests of religion. now it is this same sort of question which returns with the uncertainties and difficulties widely felt in the church to be gathering over its hitherto unvexed belief in miracles as signs of a divine activity more immediate than it has recognized in the regular processes of nature. the majority of uneducated christians still hold, as formerly in each of the points just mentioned, to the traditional view. miracle as a divine intervention in the natural order, a more close and direct divine contact with the course of things than is the case in ordinary experience, they regard as the inseparable and necessary concomitant and proof of a divine revelation. to deny miracles, thus understood, is censured as equivalent to denial of the reality of the revelation. but it is rather surprising, because it is rare, to find a man of such note in literature as dr. w. robertson nicoll affirming[35] that one cannot be a christian without believing at least two miracles, the virgin birth and the physical resurrection of the christ. without comment on the significance of this retreat upon the minimum of miracle, it must here be noted that a minority of the church, not inferior to their brethren in learning and piety, believe that there are no tides in god's presence in nature, that his contact with it is always of the closest:- "closer is he than breathing, and nearer than hands or feet." all natural operations are to them divine operations. "nature," said dr. martineau, "is god's mask, not his competitor." while his agency in nature may be _recognized_ at one time more than at another, it _exists_ at any time fully as much as at any other. in the interest of this fundamental truth of religion they affirm that miracles in the traditional sense of the word, and in their traditional limitation to the small measure of time and space covered by biblical narratives, never occurred. events reputed miraculous have indeed occurred, but simply as unusual, inexplicable phenomena in the natural order of things, the natural products of exceptionally endowed life, and, whether in ancient time or modern, the same sort of thing the world over. to the argument that this involves denial of a supernatural revelation they reply that it is mere reasoning in a circle. for if one begs the question at the outset by defining supernatural revelation as revelation necessarily evidenced by miraculous divine intervention, then, of course, denial of this is denial of that, and how is the argument advanced? but, besides this, the question-begging definition is a fallacious confusing of the contents of the revelation with its concomitants, and of its essentially spiritual character with phenomena in the sphere of the senses. the turning-point in this argument between the two parties in the church has been reached in the antipodal change, already referred to, from the old to the new apologetics,--a change whose inevitable consequences do not yet seem to be clearly discerned by either party in the discussion. the contention that denial of miracles as traditionally understood carries denial of supernatural revelation has been virtually set aside, with its question-begging definition and circular reasoning, by the apologetics now current among believers in at least a minimum of miracle in the traditional sense of the word,--especially in the two chief miracles of the virgin birth and the physical resurrection of jesus. as an eminent representative of these the late dr. a. b. bruce may be cited. these adduce "the moral miracle," the sinlessness of jesus, as evidential for the reality of the physical miracles as its "congruous accompaniments." "if," says dr. bruce, "we receive him as the great moral miracle, we shall receive much more for his sake."[36] but what a turn-about of the traditional argument on the evidences! the older apologetes argued: this crown of miraculous power bespeaks the royal dignity of the wearer. the modern apologete reasons: this royal character must have a crown of miraculous power corresponding with his moral worth. in this antipodal reverse of christian thought it is quite plain that for evidential purposes the miracle is stripped of its ancient value. and it has already been observed that modern knowledge has now transferred many of the biblical miracles to the new rooms discovered for them in the natural order of things. it is not premature, therefore, for leaders of christian thought to put once more to themselves the question, constantly recurring as learning advances: what theological readjustment should we have to make, if obliged to concede that the ancient belief in miracle is not inseparable from belief in a supernatural revelation, not indispensable to belief therein? what modified conception must we form, if constrained to admit that the living god, ever immanent in nature, intervenes in nature no more at one time than another? what, indeed, but a revised and true in place of a mistaken conception of the term _supernatural_? footnotes: [35] "the church asks, and it is entitled to ask the critic: do you believe in the incarnation and resurrection of jesus christ?... if he replies in the negative, he has missed the way, and has put himself outside of the church of christ."--_the church's one foundation_, p. 4. [note that "incarnation" and "resurrection" are terms which dr. nicoll construes as denoting physical miracles.] what dr. nicoll here means by "outside of the church" he indicates by saying elsewhere, that philosophers who reckon goodness as everything, and miracles as impossible, "are not christians" (_op. cit._, p. 10). this conditioning of christian character upon an intellectual judgment concerning the reality of remote occurrences is both unbiblical and unethical, as well as absurd when practically applied. some years since, dr. e. a. abbott, who admits no miracle in the life of christ, published a book, _the spirit on the waters_, in which he inculcated the worship of christ. yet, according to dr. nicoll, such a man is no christian! [36] _the miraculous element in the gospels_, p. 353. vii vii synopsis.--account to be made of the law of atrophy through disuse.--the virgin birth and the corporeal resurrection of jesus, the two miracles now insisted on as the irreducible minimum, affected by this law.--the vital truths of the incarnation and immortality independent of these miracles.--these truths now placed on higher ground in a truer conception of the supernatural.--the true supernatural is the spiritual, not the miraculous.--scepticism bred from the contrary view.--the miracle narratives, while less evidential for religion, not unimportant for history.--psychical research a needful auxiliary for the scientific critic of these. to the true conception of the supernatural we shall presently come. but we cannot proceed without briefly reminding ourselves of the certain consequences of this now far advanced dropping of miracles by modern apologetics from their ancient use as evidences of a supernatural revelation. we are not ignorant of the law, which holds throughout the material, the mental, and the moral realms, that disuse tends to atrophy and extinction. disused organs cease to exist, as in the eyeless cave-fish. for centuries the story of the miraculous birth of jesus was serviceable for confirmation of his claim to be the son of god. in the address of the angel of the annunciation to mary that claim is expressly rested on the miraculous conception of "the holy thing."[37] but as ethical enlightenment grows, the conviction grows that, whether the physiological ground of that claim be tenable or not, the ethical ground of it is essentially higher. _father_ and _son_ even in human relationships are terms of more than physiological import. it is matter of frequent experience that, where the ethical character of such relationship is lacking, the physiological counts for nothing. moreover, the divine sonship of jesus in a purely ethical view rests on ground not only higher but incontestable. and so in our time theologians prefer to rest it on foundations that cannot be shaken, on his moral oneness with god, the divineness of his spirit, the ideal perfectness of his life. the strength of this position being realized, the world begins to hear from christian thinkers the innovating affirmation that belief of the miraculous birth can no longer be deemed essential to christianity; else it would not have been left unmentioned in two of the four gospels, and in every extant apostolic letter. and now we hear theologians saying: "i accept it, but i place it no more among the evidences of christianity. i defend it, but cannot employ it in the defence of supernatural revelation." such a stage of thought is only transitional. an antiquated argument does not long survive in the world of thought.[38] military weapons that have become unserviceable soon find their way either to the museum or the foundry. it is shortsighted not to foresee the inevitable effect on our theological material of the law of atrophy through disuse. the case of the miracle is the case of a pillar originally put in for the support of an ancient roof. when the roof has a modern truss put beneath it springing from wall to wall, the pillar becomes an obstacle, and is removed. but as in such a case the roof, otherwise supported, does not fall in when the pillar is removed, so neither is the central christian truth of the incarnation imperilled by any weakening or vanishing of belief in the doctrine of the virgin birth. in a discussion of the subject in convocation at york, england, while these pages were being written, the dean of ripon (dr. boyd carpenter) urged that it must be borne in mind that the incarnation and the virgin birth were two different things, and that some who found difficulty in the latter fully accepted the former. in a recent sermon dr. briggs insists likewise upon this: "the virgin birth is only one of many statements of the mode of incarnation.... the doctrine of the incarnation does not depend upon the virgin birth.... it is only a minor matter connected with the incarnation, and should have a subordinate place in the doctrine.... at the same time the virgin birth is a new testament doctrine, and we must give it its proper place and importance.... the favorite idea of the incarnation among the people has ever been the simpler one of the virgin birth, as in the ave maria. the theologians have ever preferred the more profound doctrine of the hymn of the logos [john i. 1-18]."[39] nay, it may even be found that the weakening of belief in the incarnation as an isolated and miraculous event may tend to promote a profounder conception of it, that brings the divine and the human into touch and union at all points instead of in one point.[40] a similar change of thought, less remarked than its significance deserves, is concerned with that other great miracle, the corporeal resurrection of jesus, which such writers as dr. nicoll couple with that of his virgin birth as the irreducible minimum of miracle, belief in which is essential to christian discipleship.[41] for many centuries the resurrection story in the gospels has served as the conclusive proof both of the divine sonship of jesus,[42] and of our own resurrection to immortality.[43] in the churches it is still popularly regarded as the supreme, sufficient, and indispensable fact required for the basis of faith. but in many a christian mind the thought has dawned, that a single fact cannot give adequate ground for the general inference of a universal principle; that a remote historical fact, however strongly attested, can evince only what _has_ taken place in a given case, not what _will_ or _must_ occur in other cases; while it is also inevitably more or less pursued by critical doubt of the attestations supporting it. this rising tide of reflection has compelled resort to higher ground, to the inward evidences in the nature of mind that are more secure from the doubt to which all that is merely external and historical is exposed. a clear distinction has been discerned between the _real_ resurrection of jesus--his rising from the mortal state into the immortal, and his _phenomenal_ resurrection--the manifestations of his change that are related as having been objectively witnessed. what took place in the invisible world--his real resurrection--is now more emphasized by christian thinkers than the phenomenal resurrection in the visible world. so conservatively orthodox a writer as dr. g. d. boardman goes so far as to say: "after all, the real question in the matter of his resurrection is not, 'did christ's body rise?' that is but a subordinate, incidental issue." the real question, as dr. boardman admits, is, "whether jesus christ himself is risen, and is alive to-day."[44] the main stress of christian thought to-day is not laid, as formerly, on the phenomena recorded in the story of the resurrection, but on the psychological, moral, and rational evidences of a resurrection to immortality that until recent times were comparatively disregarded.[45] meanwhile the vindication of the reality of the phenomena related of the risen jesus, including his bodily ascension, though not a matter of indifference to many of those who have found the higher grounds of faith, has become to them of subordinate importance. it is well for christian faith that its supersensuous and impregnable grounds have been occupied. it is certain that ancient records of external phenomena cannot in future constitute, as heretofore, the stronghold of faith. but it is by no means yet certain that they have lost serviceableness as, at least, outworks of the stronghold. while the doctrine of the virgin birth seems to be threatened by atrophy, the doctrine of the bodily resurrection, though retired from primary to secondary rank, seems to be waiting rather for clarification by further knowledge. something of an objective nature certainly lies at its basis; _something_ of an external sort, not the product of mere imagination, took place. to the fact thus indefinitely stated, that hallowing of sunday as a day of sacred and joyful observance which is coeval with the earliest traditions, and antedates all records, is an attestation as significant as any monumental marble. no hallucination theory, no gradual rise and growth of hope in the minds of a reflective few, can account for that solid primeval monument. but _what_ occurred, the reality in distinctness from any legendary accretions, we shall be better able to conclude, when the truth shall have been threshed out concerning the reality, at present strongly attested, and as strongly controverted, of certain extraordinary but occult psychical powers.[46] a point of high significance for those who would cultivate a religious faith not liable to be affected by changes of intellectual outlook or insight is, that this lower valuation of miracle observable among christian thinkers has not been reached through breaches made by sceptical doubts of the reality of a supernatural revelation. they have, of course, felt the reasonableness of the difficulties with which traditional opinions have been encumbered by the advance of knowledge. but so far from giving way thereupon to doubts of the reality of divine revelation, they have sought and found less assailable defences for their faith in it than those that sufficed their fathers. and their satisfaction therewith stands in no sympathy with those who hold it a mark of enlightenment to assume with matthew arnold, that "miracles do not happen." it has resulted rather from reaching the higher grounds of religious thought, on which supernatural revelation is recognized in its essential character as distinctively moral and spiritual. the true supernatural is the _spiritual_, not the miraculous, a higher order of nature, not a contradiction of nature. the revelation of jesus was altogether spiritual. it consisted in the ideas of god which he communicated by his ministry and teaching, by his character and life. but this, the real supernatural, was not obvious as such to his contemporaries. they looked for it in the lower region of physical effects. and here the church also in its embryonic spiritual life, in its proneness to externalize religion in forms of rite, and creed, and organization, has thought to find it. jesus' reproof, "except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe," is still pertinent to those who will not have it that the supernatural revelation--spiritual though it be--can be recognized or believed in apart from an acknowledgment of attendant miracles, wrought in physical nature by an intervention of god. such a contention, however, is as futile and desperate as was john wesley's declaration, "the giving up of witchcraft is in effect the giving up of the bible." such mischievous fallacies succeed only in blinding many a mind to the real issue which the moral and spiritual revelation of jesus makes with men of the twentieth century. it is these fallacies, and not their critics, that create the most of scepticism.[47] but while the question whether miracles are credible has ceased to be of vital importance, it has by no means lost all importance. on the contrary, so long as the path of progress is guided by the lamp of experience, so long will it be of consequence that the historical record of experience be found trustworthy. it may suit the overweening pride which defies both the past and the present to say with bonaparte, that history is only a fable that men have agreed to believe. but it is a human interest, and a satisfaction of normal minds to establish, so far as reason permits, the credibility of every record ostensibly historic. to discover that ancient experiences, once supposed to be miraculous raisings from real death, may reasonably be classed with well attested experiences of to-day, better understood as resuscitations from a deathlike trance, should be welcomed by unprejudiced historical critics, as redeeming portions of the ancient record from mistaken disparagement as legendary. that further study may accredit as facts, or at least as founded on facts, some other marvels in that record cannot, except by arrant dogmatism, be pronounced improbable. nevertheless, it cannot be expected that the legendary element, which both the old and the new testament in greater and less degree exhibit, can ever be eliminated. such stories as that of the origin of languages at babel, and that of the resurrection of ancient saints at jesus' resurrection are indubitable cases of it. but the legendary element, though permanent, is at present undefined. to define it is the problem of the critical student, a problem most difficult to him whose judgment is least subjective; and he will welcome every contribution that advancing knowledge can supply. regarding miracle as the natural product of exceptionally endowed life, there is no source from which more light can be shed on its biblical record than in those studies of the exceptional phenomena and occult powers of life which are prosecuted by the society for psychical research, whose results are recorded in its published _proceedings_. for those familiar with this record the legendary element in the bible tends to shrink into smaller compass than many critics assign it. in the interest both of the bible and of science it is regrettable that the results of these researches, though conducted by men of high eminence in the scientific world, still encounter the same hostile scepticism even from some christian believers that hume directed against the biblical miracles. mr. gladstone has put himself on record against this philistinism, saying that "psychical research is by far the most important work that is being done in the world." were one disposed to prophesy, very reasonable grounds could be produced for the prediction that, great as was the advance of the nineteenth century in physical knowledge, the twentieth century will witness an advance in psychical knowledge equally great. in this advance one may not unreasonably anticipate that some, at least, of the biblical miracles may be relieved from the scepticism that now widely discredits them. footnotes: [37] luke i. 35. [38] to what extent the law of atrophy has begun to work upon the doctrine of the virgin birth appears in the recent utterance of so eminent an evangelical scholar as dr. r. f. horton, of london. the following report of his remarks in a christmas sermon in 1901 is taken from the _christian world_, london. "we could not imagine paul, peter, and john all ignoring something essential to the gospel they preached. strictly speaking, this narrative in matthew and luke was one of the latest touches in the gospel, belonging to a period forty or fifty years after the lord had passed away, when men had begun to realize what he was--the son of god--and tried to express their conviction in this form or that." the implication here is unmistakable, that, in dr. horton's view, subjective considerations in the minds of pious believers, rather than objective fact, form the basis of the story. [39] see the sermon on "born of a virgin," in the volume on _the incarnation of our lord_. [40] "christian thought has not erred by asserting too much concerning the incarnation of god, but, on the contrary, too little.... if ever overblown by blasts of denial, it is for wanting breadth of base.... men have disbelieved the incarnation, because told that all there was of it was in christ; and they reject what is presented as exceptional to the general way of god. they must be told to believe more; that the age-long way of god is in a perpetually increasing incarnation of life, whose climax and crown is the divine fulness of life in christ."--from a discourse by the present writer on "life and its incarnations," in the volume, _new points to old texts_. (james clarke & co., london. thomas whittaker, new york, 1889.) [41] see page 97 and note. [42] romans i. 4. [43] 1 corinthians xv. 16-23. [44] _our risen king's forty days_, 1902. [45] in strong contrast with this are the reactionary protests of dr. w. r. nicoll: "to talk of the resurrection of the spirit is preposterous. the spirit does not die, and therefore cannot rise.... the one resurrection of which the new testament knows, the one resurrection which allows to language any meaning, is the resurrection of the body, the resurrection which leaves the grave empty" (_op. cit._ p. 134). it should be noted here that jesus' argument with the sadducees on the resurrection (luke xx. 37, 38) logically proceeds on the assumption that living after death and rising after death are convertible terms. also, that the contrast involved in the idea of the resurrection (the _anastasis_, or rising up) is a contrast not between the grave and the sky, but between the lower life of mortals and the higher life immortal. for an extended exhibition of this line of evidence see "the assurance of immortality," and "the present pledge of life to come" (in two volumes of discourses by the present writer), london, james clarke & co. new york, thomas whittaker, 1888 and 1889. [46] could it have been only an apparition? the "census of hallucinations" conducted some ten years since by the society for psychical research evinced the reality of veridical apparitions of deceased persons at or near the time of their death, showing the number of verified cases to be so large as to exclude the supposition of chance hallucination (see _proceedings_, august, 1894). or could it have been a material body suddenly becoming visible in a closed room, as narrated by luke and john? first-class evidence, if there can be any such for such occurrences, has been exhibited for such phenomena as the passage of solid substances through intervening doors and walls--easy enough, say mathematicians, for a being familiar with the "fourth dimension"--and of the levitation of heavy bodies without physical support. (see _proceedings_, january, 1894, and march, 1895.) as to such things scepticism is doubtless in order, but dogmatic contradiction is not. _sub judice lis est._ [47] professor borden p. bowne has thus exhibited this great mistake and its grievous consequence:-"in popular thought, religious and irreligious alike, the natural is supposed to be something that runs itself without any internal guidance or external interference. the supernatural, on the other hand, if there be any such thing, is not supposed to manifest itself through the natural, but by means of portents, prodigies, interpositions, departures from, or infractions of, natural law in general. the realm of law belongs to the natural, and the natural runs itself. hence, if we are to find anything supernatural, we must look for it in the abnormal, the chaotic, the lawless, or that which defies all reduction to order that may be depended on. this notion underlies the traditional debate between naturalism and supernaturalism.... this unhappy misconception of the relation of the natural to the supernatural has practically led the great body of uncritical thinkers into the grotesque inversion of all reason--the more law and order, the less god."--_zion's herald_, august 22, 1900. viii viii synopsis.--the cardinal point in the present discussion, the reality not of miracles but of the supernatural.--fallacy of pointing to physical events as essential characteristics of supernatural revelation.--the character of a revelation determined not by its circumstances, but by its contents.--moral nature supernatural to physical.--nature a hierarchy of natures.--supernatural religion historically attested by the moral development it generates.--transfer of its distinctive note from moral ideals to physical marvels a costly error.--jesus' miracles _a_ revelation, of a type common with others before and since.--the unique revelation of jesus was in the higher realm of divine ideas and ideals.--these, while unrealized in human life, still exhibit the fact of a supernatural revelation.--the distinction of natural and supernatural belongs to the period of moral progress up to the spiritual maturity of man in the image of god. the divine possibilities of humanity, imaged in jesus, revealed as our inheritance and our prize. it remains finally to emphasize the point of cardinal importance in the considerations that have been presented. this is not the reality of miracles, but the reality of the supernatural, what it really is, as distinct from what it has been thought to be. the advance of science and philosophy has brought to the front this question: "have those who reject the claims of supernatural religion been misinformed as to what it is?" is it, as they have been told, dependent for its attestation on signs and wonders occurring in the sphere of the senses? does it require acceptance of these, as well as of its teachings? or is its characteristic appeal wholly to the higher nature of man, relying for its attestation on the witness borne to it by this, rather than by extraordinary phenomena presented to the senses? there is at present no intellectual interest of christianity more urgent than this: to present to minds imbued with modern learning the true conception of the supernatural and of supernatural religion. miracles, legitimately viewed as the natural product of extraordinary psychical power, or, to phrase it otherwise, of an exceptional vital endowment, belong not to the hebrew race alone, nor did they cease when the last survivor of the jewish apostles of christianity passed away at the end of the first century. this traditional opinion ought by this time to have been entombed together with its long defunct relative, which represented this globe as the fixed centre of the revolving heavens. miracles have the same universality as human life. nor will their record be closed till the evolution of life is complete. animal life, advancing through geologic æons to the advent of man, in him reached its climax. spiritual life, appearing in him as a new bud on an old stock, is evidently far from its climax still. to believe in miracles, as rightly understood, is to believe in spirit and life, and in further unfoldings of their still latent powers. this, however, is just now of subordinate importance. the present interest of chief moment is a riddance of the hoary fallacy that vitiates the current idea of a supernatural revelation by looking for its specific characteristics to the physical world. by this deplorable fallacy christian theology has blinded the minds of many scientific men to the essential claims of christianity, with immense damage in the arrested development of their religious nature through the scepticism inevitably but needlessly provoked by this great mistake. when elijah proclaims to idolaters that their deity is no god, and, as we read, corroborates his words by calling down fire from heaven to consume his sacrifice, it is reckoned as supernatural revelation. but it is not so reckoned when the sage in the book of proverbs proclaims to a nation of religious formalists the moral character of god: "to do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the lord than sacrifice." this is accounted as ethical teaching, somewhat in advance of the times. a pagan rather than a christian way of thinking is discoverable here. in each of the cases cited the specific character of supernatural revelation is equally evident,--the disclosure of spiritual truth above the natural thought of the natural men to whom it came. the character of any revelation is determined by the character of the truth made known, not by the drapery of circumstances connected with the making known. clothes do not make the man, though coarse or careless people may think so. what belongs to the moral and spiritual order is supernatural to what belongs to the material and physical order. this way of thinking will be forced on common minds by thoughtful observation of common things. animate nature of the lowest rank, as in the grass, is of a higher natural order than inanimate nature in the soil the grass springs from. sentient nature, as in the ox, is of a higher order than the non-sentient in the grass. self-conscious and reflective nature in the man is of a higher order than the selfless and non-reflective nature in his beast of burden. in the composite being of man all these orders of nature coexist, and each higher is supernatural to the nature below it. nature, the comprehensive term for _all that comes into being_, is a hierarchy of natures, rising rank above rank from the lowest to the highest. the highest nature known to us, supernatural to all below it, can only be the moral nature, whose full satisfaction is necessary to the highest satisfaction of a man, and in whose complete development only can be realized in permanency his perfected welfare as a social being. now it is precisely in the progress of moral development that supernatural religion manifests itself as a reality. religion, indeed, is as natural to man as art. but there is religion and religion, as there is art and art--the sexual religion of the primitive semites, the animistic religion of china, the spiritual religion that flowered on the mount of the beatitudes, embryonic religion and religion adult; all, indeed, natural, yet of lower and of higher grade. doubtless, religion of whatever grade outranks all other human activities by its distinctive aspiration to transcend the bounds of space and time and sense, and to link the individual to the universal; and so all religion sounds, feebly or distinctly, the note of the supernatural. but this is the resonant note of the spiritual religion which unfolds in the moral progress of the world. as moral nature is supernatural to the psychical and the physical, so is its consummate bloom of spiritual religion to be ranked as such, relatively to the religions which more or less dimly and blindly are yearning and groping toward the light that never was on sea or land. thus defining the word according to the nature of the thing, supernatural religion, with its corollary of supernatural revelation not as an apparition from without, but as an unfolding from within, is both a fact and a factor in the development of spiritual man. the term _supernatural religion_ has been rightly applied to that system of religious conceptions, ideals, and motives, whose effective culture of the moral nature is attested historically by a moral development superior to the product of any other known religion. whether the greatest saints of christianity are all of them whiter souls than any that can be found among the disciples of any other religion, may be matter for argument. there can be no gainsaying the fact that, of great and lowly together, no other religion shows so many saints, or has so advanced the general moral development in lands where it is widely followed. but its essential character has been obscured, its appeal to man's highest nature foiled, and its power lamed by the wretched fallacy that has transferred its distinctive note of the supernatural from its divine ideals to the physical marvels embedded in the record of its original promulgation, even conditioning its validity and authority upon their reality. such is the false issue which, to the discredit of christianity, theology has presented to science. such is the confusion of ideas that in the light of modern knowledge inevitably blocks the way to a reasonable religious faith in multitudes of minds thereby offended. from this costly error christian theology at length shows signs that it is about to extricate itself.[48] as to the christian miracles, there can be no reasonable doubt that "mighty works," deemed by many of his contemporaries superhuman, were wrought by jesus. these, whatever they were, must be regarded as the natural effluence of a transcendently endowed life. taking place in the sphere of the senses, they were _a_ revelation of the type seen before and since in the lives of wonder-workers ancient and modern, in whom the power of mind over matter, however astonishing and mysterious, is recognized as belonging to the natural order of things no less than the unexplored antarctic belongs to the globe. but _the_ revelation which he gave to human thought as a new thing, a heavenly vision unprecedented, was in the higher realm of the moral and spiritual life. this was the true supernatural, whose reality and power are separable from all its environment of circumstances, and wholly independent thereof. the characteristic ideals of jesus, his profound consciousness of god, his filial thought of god, his saturation with the conviction of his moral oneness with god,[49] his realization of brotherhood with the meanest human being, still transcend the common level of natural humanity even among his disciples. as thus transcendent they are supernatural still. till reached and realized, they manifest the fact of a supernatural revelation in that peerless life as plainly as the sun is manifest in the splendor of a cloudless day. in the coming but distant age, when man's spiritual nature, now so embryonic, shall have become adult, it will doubtless so pervade and rule the physical and psychical natures which it inhabits that the distinction between natural and supernatural, so important in the period of its development, will become foreign alike to thought and speech. but until the making of man in the image of god is complete, when the spiritual element in our composite being, now struggling for development, shall be manifest in its ultimate maturity and ascendency as the distinctive and proper nature of humanity, it is of supreme importance for the christian teacher, who would point and urge to the heights of being, to free men's minds of error as to what the real supernatural is. not the fancied disturber of the world's ordered harmonies, but that highest nature which is the moulder, the glory, and the crown of all the lower. imaged to us in the human perfectness of jesus, the ideal son of man, it is revealed as the distinctive inheritance and prize of the humanity that essays to think the thoughts and walk the ways of god. to each of us is it given in germ by our human birth, to be fostered and nourished in converse with the infinite presence that inhabits all things, till its divine possibilities appear in the ultimate "revealing of the sons of god,"[50] full grown "according to the measure of the stature of the fulness of christ."[51] footnotes: [48] "upon the conception of the supernatural as the personal," says professor nash, "apologetics must found the claims of christianity."--_ethics and revelation._ [49] the words in which jesus expresses this are much more extraordinary and profoundly significant than any of those mighty works of his, the like of which are recorded of the ancient prophets. jesus was conscious of god as living in him, and of himself as living in god, in the unity of the one eternal life. not merely as a man _of_ god, but as a man _in_ god, as no other man has consciously been, does jesus utter such sayings as, "i am the light of the world," "i and my father are one." (see "jesus the ideal man," by the present writer. _the new world_, june, 1897.) [50] romans viii. 19. [51] ephesians iv. 13. new testament handbooks edited by shailer mathews _professor of new testament history and interpretation, university of chicago_ arrangements are made for the following volumes, and the publishers will, on request, send notice of the issue of each volume as it appears and each descriptive circular sent out later; such requests for information should state whether address is permanent or not:-the history of the textual criticism of the new testament prof. marvin r. vincent, professor of new testament exegesis, union theological seminary. [_now ready._ professor vincent's contributions to the study of the new testament rank him among the first american exegetes. his most recent publication is "a critical and exegetical commentary on the epistles to the philippians and to philemon" (_international critical commentary_), which was preceded by a "students' new testament handbook," "word studies in the new testament," and others. the history of the higher criticism of the new testament prof. henry s. nash, professor of new testament interpretation, cambridge divinity school. [_now ready._ of professor nash's "genesis of the social conscience," _the outlook_ said: "the results of professor nash's ripe thought are presented in a luminous, compact, and often epigrammatic style. the treatment is at once masterful and helpful, and the book ought to be a quickening influence of the highest kind; it surely will establish the fame of its author as a profound thinker, one from whom we have a right to expect future inspiration of a kindred sort." introduction to the books of the new testament prof. b. wisner bacon, professor of new testament interpretation, yale university. [_now ready._ professor bacon's works in the field of old testament criticism include "the triple tradition of exodus," and "the genesis of genesis," a study of the documentary sources of the books of moses. in the field of new testament study he has published a number of brilliant papers, the most recent of which is "the autobiography of jesus," in the _american journal of theology_. the history of new testament times in palestine prof. shailer mathews, professor of new testament history and interpretation, the university of chicago. [_now ready._ _the congregationalist_ says of prof. shailer mathews's recent work, "the social teaching of jesus": "re-reading deepens the impression that the author is scholarly, devout, awake to all modern thought, and yet conservative and pre-eminently sane. if, after reading the chapters dealing with jesus' attitude toward man, society, the family, the state, and wealth, the reader will not agree with us in this opinion, we greatly err as prophets." the life of paul prof. rush rhees, president of the university of rochester. professor rhees is well known from his series of "inductive lessons" contributed to the _sunday school times_. his "outline of the life of paul," privately printed, has had a flattering reception from new testament scholars. the history of the apostolic age dr. c. w. votaw, instructor in new testament literature, the university of chicago. of dr. votaw's "inductive study of the founding of the christian church," _modern church_, edinburgh, says: "no fuller analysis of the later books of the new testament could be desired, and no better programme could be offered for their study, than that afforded in the scheme of fifty lessons on the _founding of the christian church_, by clyde w. votaw. it is well adapted alike for practical and more scholarly students of the bible." the teaching of jesus prof. george b. stevens, professor of systematic theology, yale university. [_now ready._ professor stevens's volumes upon "the johannine theology," "the pauline theology," as well as his recent volume on "the theology of the new testament," have made him probably the most prominent writer on biblical theology in america. his new volume will be among the most important of his works. the biblical theology of the new testament prof. e. p. gould, professor of new testament interpretation, protestant episcopal divinity school, philadelphia. [_now ready._ professor gould's commentaries on the gospel of mark (in the _international critical commentary_) and the epistles to the corinthians (in the _american commentary_) are critical and exegetical attempts to supply those elements which are lacking in existing works of the same general aim and scope. the history of christian literature until eusebius prof. j. w. platner, professor of early church history, harvard university. professor platner's work will not only treat the writings of the early christian writers, but will also treat of the history of the new testament canon. others to follow "an excellent series of scholarly, yet concise and inexpensive new testament handbooks."--_christian advocate_, new york. "these books are remarkably well suited in language, style, and price, to all students of the new testament."--_the congregationalist_, boston. * * * * * the macmillan company 66 fifth avenue, new york transcriber's note (significant amendments): p. 28, 'saltpêtrière' amended to _salpêtrière_. proofreaders. html version by al haines. the miracles of our lord by george macdonald the miracles of our lord 1870 contents i. introduction ii. the beginning of miracles iii. the cure of simon's wife's mother iv. miracles of healing unsolicited v. miracles of healing solicited by the suffers vi. miracles granted to the prayer of friends vii. the casting out of devils viii. the raising of the dead ix. the government of nature x. miracles of destruction xi. the resurrection xii. the transfiguration i. introduction. i have been requested to write some papers on our lord's miracles. i venture the attempt in the belief that, seeing they are one of the modes in which his unseen life found expression, we are bound through them to arrive at some knowledge of that life. for he has come, the word of god, that we may know god: every word of his then, as needful to the knowing of himself, is needful to the knowing of god, and we must understand, as far as we may, every one of his words and every one of his actions, which, with him, were only another form of word. i believe this the immediate end of our creation. and i believe that this will at length result in the unravelling for us of what must now, more or less, appear to every man the knotted and twisted coil of the universe. it seems to me that it needs no great power of faith to believe in the miracles--for true faith is a power, not a mere yielding. there are far harder things to believe than the miracles. for a man is not required to believe in them save as believing in jesus. if a man can believe that there is a god, he may well believe that, having made creatures capable of hungering and thirsting for him, he must be capable of speaking a word to guide them in their feeling after him. and if he is a grand god, a god worthy of being god, yea (his metaphysics even may show the seeker), if he is a god capable of being god, he will speak the clearest grandest word of guidance which he can utter intelligible to his creatures. for us, that word must simply be the gathering of all the expressions of his visible works into an infinite human face, lighted up by an infinite human soul behind it, namely, that potential essence of man, if i may use a word of my own, which was in the beginning with god. if god should _thus_ hear the cry of the noblest of his creatures, for such are all they who do cry after him, and in very deed show them his face, it is but natural to expect that the deeds of the great messenger should be just the works of the father done in little. if he came to reveal his father in miniature, as it were (for in these unspeakable things we can but use figures, and the homeliest may be the holiest), to tone down his great voice, which, too loud for men to hear it aright, could but sound to them as an inarticulate thundering, into such a still small voice as might enter their human ears in welcome human speech, then the works that his father does so widely, so grandly that they transcend the vision of men, the son must do briefly and sharply before their very eyes. this, i think, is the true nature of the miracles, an epitome of god's processes in nature beheld in immediate connection with their source--a source as yet lost to the eyes and too often to the hearts of men in the far-receding gradations of continuous law. that men might see the will of god at work, jesus did the works of his father thus. here i will suppose some honest, and therefore honourable, reader objecting: but do you not thus place the miracles in dignity below the ordinary processes of nature? i answer: the miracles are mightier far than any goings on of nature as beheld by common eyes, dissociating them from a living will; but the miracles are surely less than those mighty goings on of nature with god beheld at their heart. in the name of him who delighted to say "my father is greater than i," i will say that his miracles in bread and in wine were far less grand and less beautiful than the works of the father they represented, in making the corn to grow in the valleys, and the grapes to drink the sunlight on the hill-sides of the world, with all their infinitudes of tender gradation and delicate mystery of birth. but the son of the father be praised, who, as it were, condensed these mysteries before us, and let us see the precious gifts coming at once from gracious hands--hands that love could kiss and nails could wound. there are some, i think, who would perhaps find it more possible to accept the new testament story if the miracles did not stand in the way. but perhaps, again, it would be easier for them, to accept both if they could once look into the true heart of these miracles. so long as they regard only the surface of them, they will, most likely, see in them only a violation of the laws of nature: when they behold the heart of them, they will recognize there at least a possible fulfilment of her deepest laws. with such, however, is not my main business now, any more than with those who cannot believe in a god at all, and therefore to whom a miracle is an absurdity. i may, however, just make this one remark with respect to the latter--that perhaps it is better they should believe in no god than believe in such a god as they have yet been able to imagine. perhaps thus they are nearer to a true faith--except indeed they prefer the notion of the unconscious generating the conscious, to that of a self-existent love, creative in virtue of its being love. such have never loved woman or child save after a fashion which has left them content that death should seize on the beloved and bear them back to the maternal dust. but i doubt if there can be any who thus would choose a sleep--walking pan before a wakeful father. at least, they cannot know the father and choose the pan. let us then recognize the works of the father as epitomized in the miracles of the son. what in the hands of the father are the mighty motions and progresses and conquests of life, in the hands of the son are miracles. i do not myself believe that he valued the working of these miracles as he valued the utterance of the truth in words; but all that he did had the one root, _obedience_, in which alone can any son be free. and what is the highest obedience? simply a following of the father--a doing of what the father does. every true father wills that his child should be as he is in his deepest love, in his highest hope. all that jesus does is of his father. what we see in the son is of the father. what his works mean concerning him, they mean concerning the father. much as i shrink from the notion of a formal shaping out of design in any great life, so unlike the endless freedom and spontaneity of nature (and he is the nature of nature), i cannot help observing that his first miracle was one of creation--at least, is to our eyes more like creation than almost any other--for who can say that it was creation, not knowing in the least what creation is, or what was the process in this miracle? ii. the beginning of miracles. already jesus had his disciples, although as yet he had done no mighty works. they followed him for himself and for his mighty words. with his mother they accompanied him to a merry-making at a wedding. with no retiring regard, with no introverted look of self-consciousness or self-withdrawal, but more human than any of the company, he regarded their rejoicings with perfect sympathy, for, whatever suffering might follow, none knew so well as he that- "there is one who makes the joy the last in every song." the assertion in the old legendary description of his person and habits, that he was never known to smile, i regard as an utter falsehood, for to me it is incredible--almost as a geometrical absurdity. in that glad company the eyes of a divine artist, following the spiritual lines of the group, would have soon settled on his face as the centre whence radiated all the gladness, where, as i seem to see him, he sat in the background beside his mother. even the sunny face of the bridegroom would appear less full of light than his. but something is at hand which will change his mood. for no true man had he been if his mood had never changed. his high, holy, obedient will, his tender, pure, strong heart never changed, but his mood, his feeling did change. for the mood must often, and in many cases ought to be the human reflex of changing circumstance. the change comes from his mother. she whispers to him that they have no more wine. the bridegroom's liberality had reached the limit of his means, for, like his guests, he was, most probably, of a humble calling, a craftsman, say, or a fisherman. it must have been a painful little trial to him if he knew the fact; but i doubt if he heard of the want before it was supplied. there was nothing in this however to cause the change in our lord's mood of which i have spoken. it was no serious catastrophe, at least to him, that the wine should fail. his mother had but told him the fact; only there is more than words in every commonest speech that passes. it was not his mother's words, but the tone and the look with which they were interwoven that wrought the change. she knew that her son was no common man, and she believed in him, with an unripe, unfeatured faith. this faith, working with her ignorance and her fancy, led her to expect the great things of the world from him. this was a faith which must fail that it might grow. imperfection must fail that strength may come in its place. it is well for the weak that their faith should fail them, for it may at the moment be resting its wings upon the twig of some brittle fancy, instead of on a branch of the tree of life. but, again, what was it in his mother's look and tone that should work the change in our lord's mood? the request implied in her words could give him no offence, for he granted that request; and he never would have done a thing he did not approve, should his very mother ask him. the _thoughts of_ the mother lay not in her words, but in the expression that accompanied them, and it was to those thoughts that our lord replied. hence his answer, which has little to do with her spoken request, is the key both to her thoughts and to his. if we do not understand his reply, we _may_ misunderstand the miracle--certainly we are in danger of grievously misunderstanding him--a far worse evil. how many children are troubled in heart that jesus should have spoken to his mother as our translation compels them to suppose he did speak! "woman, what have i to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come." his hour for working the miracle _had_ come, for he wrought it; and if he had to do with one human soul at all, that soul must be his mother. the "woman," too, sounds strange in our ears. this last, however, is our fault: we allow words to sink from their high rank, and then put them to degraded uses. what word so full of grace and tender imagings to any true man as that one word! the saviour did use it to his mother; and when he called her _woman_, the good custom of the country and the time was glorified in the word as it came from his lips _fulfilled_, of humanity; for those lips were the open gates of a heart full of infinite meanings. hence whatever word he used had more of the human in it than that word had ever held before. what he did say was this--"woman, what is there common to thee and me? my hour is not yet come." what! was not their humanity common to them? had she not been fit, therefore chosen, to bear him? was she not his mother? but his words had no reference to the relation between them; they only referred to the present condition of her mind, or rather the nature of the thought and expectation which now occupied it. her hope and his intent were at variance; there was no harmony between his thought and hers; and it was to that thought and that hope of hers that his words were now addressed. to paraphrase the words--and if i do so with reverence and for the sake of the spirit which is higher than the word, i think i am allowed to do so-"woman, what is there in your thoughts now that is in sympathy with mine? also the hour that you are expecting is not come yet." what, then, was in our lord's thoughts? and what was in his mother's thoughts to call forth his words? she was thinking the time had come for making a show of his power--for revealing what a great man he was--for beginning to let that glory shine, which was, in her notion, to culminate in the grandeur of a righteous monarch--a second solomon, forsooth, who should set down the mighty in the dust, and exalt them of low degree. here was the opportunity for working like a prophet of old, and revealing of what a mighty son she was the favoured mother. and of what did the glow of her face, the light in her eyes, and the tone with which she uttered the words, "they have no wine," make jesus think? perhaps of the decease which he must accomplish at jerusalem; perhaps of a throne of glory betwixt the two thieves; certainly of a kingdom of heaven not such as filled her imagination, even although her heaven-descended son was the king thereof. a kingdom of exulting obedience, not of acquiescence, still less of compulsion, lay germed in his bosom, and he must be laid in the grave ere that germ could send up its first green lobes into the air of the human world. no throne, therefore, of earthly grandeur for him! no triumph for his blessed mother such as she dreamed! there was nothing common in their visioned ends. hence came the change of mood to jesus, and hence the words that sound at first so strange, seeming to have so little to do with the words of his mother. but no change of mood could change a feeling towards mother or friends. the former, although she could ill understand what he meant, never fancied in his words any unkindness to her. she, too, had the face of the speaker to read; and from that face came such answer to her prayer for her friends, that she awaited no confirming words, but in the confidence of a mother who knew her child, said at once to the servants, "whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." if any one object that i have here imagined too much, i would remark, first, that the records in the gospel are very brief and condensed; second, that the germs of a true intelligence must lie in this small seed, and our hearts are the soil in which it must unfold itself; third, that we are bound to understand the story, and that the foregoing are the suppositions on which i am able to understand it in a manner worthy of what i have learned concerning him. i am bound to refuse every interpretation that seems to me unworthy of him, for to accept such would be to sin against the holy ghost. if i am wrong in my idea either of that which i receive or of that which i reject, as soon as the fact is revealed to me i must cast the one away and do justice to the other. meantime this interpretation seems to me to account for our lord's words in a manner he will not be displeased with even if it fail to reach the mark of the fact. that st john saw, and might expect such an interpretation to be found in the story, barely as he has told it, will be rendered the more probable if we remember his own similar condition and experience when he and his brother james prayed the lord for the highest rank in his kingdom, and received an answer which evidently flowed from the same feeling to which i have attributed that given on this occasion to his mother. "'fill the water-pots with water.' and they filled them up to the brim. 'draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast.' and they bare it. 'thou hast kept the good wine until now.'" it is such a thing of course that, when our lord gave them wine, it would be of the best, that it seems almost absurd to remark upon it. what the father would make and will make, and that towards which he is ever working, is _the best;_ and when our lord turns the water into wine it must be very good. it is like his father, too, not to withhold good wine because men abuse it. enforced virtue is unworthy of the name. that men may rise above temptation, it is needful that they should have temptation. it is the will of him who makes the grapes and the wine. men will even call jesus himself a wine-bibber. what matters it, so long as he works as the father works, and lives as the father wills? i dare not here be misunderstood. god chooses that men should be tried, but let a man beware of tempting his neighbour. god knows how and how much, and where and when: man is his brother's keeper, and must keep him according to his knowledge. a man may work the will of god for others, and be condemned therein because he sought his own will and not god's. that our lord gave this company wine, does not prove that he would have given any company wine. to some he refused even the bread they requested at his hands. because he gave wine to the wedding-guests, shall man dig a pit at the corner of every street, that the poor may fall therein, spending their money for that which is not bread, and their labour for that which satisfieth not? let the poor man be tempted as god wills, for the end of god is victory; let not man tempt him, for his end is his neighbour's fall, or at best he heeds it not for the sake of gain, and he shall receive according to his works. to him who can thank god with free heart for his good wine, there is a glad significance in the fact that our lord's first miracle was this turning of water into wine. it is a true symbol of what he has done for the world in glorifying all things. with his divine alchemy he turns not only water into wine, but common things into radiant mysteries, yea, every meal into a eucharist, and the jaws of the sepulchre into an outgoing gate. i do not mean that he makes any change in the things or ways of god, but a mighty change in the hearts and eyes of men, so that god's facts and god's meanings become their faiths and their hopes. the destroying spirit, who works in the commonplace, is ever covering the deep and clouding the high. for those who listen to that spirit great things cannot be. such are there, but they cannot see them, for in themselves they do not aspire. they believe, perhaps, in the truth and grace of their first child: when they have spoiled him, they laugh at the praises of childhood. from all that is thus low and wretched, incapable and fearful, he who made the water into wine delivers men, revealing heaven around them, god in all things, truth in every instinct, evil withering and hope springing even in the path of the destroyer. that the wine should be his first miracle, and that the feeding of the multitudes should be the only other creative miracle, will also suggest many thoughts in connection with the symbol he has left us of his relation to his brethren. in the wine and the bread of the eucharist, he reminds us how utterly he has given, is giving, himself for the gladness and the strength of his father's children. yea more; for in that he is the radiation of the father's glory, this bread and wine is the symbol of how utterly the father gives himself to his children, how earnestly he would have them partakers of his own being. if jesus was the son of the father, is it hard to believe that he should give men bread and wine? it was not his power, however, but his glory, that jesus showed forth in the miracle. his power could not be hidden, but it was a poor thing beside his glory. yea, power in itself is a poor thing. if it could stand alone, which it cannot, it would be a horror. no amount of lonely power could create. it is the love that is at the root of power, the power of power, which alone can create. what then was this his glory? what was it that made him glorious? it was that, like his father, he ministered to the wants of men. had they not needed the wine, not for the sake of whatever show of his power would he have made it. the concurrence of man's need and his love made it possible for that glory to shine forth. it is for this glory most that we worship him. but power is no object of adoration, and they who try to worship it are slaves. their worship is no real worship. those who trembled at the thunder from the mountain went and worshipped a golden calf; but moses went into the thick darkness to find his god. how far the expectation of the mother mary that her son would, by majesty of might, appeal to the wedding guests, and arouse their enthusiasm for himself, was from our lord's thoughts, may be well seen in the fact that the miracle was not beheld even by the ruler of the feast; while the report of it would probably receive little credit from at least many of those who partook of the good wine. so quietly was it done, so entirely without pre-intimation of his intent, so stolenly, as it were, in the two simple ordered acts, the filling of the water-pots with water, and the drawing of it out again, as to make it manifest that it was done for the ministration. he did not do it even for the show of his goodness, but _to be good_. this alone could show his father's goodness. it was done because here was an opportunity in which all circumstances combined with the bodily presence of the powerful and the prayer of his mother, to render it fit that the love of his heart should go forth in giving his merry-making brothers and sisters more and better wine to drink. and herein we find another point in which this miracle of jesus resembles the working of his father. for god ministers to us so gently, so stolenly, as it were, with such a quiet, tender, loving absence of display, that men often drink of his wine, as these wedding guests drank, without knowing whence it comes--without thinking that the giver is beside them, yea, in their very hearts. for god will not compel the adoration of men: it would be but a pagan worship that would bring to his altars. he will rouse in men a sense of need, which shall grow at length into a longing; he will make them feel after him, until by their search becoming able to behold him, he may at length reveal to them the glory of their father. he works silently--keeps quiet behind his works, as it were, that he may truly reveal himself in the right time. with this intent also, when men find his wine good and yet do not rise and search for the giver, he will plague them with sore plagues, that the good wine of life may not be to them, and therefore to him and the universe, an evil thing. it would seem that the correlative of creation is search; that as god has _made us_, we must _find_ him; that thus our action must reflect his; that thus he glorifies us with a share in the end of all things, which is that the father and his children may be one in thought, judgment, feeling, and intent, in a word, that they may mean the same thing. st john says that jesus thus "manifested forth his glory, and his disciples believed on him." i doubt if any but his disciples knew of the miracle; or of those others who might see or hear of it, if any believed on him because of it. it is possible to see a miracle, and not believe in it; while many of those who saw a miracle of our lord believed in the miracle, and yet did not believe in him. i wonder how many christians there are who so thoroughly believe god made them that they can laugh in god's name; who understand that god invented laughter and gave it to his children. such belief would add a keenness to the zest in their enjoyment, and slay that sneering laughter of which a man grimaces to the fiends, as well as that feeble laughter in which neither heart nor intellect has a share. it would help them also to understand the depth of this miracle. the lord of gladness delights in the laughter of a merry heart. these wedding guests could have done without wine, surely without more wine and better wine. but the father looks with no esteem upon a bare existence, and is ever working, even by suffering, to render life more rich and plentiful. his gifts are to the overflowing of the cup; but when the cup would overflow, he deepens its hollow, and widens its brim. our lord is profuse like his father, yea, will, at his own sternest cost, be lavish to his brethren. he will give them wine indeed. but even they who know whence the good wine comes, and joyously thank the giver, shall one day cry out, like the praiseful ruler of the feast to him who gave it not, "thou hast kept the good wine until now." iii. the cure of simon's wife's mother. in respect of the purpose i have in view, it is of little consequence in what order i take the miracles. i choose for my second chapter the story of the cure of st peter's mother-in-law. bare as the narrative is, the event it records has elements which might have been moulded with artistic effect--on the one side the woman tossing in the folds of the fever, on the other the entering life. but it is not from this side that i care to view it. neither do i wish to look at it from the point of view of the bystanders, although it would appear that we had the testimony of three of them in the three gospels which contain the story. we might almost determine the position in the group about the bed occupied by each of the three, from the differences between their testimonies. one says jesus stood over her; another, he touched her hand; the third, he lifted her up: they agree that the fever left her, and she ministered to them.--in the present case, as in others behind, i mean to regard the miracle from the point of view of the person healed. pain, sickness, delirium, madness, as great infringements of the laws of nature as the miracles themselves, are such veritable presences to the human experience, that what bears no relation to their existence, cannot be the god of the human race. and the man who cannot find his god in the fog of suffering, no less than he who forgets his god in the sunshine of health, has learned little either of st paul or st john. the religion whose light renders no dimmest glow across this evil air, cannot be more than a dim reflex of the true. and who will mourn to find this out? there are, perhaps, some so anxious about themselves that, rather than say, "i have it not: it is a better thing than i have ever possessed," they would say, "i have the precious thing, but in the hour of trial it is of little avail." let us rejoice that the glory is great, even if we dare not say, it is mine. then shall we try the more earnestly to lay hold upon it. so long as men must toss in weary fancies all the dark night, crying, "would god it were morning," to find, it may be, when it arrives, but little comfort in the grey dawn, so long must we regard god as one to be seen or believed in--cried unto at least--across all the dreary flats of distress or dark mountains of pain, and therefore those who would help their fellows must sometimes look for him, as it were, through the eyes of those who suffer, and try to help them to think, not from ours, but from their own point of vision. i shall therefore now write almost entirely for those to whom suffering is familiar, or at least well known. and first i would remind them that all suffering is against the ideal order of things. no man can love pain. it is an unlovely, an ugly, abhorrent thing. the more true and delicate the bodily and mental constitution, the more must it recoil from pain. no one, i think, could dislike pain so much as the saviour must have disliked it. god dislikes it. he is then on our side in the matter. he knows it is grievous to be borne, a thing he would cast out of his blessed universe, save for reasons. but one will say--how can this help me when the agony racks me, and the weariness rests on me like a gravestone?--is it nothing, i answer, to be reminded that suffering is in its nature transitory--that it is against the first and final will of god--that it is a means only, not an end? is it nothing to be told that it will pass away? is not that what you would? god made man for lordly skies, great sunshine, gay colours, free winds, and delicate odours; and however the fogs may be needful for the soul, right gladly does he send them away, and cause the dayspring from on high to revisit his children. while they suffer he is brooding over them an eternal day, suffering with them but rejoicing in their future. he is the god of the individual man, or he could be no god of the race. i believe it is possible--and that some have achieved it--so to believe in and rest upon the immutable health--so to regard one's own sickness as a kind of passing aberration, that the soul is thereby sustained, even as sometimes in a weary dream the man is comforted by telling himself it is but a dream, and that waking is sure. god would have us reasonable and strong. every effort of his children to rise above the invasion of evil in body or in mind is a pleasure to him. few, i suppose, attain to this; but there is a better thing which to many, i trust, is easier--to say, thy will be done. but now let us look at the miracle as received by the woman. she had "a great fever." she was tossing from side to side in vain attempts to ease a nameless misery. her head ached, and forms dreary, even in their terror, kept rising before her in miserable and aimless dreams; senseless words went on repeating themselves ill her very brain was sick of them; she was destitute, afflicted, tormented; now the centre for the convergence of innumerable atoms, now driven along in an uproar of hideous globes; faces grinned and mocked at her; her mind ever strove to recover itself, and was ever borne away in the rush of invading fancies; but through it all was the nameless unrest, not an aching, nor a burning, nor a stinging, but a bodily grief, dark, drear, and nameless. how could they have borne such before he had come? a sudden ceasing of motions uncontrolled; a coolness gliding through the burning skin; a sense of waking into repose; a consciousness of all-pervading well-being, of strength conquering weakness, of light displacing darkness, of urging life at the heart; and behold! she is sitting up in her bed, a hand clasping hers, a face looking in hers. he has judged the evil thing, and it is gone. he has saved her out of her distresses. they fold away from off her like the cerements of death. she is new-born--new-made--all things are new-born with her--and he who makes all things new is there. from him, she knows, has the healing flowed. he has given of his life to her. away, afar behind her floats the cloud of her suffering. she almost forgets it in her grateful joy. she is herself now. she rises. the sun is shining. it had been shining all the time--waiting for her. the lake of galilee is glittering joyously. that too sets forth the law of life. but the fulfilling of the law is love: she rises and ministers. i am tempted to remark in passing, although i shall have better opportunity of dealing with the matter involved, that there is no sign of those whom our lord cures desiring to retain the privileges of the invalid. the joy of health is labour. he who is restored must be fellow-worker with god. this woman, lifted out of the whelming sand of the fever and set upon her feet, hastens to her ministrations. she has been used to hard work. it is all right now; she must to it again. but who was he who had thus lifted her up? she saw a young man by her side. is it the young man, jesus, of whom she has heard? for capernaum is not far from nazareth, and the report of his wisdom and goodness must have spread, for he had grown in favour with man as well as with god. is it he, to whom god has given such power, or is it john, of whom she has also heard? whether he was a prophet or a son of the prophets, whether he was jesus or john, she waits not to question; for here are guests; here is something to be done. questions will keep; work must be despatched. it is the day, and the night is at hand. she rose and ministered unto them. but if we ask who he is, this is the answer: he is the son of god come to do the works of his father. where, then, is the healing of the father? all the world over, in every man's life and knowledge, almost in every man's personal experience, although it may be unrecognized as such. for just as in certain moods of selfishness our hearts are insensible to the tenderest love of our surrounding families, so the degrading spirit of the commonplace _enables_ us to live in the midst of ministrations, so far from knowing them as such, that it is hard for us to believe that the very heart of god would care to do that which his hand alone can do and is doing every moment. i remind my reader that i have taken it for granted that he confesses there is a god, or at least hopes there may be a god. if any one interposes, saying that science nowadays will not permit him to believe in such a being, i answer it is not for him i am now writing, but for such as have gone through a different course of thought and experience from his. to him i may be honoured to say a word some day. i do not think of him now. but to the reader of my choice i do say that i see no middle course between believing that every alleviation of pain, every dawning of hope across the troubled atmosphere of the spirit, every case of growing well again, is the doing of god, or that there is no god at all--none at least in whom _i_ could believe. had christians been believing in god better, more grandly, the present phase of unbelief, which no doubt is needful, and must appear some time in the world's history, would not have appeared in our day. no doubt it has come when it must, and will vanish when it must; but those who do believe are more to blame for it, i think, than those who do not believe. the common kind of belief in god is rationally untenable. half to an insensate nature, half to a living god, is a worship that cannot stand. god is all in all, or no god at all. the man who goes to church every sunday, and yet trembles before chance, is a christian only because christ has claimed him; is not a christian as having believed in him. i would not be hard. there are so many degrees in faith! a man may be on the right track, may be learning of christ, and be very poor and weak. but i say there is no _standing_ room, no reality of reason, between absolute faith and absolute unbelief. either not a sparrow falls to the ground without him, or there is no god, and we are fatherless children. those who attempt to live in such a limbo as lies between the two, are only driven of the wind and tossed. has my reader ever known the weariness of suffering, the clouding of the inner sky, the haunting of spectral shapes, the misery of disordered laws, when nature is wrong within him, and her music is out of tune and harsh, when he is shot through with varied griefs and pains, and it seems as there were no life more in the world, save of misery--"pain, pain ever, for ever"? then, surely, he has also known the turn of the tide, when the pain begins to abate, when the sweet sleep falls upon soul and body, when a faint hope doubtfully glimmers across the gloom! or has he known the sudden waking from sleep and from fever at once, the consciousness that life is life, that life is the law of things, the coolness and the gladness, when the garments of pain which, like that fabled garment of dejanira, enwrapped and ate into his being, have folded back from head and heart, and he looks out again once more new-born? it is god. this is his will, his law of life conquering the law of death tell me not of natural laws, as if i were ignorant of them, or meant to deny them. the question is whether these laws go wheeling on of themselves in a symmetry of mathematical shapes, or whether their perfect order, their unbroken certainty of movement, is not the expression of a perfect intellect informed by a perfect heart. law is truth: has it a soul of thought, or has it not? if not, then farewell hope and love and possible perfection. but for me, i will hope on, strive on, fight with the invading unbelief; for the horror of being the sport of insensate law, the more perfect the more terrible, is hell and utter perdition. if a man tells me that science says god is not a likely being, i answer, probably not--such as you, who have given your keen, admirable, enviable powers to the observation of outer things only, are capable of supposing him; but that the god i mean may not be the very heart of the lovely order you see so much better than i, you have given me no reason to fear. my god may be above and beyond and in all that. in this matter of healing, then, as in all the miracles, we find jesus doing the works of the father. god is our saviour: the son of god comes healing the sick--doing that, i repeat, before our eyes, which the father, for his own reasons, some of which i think i can see well enough, does from behind the veil of his creation and its laws. the cure comes by law, comes by the physician who brings the law to bear upon us; we awake, and lo! i it is god the saviour. every recovery is as much his work as the birth of a child; as much the work of the father as if it had been wrought by the word of the son before the eyes of the multitude. need i, to combat again the vulgar notion that the essence of the miracles lies in their power, dwell upon this miracle further? surely, no one who honours the saviour will for a moment imagine him, as he entered the chamber where the woman lay tormented, saying to himself, "here is an opportunity of showing how mighty my father is!" no. there was suffering; here was healing. what i could imagine him saying to himself would be, "here i can help! here my father will let me put forth my healing, and give her back to her people." what should we think of a rich man, who, suddenly brought into contact with the starving upon his own estate, should think within himself, "here is a chance for me! now i can let them see how rich i am!" and so plunge his hands in his pockets and lay gold upon the bare table? the receivers might well be grateful; but the arm of the poor neighbour put under the head of the dying man, would gather a deeper gratitude, a return of tenderer love. it is heart alone that can satisfy heart. it is the love of god alone that can gather to itself the love of his children. to believe in an almighty being is hardly to believe in a god at all. to believe in a being who, in his weakness and poverty, if such could be, would die for his creatures, would be to believe in a god indeed. iv. miracles of healing unsolicited. in my last chapter i took the healing of simon's wife's mother as a type of all such miracles, viewed from the consciousness of the person healed. in the multitude of cases--for it must not be forgotten that there was a multitude of which we have no individual record--the experience must have been very similar. the evil thing, the antagonist of their life, departed; they knew in themselves that they were healed; they beheld before them the face and form whence the healing power had gone forth, and they believed in the man. what they believed _about_ him, farther than that he had healed them and was good, i cannot pretend to say. some said he was one thing, some another, but they believed in the man himself. they felt henceforth the strongest of ties binding his life to their life. he was now the central thought of their being. their minds lay open to all his influences, operating in time and by holy gradations. the well of life was henceforth to them an unsealed fountain, and endless currents of essential life began to flow from it through their existence. high love urging gratitude awoke the conscience to intenser life; and the healed began to recoil from evil deeds and vile thoughts as jarring with the new friendship. mere acquaintance with a good man is a powerful antidote to evil; but the knowledge of _such_ a man, as those healed by him knew him, was the mightiest of divine influences. in these miracles of healing our lord must have laid one of the largest of the foundation-stones of his church. the healed knew him henceforth, not by comprehension, but with their whole being. their very life acknowledged him. they returned to their homes to recall and love afresh. i wonder what their talk about him was like. what an insight it would give into our common nature, to know how these men and women thought and spoke concerning him! but the time soon arrived when they had to be public martyrs--that is, witnesses to what they knew, come of it what might. after our lord's departure came the necessity for those who loved him to gather together, thus bearing their testimony at once. next to his immediate disciples, those whom he had cured must have been the very heart of the young church. imagine the living strength of such a heart--personal love to the personal helper the very core of it. the church had begun with the first gush of affection in the heart of the mother mary, and now "great was the company of those that published" the good news to the world. the works of the father had drawn the hearts of the children, and they spake of the elder brother who had brought those works to their doors. the thoughtful remembrances of those who had heard him speak; the grateful convictions of those whom he had healed; the tender memories of those whom he had taken in his arms and blessed--these were the fine fibrous multitudinous roots which were to the church existence, growth, and continuance, for these were they which sucked in the dews and rains of that descending spirit which was the life of the tree. individual life is the life of the church. but one may say: why then did he not cure all the sick in judã¦a? simply because all were not ready to be cured. many would not have believed in him if he had cured them. their illness had not yet wrought its work, had not yet ripened them to the possibility of faith; his cure would have left them deeper in evil than before. "he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief." god will cure a man, will give him a fresh start of health and hope, and the man will be the better for it, even without having _yet_ learned to thank him; but to behold the healer and acknowledge the outstretched hand of help, yet not to believe in the healer, is a terrible thing for the man; and i think the lord kept his personal healing for such as it would bring at once into some relation of heart and will with himself; whence arose his frequent demand of faith--a demand apparently always responded to: at the word, the flickering belief, the smoking flax, burst into a flame. evil, that is, physical evil, is a moral good--a mighty means to a lofty end. pain is an evil; but a good as well, which it would be a great injury to take from the man before it had wrought its end. then it becomes all evil, and must pass. i now proceed to a group of individual cases in which, as far as we can judge from the narratives, our lord gave the gift of restoration unsolicited. there are other instances of the same, but they fall into other groups, gathered because of other features. the first is that, recorded by st luke alone, of the "woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself." it may be that this belongs to the class of demoniacal possession as well, but i prefer to take it here; for i am very doubtful whether the expression in the narrative--"a spirit of infirmity," even coupled with that of our lord in defending her and himself from the hypocritical attack of the ruler of the synagogue, "this woman--whom satan hath bound," renders it necessary to regard it as one of the latter kind. this is, however, a matter of small importance--at least from our present point of view. bowed earthwards, the necessary blank of her eye the ground and not the horizon, the form divine deformed towards that of the four-footed animals, this woman had been in bondage eighteen years. necessary as it is to one's faith to believe every trouble fitted for the being who has to bear it, every physical evil not merely the result of moral evil, but antidotal thereto, no one ought to dare judge of the relation between moral condition and physical suffering in individual cases. our lord has warned us from that. but in proportion as love and truth prevail in the hearts of men, physical evil will vanish from the earth. the righteousness of his descendants will destroy the disease which the unrighteousness of their ancestor has transmitted to them. but, i repeat, to destroy this physical evil save by the destruction of its cause, by the redemption of the human nature from moral evil, would be to ruin the world. what in this woman it was that made it right she should bear these bonds for eighteen years, who can tell? certainly it was not that god had forgotten her. what it may have preserved her from, one may perhaps conjecture, but can hardly have a right to utter. neither can we tell how she had borne the sad affliction; whether in the lovely patience common amongst the daughters of affliction, or with the natural repining of one made to behold the sun, and doomed ever to regard the ground upon which she trod. while patience would have its glorious reward in the cure, it is possible that even the repinings of prideful pain might be destroyed by the grand deliverance, that gratitude might beget sorrow for vanished impatience. anyhow the right hour had come when the darkness must fly away. supported, i presume, by the staff which yet more assimilated her to the lower animals, she had crept to the synagogue--a good sign surely, for the synagogue was not its ruler. there is no appearance from the story, that she had come there to seek jesus, or even that when in his presence she saw him before the word of her deliverance had gone forth. most likely, being bowed together, she heard him before she saw him. but he saw her. our translation says he called her to him. i do not think this is correct. i think the word, although it might mean that, does mean simply that he _addressed her_. going to her, i think, and saying, "woman, thou art loosed from thy infirmity," "he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified god." what an uplifting!--a type of all that god works in his human beings. the head, down-bent with sin, care, sorrow, pain, is uplifted; the grovelling will sends its gaze heavenward; the earth is no more the one object of the aspiring spirit; we lift our eyes to god; we bend no longer even to his will, but raise ourselves up towards his will, for his will has become our will, and that will is our sanctification. although the woman did not beg the son to cure her, she may have prayed the father much. anyhow proof that she was ready for the miracle is not wanting. she glorified god. it is enough. she not merely thanked the man who had wrought the cure, for of this we cannot doubt; but she glorified the known saviour, god, from whom cometh down every good gift and every perfect gift. she had her share in the miracle i think too, as, in his perfect bounty, god gives a share to every one in what work he does for him. i mean, that, with the given power, _she_ had to _lift herself_ up. such active faith is the needful response in order that a man may be a child of god, and not the mere instrument upon which his power plays a soulless tune. in this preventing of prayer, in this answering before the call, in this bringing of the blessing to the door, according to which i have grouped this with the following miracles, jesus did as his father is doing every day. he was doing the works of his father. if men had no help, no deliverance from the ills which come upon them, even those which they bring upon themselves, except such as came at their cry; if no salvation descended from god, except such as they prayed for, where would the world be? in what case would the generations of men find themselves? but the help of god is ever coming, ever setting them free whom satan hath bound; ever giving them a fresh occasion and a fresh impulse to glorify the god of their salvation. for with every such recovery the child in the man is new-born--for some precious moments at least; a gentleness of spirit, a wonder at the world, a sense of the blessedness of being, an openness to calm yet rousing influences, appear in the man. these are the descending angels of god. the passion that had blotted out the child will revive; the strife of the world will renew wrath and hate; ambition and greed will blot out the beauty of the earth; envy of others will blind the man to his own blessedness; and self-conceit will revive in him all those prejudices whose very strength lies in his weakness; but the man has had a glimpse of the peace to gain which he must fight with himself; he has for one moment felt what he might be if he trusted in god; and the memory of it may return in the hour of temptation. as the commonest things in nature are the most lovely, so the commonest agencies in humanity are the most powerful. sickness and recovery therefrom have a larger share in the divine order of things for the deliverance of men than can show itself to the keenest eyes. isolated in individuals, the facts are unknown; or, slow and obscure in their operation, are forgotten by the time their effects appear. many things combine to render an enlarged view of the moral influences of sickness and recovery impossible. the kingdom cometh not with observation, and the working of the leaven of its approach must be chiefly unseen. like the creative energy itself, it works "in secret shadow, far from all men's sight." the teaching of our lord which immediately follows concerning the small beginnings of his kingdom, symbolized in the grain of mustard seed and the leaven, may, i think, have immediate reference to the cure of this woman, and show that he regarded her glorifying of god for her recovery as one of those beginnings of a mighty growth. we do find the same similes in a different connection in st matthew and st mark; but even if we had no instances of fact, it would be rational to suppose that the lord, in the varieties of place, audience, and occasion, in the dullness likewise of his disciples, and the perfection of the similes he chose, would again and again make use of the same. i now come to the second miracle of the group, namely that, recorded by all the evangelists except st john, of the cure of the man with the withered hand. this, like the preceding, was done in the synagogue. and i may remark, in passing, that all of this group, with the exception of the last--one of very peculiar circumstance--were performed upon the sabbath, and each gave rise to discussion concerning the lawfulness of the deed. st mark says they watched jesus to see whether he would heal the man on the sabbath-day; st luke adds that he knew their thoughts, and therefore met them with the question of its lawfulness; st matthew says they challenged him to the deed joy asking him whether it was lawful. the mere watching could hardly have taken place without the man's perceiving something in motion which had to do with him. but there is no indication of a request. there cannot surely be many who have reached half the average life of man without at some time having felt the body a burden in some way, and regarded a possible deliverance from it as an enfranchisement. if the spirit of man were fulfilled of the spirit of god, the body would simply be a living house, an obedient servant--yes, a humble mediator, by the senses, between his thoughts and god's thoughts; but when every breath has, as it were, to be sent for and brought hither with much labour and small consolation--when pain turns faith into a mere shadow of hope--when the withered limb hangs irresponsive, lost and cumbersome, an inert simulacrum of power, swinging lifeless to and fro;--then even the physical man understands his share in the groaning of the creation after the sonship. when, at a word issuing from such a mouth as that of jesus of nazareth, the poor, withered, distorted, contemptible hand obeyed and, responsive to the spirit within, spread forth its fingers, filled with its old human might, became capable once more of the grasp of friendship, of the caress of love, of the labour for the bread that sustains the life, little would the man care that other men--even rulers of synagogues, even scribes and pharisees, should question the rectitude of him who had healed him. the power which restored the gift of god and completed humanity, must be of god. argument upon argument might follow from old books and old customs and learned interpretations, wherein man set forth the will of god as different from the laws of his world, but the man whose hand was restored whole as the other, knew it fitting that his hands should match. they might talk; he would thank god for the crooked made straight. bewilder his judgment they might with their glosses upon commandment and observance; but they could not keep his heart from gladness; and, being glad, whom should he praise but god? if there was another giver of good things he knew nothing of him. the hand was now as god had meant it to be. nor could he behold the face of jesus, and doubt that such a man would do only that which was right. it was not satan, but god that had set him free. here, plainly by the record, our lord gave the man his share, not of mere acquiescence, but of active will, in the miracle. if man is the child of god, he must have a share in the works of the father. without such share in the work as faith gives, cure will be of little avail. "stretch forth thine hand," said the healer; and the man made the effort; and the withered hand obeyed, and was no more withered. _in_ the act came the cure, without which the act had been confined to the will, and had never taken form in the outstretching. it is the same in all spiritual redemption. think for a moment with what delight the man would employ his new hand. this right hand would henceforth be god's hand. but was not the other hand god's too?--god's as much as this? had not the power of god been always present in that left hand, whose unwithered life had ministered to him all these years? was it not the life of god that inspired his whole frame? by the loss and restoration in one part, he would understand possession in the whole. but as the withered and restored limb to the man, so is the maimed and healed man to his brethren. in every man the power by which he does the commonest things is the power of god. the power is not _of us_. our power does it; but we do not make the power. this, plain as it is, remains, however, the hardest lesson for a man to learn with conviction and thanksgiving. for god has, as it were, put us just so far away from him that we can exercise the divine thing in us, our own will, in returning towards our source. then we shall learn the fact that we are infinitely more great and blessed in being the outcome of a perfect self-constituting will, than we could be by the conversion of any imagined independence of origin into fact for us--a truth no man _can_ understand, feel, or truly acknowledge, save in proportion as he has become one with his perfect origin, the will of god. while opposition exists between the thing made and the maker, there can be but discord and confusion in the judgment of the creature. no true felicitous vision of the facts of the relation between his god and him; no perception of the mighty liberty constituted by the holy dependence wherein the will of god is the absolutely free choice of the man; no perception of a unity such as cannot exist between independent wills, but only in unspeakable love and tenderness between the causing will and the caused will, can yet have place. those who cannot see how the human will should be free in dependence upon the will of god, have not realized that the will of god made the will of man; that, when most it pants for freedom, the will of man is the child of the will of god, and therefore that there can be no natural opposition or strife between them. nay, more, the whole labour of god is that the will of man should be free as his will is free--in the same way that his will is free--by the perfect love of the man for that which is true, harmonious, lawful, creative. if a man say, "but might not the will of god make my will with the intent of over-riding and enslaving it?" i answer, such a will could not create, could not be god, for it involves the false and contrarious. that would be to make a will in order that it might be no will. to create in order to uncreate is something else than divine. but a free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulse. there lies freedom indeed. i come now to the case of the man who had been paralysed for eight-and-thirty years. there is great pathos in the story. for many, at least, of these years, the man had haunted the borders of legendary magic, for i regard the statement about the angel troubling the pool as only the expression of a current superstition. oh, how different from the healing of our lord! what he had to bestow was free to all. the cure of no man by his hand weakened that hand for the cure of the rest. none were poorer that one was made rich. but this legend of the troubling of the pool fostered the evil passion of emulation, and that in a most selfish kind. nowhere in the divine arrangements is my gain another's loss. if it be said that this was the mode in which god determined which was to be healed, i answer that the effort necessary was contrary to all we admire most in humanity. according to this rule, sir philip sidney ought to have drunk the water which he handed to the soldier instead. does the doctrine of christ, and by that i insist we must interpret the ways of god, countenance a man's hurrying to be before the rest, and gain the boon in virtue t of having the least need of it, inasmuch as he was the ablest to run and plunge first into the eddies left by the fantastic angel? or if the triumph were to be gained by the help of friends, surely he was in most need of the cure who like this man--a man such as we hope there are few--had no friends either to plunge him in the waters of fabled hope, or to comfort him in the seasons of disappointment which alone divided the weary months of a life passed in empty expectation. but the master comes near. in him the power of life rests as in "its own calm home, its crystal shrine," and he that believeth in him shall not need to make haste. he knew it was time this man should be healed, and did not wait to be asked. indeed the man did not know him; did not even know his name. "wilt thou be made whole?" "sir, i have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while i am coming, another steppeth down before me." "rise, take up thy bed, and walk." our lord delays the cure in this case with no further speech. the man knows nothing about him, and he makes no demand upon his faith, except that of obedience. he gives him something to do at once. he will find him again by and by. the man obeys, takes up his bed, and walks. he sets an open path before us; _we_ must walk in it. more, we must be willing to believe that the path is open, that we have strength to walk in it. god's gift glides into man's choice. it is needful that we should follow with our effort in the track of his foregoing power. to refuse is to destroy the gift. his cure is not for such as choose to be invalids. they must be willing to be made whole, even if it should involve the carrying of their beds and walking. some keep in bed who have strength enough to get up and walk. there is a self-care and a self-pity, a laziness and conceit of incapacity, which are as unhealing for the body as they are unhealthy in the mind, corrupting all dignity and destroying all sympathy. who but invalids need like miracles wrought in them? yet some invalids are not cured because they will not be healed. they will not stretch out the hand; they will not rise; they will not walk; above all things, they will not work. yet for their illness it may be that the work so detested is the only cure, or if no cure yet the best amelioration. labour is not in itself an evil like the sickness, but often a divine, a blissful remedy. nor is the duty or the advantage confined to those who ought to labour for their own support. no amount of wealth sets one free from the obligation to work--in a world the god of which is ever working. he who works not has not yet discovered what god made him for, and is a false note in the orchestra of the universe. the possession of wealth is as it were pre-payment, and involves an obligation of honour to the doing of correspondent work. he who does not know what to do has never seriously asked himself what he ought to do. but there is a class of persons, the very opposite of these, who, as extremes meet, fall into a similar fault. they will not be healed either. they will not take the repose in which god giveth to his beloved. some sicknesses are to be cured with rest, others with labour. the right way is all--to meet the sickness as god would have it met, to submit or to resist according to the conditions of cure. whatsoever is not of faith is sin; and she who will not go to her couch and rest in the lord, is to blame even as she who will not rise and go to her work. there is reason to suppose that this man had brought his infirmity upon himself--i do not mean by the mere neglect of physical laws, but by the doing of what he knew to be wrong. for the lord, although he allowed the gladness of the deliverance full sway at first, when he found him afterwards did not leave him without the lesson that all health and well-being depend upon purity of life: "behold, thou art made whole: sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee." it is the only case of recorded cure in which jesus gives a warning of the kind. therefore i think the probability is as i have stated it. hence, the fact that we may be ourselves to blame for our sufferings is no reason why we should not go to god to deliver us from them. david the king knew this, and set it forth in that grand poem, the 107th psalm. in the very next case we find that jesus will not admit the cause of the man's condition, blindness from his birth, to be the sin either of the man himself, or of his parents. the probability seems, to judge from their behaviour in the persecution that followed, that both the man and his parents were people of character, thought, and honourable prudence. he was born blind, jesus said, "that the works of god should be made manifest in him." what works, then? the work of creation for one, rather than the work of healing. the man had suffered nothing in being born blind. god had made him only not so blessed as his fellows, with the intent of giving him equal faculty and even greater enjoyment afterwards, with the honour of being employed for the revelation of his works to men. in him jesus created sight before men's eyes. for, as at the first god said, "let there be light," so the work of god is still to give light to the world, and jesus must work his work, and _be_ the light of the world--light in all its degrees and kinds, reaching into every corner where work may be done, arousing sleepy hearts, and opening blind eyes. jesus saw the man, the disciples asked their question, and he had no sooner answered it, than "he spat on the ground, made clay of the spittle, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay."--why this mediating clay? why the spittle and the touch?--because the man who could not see him must yet be brought into sensible contact with him--must know that the healing came from the man who touched him. our lord took pains about it because the man was blind. and for the man's share in the miracle, having blinded him a second time as it were with clay, he sends him to the pool to wash it away: clay and blindness should depart together by the act of the man's faith. it was as if the lord said, "i blinded thee: now, go and see." here, then, are the links of the chain by which the lord bound the man to himself. the voice, if heard by the man, which defended him and his parents from the judgment of his disciples; the assertion that he was the light of the world--a something which others had and the blind man only knew as not possessed by him; the sound of the spitting on the ground; the touch of the speaker's fingers; the clay on his eyes; the command to wash; the journey to the pool; the laving water; the astonished sight. "he went his way, therefore, and washed, and came seeing." but who can imagine, save in a conception only less dim than the man's blindness, the glory which burst upon him when, as the restoring clay left his eyes, the light of the world invaded his astonished soul? the very idea may well make one tremble. blackness of darkness--not an invading stranger, but the home-companion always there--the negation never understood because the assertion was unknown--creation not erased and treasured in the memory, but to his eyes uncreated!--blackness of darkness!.... the glory of the celestial blue! the towers of the great jerusalem dwelling in the awful space! the room! the life! the tenfold-glorified being! any wonder might follow on such a wonder. and the whole vision was as fresh as if he had that moment been created, the first of men. but the best remained behind. a man had said, "i am the light of the world," and lo! here was the light of the world. the words had been vague as a dark form in darkness, but now the thing itself had invaded his innermost soul. but the face of the man who was this light of the world he had not seen. the creator of his vision he had not yet beheld. but he believed in him, for he defended him from the same charge of wickedness from which jesus had defended him. "give god the praise," they said; "we know that this man is a sinner." "god heareth not sinners," he replied; "and this man hath opened my eyes." it is no wonder that when jesus found him and asked him, "dost thou believe on the son of god?" he should reply, "who is he, lord, that i might believe on him?" he was ready. he had only to know which was he, that he might worship him. here at length was the light of the world before him--the man who had said, "i am the light of the world," and straightway the world burst upon him in light! would this man ever need further proof that there was indeed a god of men? i suspect he had a grander idea of the son of god than any of his disciples as yet. the would-be refutations of experience, for "since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind;" the objections of the religious authorities, "this man is not of god, because he keepeth not the sabbath day;" endless possible perplexities of the understanding, and questions of the _how_ and the _why_, could never touch that man to the shaking of his confidence: "one thing i know, that whereas i was blind, now i see." the man could not convince the jews that jesus must be a good man; neither could he doubt it himself, whose very being, body and soul and spirit, had been enlightened and glorified by him. with light in the eyes, in the brain, in the heart, light permeating and unifying his physical and moral nature, asserting itself in showing the man to himself one whole--how could he doubt! the miracles were for the persons on whom they passed. to the spectators they were something, it is true; but they were of unspeakable value to, and of endless influence upon their subjects. the true mode in which they reached others was through the healed themselves. and the testimony of their lives would go far beyond the testimony of their tongues. their tongues could but witness to a fact; their lives could witness to a truth. in this miracle as in all the rest, jesus did in little the great work of the father; for how many more are they to whom god has given the marvel of vision than those blind whom the lord enlightened! the remark will sound feeble and far-fetched to the man whose familiar spirit is that mephistopheles of the commonplace. he who uses his vision only for the care of his body or the indulgence of his mind--how should he understand the gift of god in its marvel? but the man upon whose soul the grandeur and glory of the heavens and the earth and the sea and the fountains of waters have once arisen will understand what a divine _invention_, what a mighty gift of god is this very common thing--these eyes to see with--that light which enlightens the world, this sight which is the result of both. he will understand what a believer the man born blind must have become, yea, how the mighty inburst of splendour might render him so capable of believing that nothing should be too grand and good for him to believe thereafter--not even the doctrine hardest to commonplace humanity, though the most natural and reasonable to those who have beheld it--that the god of the light is a faithful, loving, upright, honest, and self-denying being, yea utterly devoted to the uttermost good of those whom he has made. such is the father of lights who enlightens the world and every man that cometh into it. every pulsation of light on every brain is from him. every feeling of law and order is from him. every hint of right, every desire after the true, whatever we call aspiration, all longing for the light, every perception that this is true, that that ought to be done, is from the father of lights. his infinite and varied light gathered into one point--for how shall we speak at all of these things if we do not speak in figures?--concentrated and embodied in jesus, became _the_ light of the world. for the light is no longer only diffused, but in him man "beholds the light _and whence it flows_." not merely is our chamber enlightened, but we see the lamp. and so we turn again to god, the father of lights, yea even of the light of the world. henceforth we know that all the light wherever diffused has its centre in god, as the light that enlightened the blind man flowed from its centre in jesus. in other words, we have a glimmering, faint, human perception of the absolute glory. we know what god is in recognizing him as our god. jesus did the works of the father. the next miracle--recorded by st luke alone--is the cure of the man with the dropsy, wrought also upon the sabbath, but in the house of one of the chief of the pharisees. thither our lord had gone to an entertainment, apparently large, for the following parable is spoken "to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms." [footnote: 1. not _rooms_, but _reclining places_ at the table.] hence the possibility at least is suggested, that the man was one of the guests. no doubt their houses were more accessible than ours, and it was not difficult for one uninvited to make his way in, especially upon occasion of such a gathering. but i think the word translated _before him_ means _opposite to him_ at the table; and that the man was not too ill to appear as a guest. the "took him and healed him and let him go," of our translation, is against the notion rather, but merely from its indefiniteness being capable of meaning that he sent him away; but such is not the meaning of the original. that merely implies that he _took him_, went to him and laid his hands upon him, thus connecting the cure with himself, and then released him, set him free, took his hands off him, turning at once to the other guests and justifying himself by appealing to their own righteous conduct towards the ass and the ox. i think the man remained reclining at the table, to enjoy the appetite of health at a good meal; if, indeed, the gladness of the relieved breath, the sense of lightness and strength, the consciousness of a restored obedience of body, not to speak of the presence of him who had cured him, did not make him too happy to care about his dinner. i come now to the last of the group, exceptional in its nature, inasmuch as it was not the curing of a disease or natural defect, but the reparation of an injury, or hurt at least, inflicted by one of his own followers. this miracle also is recorded by st luke alone. the other evangelists relate the occasion of the miracle, but not the miracle itself; they record the blow, but not the touch. i shall not, therefore, compare their accounts, which have considerable variety, but no inconsistency. i shall confine myself to the story as told by st luke. peter, intending, doubtless, to cleave the head of a servant of the high priest who had come out to take jesus, with unaccustomed hand, probably trembling with rage and perhaps with fear, missed his well-meant aim, and only cut off the man's ear. jesus said, "suffer ye thus far." i think the words should have a point of interrogation after them, to mean, "is it thus far ye suffer?" "is this the limit of your patience?" but i do not know. with the words, "he touched his ear and healed him." hardly had the wound reached the true sting of its pain, before the gentle hand of him whom the servant had come to drag to the torture, dismissed the agony as if it had never been. whether he restored the ear, or left the loss of it for a reminder to the man of the part he had taken against his lord, and the return the lord had made him, we do not know. neither do we know whether he turned back ashamed and contrite, now that in his own person he had felt the life that dwelt in jesus, or followed out the capture to the end. possibly the blow of peter was the form which the favour of god took, preparing the way, like the blindness from the birth, for the glory that was to be manifested in him. but the lord would countenance no violence done in his defence. they might do to him as they would. if his father would not defend him, neither would he defend himself. within sight of the fearful death that awaited him, his heart was no whit hardened to the pain of another. neither did it make any difference that it was the pain of an enemy--even an enemy who was taking him to the cross. there was suffering; here was healing. he came to do the works of him that sent him. he did good to them that hated him, for his father is the saviour of men, saving "them out of their distresses." v. miracles of healing solicited by the sufferers. i come now to the second group of miracles, those granted to the prayers of the sufferers. but before i make any general remarks on the speciality of these, i must speak of one case which appears to lie between the preceding group and this. it is that of the woman who came behind jesus in the crowd; and involves peculiar difficulties, in connection with the facts which render its classification uncertain. at capernaum, apparently, our lord was upon his way with jairus to visit his daughter, accompanied by a crowd of people who had heard the request of the ruler of the synagogue. a woman who had been ill for twelve years, came behind him and touched the hem of his garment. this we may regard as a prayer in so far as she came to him, saying "within herself, if i may but touch his garment, i shall be whole." but, on the other hand, it was no true prayer in as far as she expected to be healed without the knowledge and will of the healer. although she came to him, she did not ask him to heal her. she thought with innocent theft to steal from him a cure. what follows according to st matthew's account, occasions me no difficulty. he does not say that the woman was cured by the touch; he says nothing of her cure until jesus had turned and seen her, and spoken the word to her, whereupon he adds: "and the woman was made whole from that hour." but st mark and st luke represent that the woman was cured upon the touch, and that the cure was only confirmed afterwards by the words of our lord. they likewise represent jesus as ignorant of what had taken place, except in so far as he knew that, without his volition, some cure had been wrought by contact with his person, of which he was aware by the passing from him of a saving influence. by this, in the heart of a crowd which pressed upon him so that many must have come into bodily contact with him, he knew that some one had touched him with special intent. no perplexity arises from the difference between the accounts, for there is only difference, not incongruity: the two tell more than the one; it is from the nature of the added circumstances that it springs, for those circumstances necessarily involve inquiries of the most difficult nature. nor can i in the least pretend to have satisfied myself concerning them. in the first place comes the mode of the cure, which _seems_ at first sight (dissociated, observe, from the will of the healer) to partake of the nature of magic--an influence without a sufficient origin. not for a moment would i therefore yield to an inclination to reject the testimony. i have no right to do so, for it deals with circumstances concerning which my ignorance is all but complete. i cannot rest, however, without seeking to come into some spiritual relation with the narrative, that is, to find some credible supposition upon which, without derogating from the lustre of the object of the whole history, the thing might take place. the difficulty, i repeat, is, that the woman could be cured by the garment of jesus, without (not against) the will of jesus. i think that the whole difficulty arises from our ignorance--a helpless ignorance--of the relations of thought and matter. i use the word _thought_ rather than spirit, because in reflecting upon spirit (which is thought), people generally represent to themselves a vague form of matter. all religion is founded on the belief or instinct--call it what we will--that matter is the result of mind, spirit, thought. the relation between them is therefore simply too close, too near for us to understand. here is what i am able to suggest concerning the account of the miracle as given by st mark and st luke. if even in what we call inanimate things there lies a healing power in various kinds; if, as is not absurd, there may lie in the world absolute cure existing in analysis, that is parted into a thousand kinds and forms, who can tell what cure may lie in a perfect body, informed, yea, caused, by a perfect spirit? if stones and plants can heal by the will of god in them, might there not dwell in the perfect health of a body, in which dwelt the son of god, a necessarily healing power? it may seem that in the fact of the many crowding about him, concerning whom we have no testimony of influence received, there lies a refutation of his supposition. but who can tell what he may have done even for them without their recognizing it save in conscious well-being? besides, those who crowded nearest him would mostly be of the strongest who were least in need of a physician, and in whose being consequently there lay not that bare open channel hungering for the precious life-current. and who can tell how the faith of the heart, calming or arousing the whole nature, may have rendered the very person of the woman more fit than the persons of others in the crowd to receive the sacred influence? for although she did not pray, she had the faith as alive though as small as the mustard seed. why might not health from the fountain of health flow then into the empty channel of the woman's weakness? it may have been so. i shrink from the subject, i confess, because of the vulgar forms such speculations have assumed in our days, especially in the hands of those who savour unspeakably more of the charlatan than the prophet. still, one must be honest and truthful even in regard to what he has to distinguish, as he can, into probable and impossible. fact is not the sole legitimate object of human inquiry. if it were, farewell to all that elevates and glorifies human nature--farewell to god, to religion, to hope! it is that which lies at the root of fact, yea, at the root of law, after which the human soul hungers and longs. in the preceding remarks i have anticipated a chapter to follow--a chapter of speculation, which may god make humble and right. but some remark was needful here. what must be to some a far greater difficulty has yet to be considered. it is the representation of the lord's ignorance of the cure, save from the reaction upon his own person of the influence which went out from him to fill that vacuum of suffering which the divine nature abhors: he did not know that his body was about to radiate health. but this gives me no concern. our lord himself tells us in one case, at least, that he did not know, that only his father knew. he could discern a necessary result in the future, but not the day or the hour thereof. omniscience is a consequence, not an essential of the divine nature. god knows because he creates. the father knows because he orders. the son knows because he obeys. the knowledge of the father must be perfect; such knowledge the son neither needs nor desires. his sole care is to do the will of the father. herein lies his essential divinity. although he knew that one of his apostles should betray him, i doubt much whether, when he chose judas, he knew that he was that one. we must take his own words as true. not only does he not claim perfect knowledge, but he disclaims it. he speaks once, at least, to his father with an _if it be possible_. those who believe omniscience essential to divinity, will therefore be driven to say that christ was not divine. this will be their punishment for placing knowledge on a level with love. no one who does so can worship in spirit and in truth, can lift up his heart in pure adoration. he will suppose he does, but his heaven will be in the clouds, not in the sky. but now we come to the holy of holies of the story--the divinest of its divinity. jesus could not leave the woman with the half of a gift. he could not let her away so poor. she had stolen the half: she must fetch the other half--come and take it from his hand. that is, she must know who had healed her. her will and his must come together; and for this her eyes and his, her voice and his ears, her ears and his voice must meet. it is the only case recorded in which he says _daughter_. it could not have been because she was younger than himself; there could not have been much difference between their ages in that direction. let us see what lies in the word. with the modesty belonging to her as a woman, intensified by the painful shrinking which had its origin in the peculiar nature of her suffering, she dared not present herself to the eyes of the lord, but thought merely to gather from under his table a crumb unseen. and i do not believe that our lord in calling her had any desire to make her tell her tale of grief, and, in her eyes, of shame. it would have been enough to him if she had come and stood before him, and said nothing. nor had she to appear before his face with only that poor remnant of strength which had sufficed to bring her to the hem of his garment behind him; for now she knew in herself that she was healed of her plague, and the consciousness must have been strength. yet she trembled when she came. filled with awe and gratitude, she could not stand before him; she fell down at his feet. there, hiding her face in her hands, i presume, she forgot the surrounding multitude, and was alone in the chamber of her consciousness with the son of man. her love, her gratitude, her holy awe unite in an impulse to tell him all. when the lower approaches the higher in love, even between men, the longing is to be known; the prayer is "know me." this was david's prayer to god, "search me and know me." there should be no more concealment. besides, painful as it was to her to speak, he had a right to know all, and know it he should. it was her sacrifice offered unto the lord. she told him all the truth. to conceal anything from him now would be greater pain than to tell all, for the thing concealed would be as a barrier between him and her; she would be simple--one-fold; her whole being should lie open before him. i do not for a moment mean that such thoughts, not to say words, took shape in her mind; but sometimes we can represent a single consciousness only by analysing it into twenty thoughts. and he accepted the offering. he let her speak, and tell all. but it was painful. he understood it well. his heart yearned towards the woman to shield her from her own innocent shame, to make as it were a heaven about her whose radiance should render it "by clarity invisible." her story appealed to all that was tenderest in humanity; for the secret which her modesty had hidden, her conscience had spoken aloud. therefore the tenderest word that the language could afford must be hers. "daughter," he said. it was the fullest reward, the richest acknowledgment he could find of the honour in which he held her, his satisfaction with her conduct, and the perfect love he bore her. the degrading spirit of which i have spoken, the spirit of the commonplace, which lowers everything to the level of its own capacity of belief, will say that the word was an eastern mode in more common use than with us. i say that whatever jesus did or said, he did and said like other men--he did and said as no other man did or said. if he said _daughter_, it meant what any man would mean by it; it meant what no man could mean by it--what no man was good enough, great enough, loving enough to mean by it. in him the father spoke to this one the eternal truth of his relation to all his daughters, to all the women he has made, though individually it can be heard only by those who lift up the filial eyes, lay bare the filial heart. he did the works, he spoke the words of him that sent him. well might this woman, if she dared not lift the downcast eye before the men present, yet depart in shameless peace: he who had healed her had called her _daughter_. everything on earth is paltry before such a word. it was the deepest gift of the divine nature--the recognition of the eternal in her by him who had made it. between the true father and the true daughter nothing is painful. i think also that very possibly some compunction arose in her mind, the moment she knew herself healed, at the mode in which she had gained her cure. hence when the lord called her she may have thought he was offended with her because of it. possibly her contrition for the little fault, if fault indeed it was, may have increased the agony of feeling with which she forced rather than poured out her confession. but he soothes her with gentle, consoling, restoring words: "be of good comfort." he heals the shy suffering spirit, "wherein old dints of deep wounds did remain." he confirms the cure she feared perhaps might be taken from her again. "go in peace, and be whole of thy plague." nay, more, he attributes her cure to her own faith. "thy faith hath made thee whole." what wealth of tenderness! she must not be left in her ignorance to the danger of associating power with the mere garment of the divine. she must be brought face to face with her healer. she must not be left kneeling on the outer threshold of the temple. she must be taken to the heart of the saviour, and so redeemed, then only redeemed utterly. there is no word, no backward look of reproach upon the thing she had condemned. if it was evil it was gone from between them for ever. confessed, it vanished. her faith was an ignorant faith, but, however obscured in her consciousness, it was a true faith. she believed in the man, and our lord loved the modesty that kept her from pressing into his presence. it may indeed have been the very strength of her faith working in her ignorance that caused her to extend his power even to the skirts of his garments. and there he met the ignorance, not with rebuke, but with the more grace. if even her ignorance was so full of faith, of what mighty confidence was she not capable! even the skirt of his garment would minister to such a faith. it should be as she would. through the garment of his son, the father would cure her who believed enough to put forth her hand and touch it. the kernel-faith was none the worse that it was closed in the uncomely shell of ignorance and mistake. the lord was satisfied with it. when did he ever quench the smoking flax? see how he praises her. he is never slow to commend. the first quiver of the upturning eyelid is to him faith. he welcomes the sign, and acknowledges it; commends the feeblest faith in the ignorant soul, rebukes it as little only in apostolic souls where it ought to be greater. "thy faith hath saved thee." however poor it was, it was enough for that. between death and the least movement of life there is a gulf wider than that fixed between the gates of heaven and the depths of hell. he said "_daughter_." i come now to the first instance of plain request--that of the leper who fell down before him, saying, "lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean"--a prayer lovely in the simplicity of its human pleading--appeal to the power which lay in the man to whom he spoke: his power was the man's claim; the relation between them was of the strongest--that between plenty and need, between strength and weakness, between health and disease--poor bonds comparatively between man and man, for man's plenty, strength, and health can only supplement, not satisfy the need; support the weakness, not change it into strength; mitigate the disease of his fellow, not slay it with invading life; but in regard to god, all whose power is creative, any necessity of his creatures is a perfect bond between them and him; his magnificence must flow into the channels of the indigence he has created. observe how jesus responds in the terms of the man's request. the woman found the healing where she sought it--in the hem of his garment. one man says, "come with me;" the lord goes. another says, "come not under my roof, i am not worthy;" the lord remains. here the man says, "if thou wilt;" the lord answers, "i will." but he goes far beyond the man's request. i need say nothing of the grievous complaint under which he laboured. it was sore to the mind as well as the body, for it made of the man an outcast and ashamed. no one would come near him lest he should share his condemnation. physical evil had, as it were, come to the surface in him. he was "full of leprosy." men shrink more from skin-diseases than from any other.[2] [footnote 2: and they are amongst the hardest to cure; just as the skin-diseases of the soul linger long after the heart is greatly cured. witness the petulance, fastidiousness, censoriousness, social self-assertion, general disagreeableness of so many good people--all in the moral skin--repulsive exceedingly. i say good people; i do not say _very good_, nor do i say christ-_like_, for that they are not.] jesus could have cured him with a word. there was no need he should touch him. _no need_ did i say? there was every need. for no one else would touch him. the healthy human hand, always more or less healing, was never laid on him; he was despised and rejected. it was a poor thing for the lord to cure his body; he must comfort and cure his sore heart. of all men a leper, i say, needed to be touched with the hand of love. spenser says, "entire affection hateth nicer hands." it was not for our master, our brother, our ideal man, to draw around him the skirts of his garments and speak a lofty word of healing, that the man might at least be clean before he touched him. the man was his brother, and an evil disease cleaved fast unto him. out went the loving hand to the ugly skin, and there was his brother as he should be--with the flesh of a child. i thank god that the touch went before the word. nor do i think it was the touch of a finger, or of the finger-tips. it was a kindly healing touch in its nature as in its power. oh blessed leper! thou knowest henceforth what kind of a god there is in the earth--not the god of the priests, but a god such as himself only can reveal to the hearts of his own. that touch was more than the healing. it was to the leper what the word _daughter_ was to the woman in the crowd, what the _neither do i_ was to the woman in the temple--the sign of the perfect presence. outer and inner are one with him: the outermost sign is the revelation of the innermost heart. let me linger one moment upon this coming together of creative health and destroying disease. the health must flow forth; the disease could not enter: jesus was not defiled by the touch. not that even if he would have been, he would have shrunk and refrained; he respected the human body in most evil case, and thus he acknowledged it his own. but my reader must call up for himself the analogies--only i cannot admit that they are mere analogies--between the cure of the body and the cure of the soul: here they were combined in one act, for that touch went to the man's heart. i can only hint at them here. hand to hand is enough for the cure of the bodily disease; but heart to heart will jesus visit the man who in deepest defilement of evil habits, yet lifts to him a despairing cry. the healthful heart of the lord will cure the heart spotted with the plague: it will come again as the heart of a child. _only this kind goeth not out save by prayer and abstinence_. the lord gave him something to do at once, and something not to do. he was to go to the priest, and to hold his tongue. it is easier to do than to abstain; he went to the priest; he did not hold his tongue. that the lord should send him to the priest requires no explanation. the sacred customs of his country our lord in his own person constantly recognized. that he saw in them more than the priests themselves was no reason for passing them by. the testimony which he wished the man to bear concerning him lay in the offering of the gift which moses had commanded. his healing was in harmony with all the forms of the ancient law; for it came from the same source, and would in the lapse of ages complete what the law had but begun. this the man was to manifest for him. the only other thing he required of him--silence--the man would not, at least did not, yield. the probability is that he needed the injunction for his own sake more than for the master's sake; that he was a talkative, demonstrative man, whose better life was ever in danger of evaporating in words; and that the lord required silence of him, that he might think, and give the seed time to root itself well before it shot its leaves out into the world. are there not some in our own day, who, having had a glimpse of truth across the darkness of a moral leprosy, instantly begin to blaze abroad the matter, as if it were their part at once to call to their fellows, and teach them out of an intellectual twilight, in which they can as yet see men only as trees walking, instead of retiring into the wilderness, for a time at least, to commune with their own hearts, and be still? but he meant well, nor is it any wonder that such a man should be incapable of such a sacrifice. the lord had touched him. his nature was all in commotion with gratitude. his self-conceit swelled high. his tongue would not be still. perhaps he judged himself a leper favoured above his fellow-lepers. nothing would more tend to talkativeness than such a selfish mistake. he would be grateful. he would befriend his healer against his will. he would work for him--alas! only to impede the labours of the wise; for the lord found his popularity a great obstacle to the only success he sought. "he went out and began to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that jesus could no more openly enter into the city." his nature could not yet understand the kingdom that cometh not with observation, and from presumption mingled with affection, he would serve the lord after a better fashion than that of doing his will. and he had his reward. he had his share in bringing his healer to the cross. obedience is the only service. * * * * * i take now the cure of the ten lepers, done apparently in a village of galilee towards samaria. they stood afar off in a group, probably afraid of offending him by any nearer approach, and cried aloud, "jesus, master, have mercy on us." instead of at once uttering their cure, he desired them to go and show themselves to the priests. this may have been partly for the sake of the priests, partly perhaps for the justification of his own mission, but more certainly for the sake of the men themselves, that he might, in accordance with his frequent practice, give them something wherein to be obedient. it served also, as the sequel shows, to individualize their relation to him. the relation as a group was not sufficient for the men. between him and them it must be the relation of man to man. individual faith must, as it were, break up the group--to favour a far deeper reunion. its bond was now a common suffering; it must be changed to a common faith in the healer of it. his intention wrought in them--at first with but small apparent result. they obeyed, and went to go to the priests, probably wondering whether they would be healed or not, for the beginnings of faith are so small that they can hardly be recognized as such. going, they found themselves cured. nine of them held on their way, obedient; while the tenth, forgetting for the moment in his gratitude the word of the master, turned back and fell at his feet. a moral martinet, a scribe, or a pharisee, might have said "the nine were right, the tenth was wrong: he ought to have kept to the letter of the command." not so the master: he accepted the gratitude as the germ of an infinite obedience. real love is obedience and all things beside. the lord's own devotion was that which burns up the letter with the consuming fire of love, fulfilling and setting it aside. high love needs no letter to guide it. doubtless the letter is all that weak faith is capable of, and it is well for those who keep it! but it is ill for those who do not outgrow and forget it! forget it, i say, _by outgrowing it_. the lord cared little for the letter of his own commands; he cared all for the spirit, for that was life. this man was a stranger, as the jews called him, a samaritan. therefore the lord praised him to his followers. it was as if he had said, "see, jews, who think yourselves the great praisers of god! here are ten lepers cleansed: where are the nine? one comes back to glorify god--a samaritan!" to the man himself he says, "arise, go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole." again this commending of individual faith! "was it not the faith of the others too that had healed them?" doubtless. if they had had enough to bring them back, he would have told them that their faith had saved them. but they were content to be healed, and until their love, which is the deeper faith, brought them to the master's feet, their faith was not ripe for praise. but it was not for their blame, it was for the samaritan's praise that he spoke. probably this man's faith had caused the cry of all the ten; probably he was the salt of the little group of outcasts--the tenth, the righteous man. hence they were contented, for the time, with their cure: he forgot the cure itself in his gratitude. a moment more, and with obedient feet he would overtake them on their way to the priest. i may not find a better place for remarking on the variety of our lord's treatment of those whom he cured; that is, the variety of the form in which he conveyed the cure. in the record i do not think we find two cases treated in the same manner. there is no massing of the people with him. in his behaviour to men, just as in their relation to his father, every man is alone with him. in this case of the ten, as i have said, i think he sent them away, partly, that this individuality might have an opportunity of asserting itself. they had stood afar off, therefore he could not lay the hand of love on each. but now one left the group and brought his gratitude to the master's feet, and with a loud voice glorified god the healer. in reflecting then on the details of the various cures we must seek the causes of their diversity mainly in the individual differences of the persons cured, not forgetting, at the same time, that all the accounts are brief, and that our capacity is poor for the task. the whole divine treatment of man is that of a father to his children--only a father infinitely more a father than any man can be. before him stands each, as much an individual child as if there were no one but him. the relation is awful in its singleness. even when god deals with a nation as a nation, it is only as by this dealing the individual is aroused to a sense of his own wrong, that he can understand how the nation has sinned, or can turn himself to work a change. the nation cannot change save as its members change; and the few who begin the change are the elect of that nation. ten righteous individuals would have been just enough to restore life to the festering masses of sodom--festering masses because individual life had ceased, and the nation or community was nowhere. even nine could not do it: sodom must perish. the individuals must perish now; the nation had perished long since. all communities are for the divine sake of individual life, for the sake of the love and truth that is in each heart, and is not cumulative--cannot be in two as one result. but all that is precious in the individual heart depends for existence on the relation the individual bears to other individuals: alone--how can he love? alone--where is his truth? it is for and by the individuals that the individual lives. a community is the true development of individual relations. its very possibility lies in the conscience of its men and women. no setting right can be done in the _mass_. there are no masses save in corruption. vital organizations result alone from individualities and consequent necessities, which fitting the one into the other, and working for each other, make combination not only possible but unavoidable. then the truth which has _informed_ in the community reacts on the individual to perfect his individuality. in a word, the man, in virtue of standing alone in god, stands _with_ his fellows, and receives from them divine influences without which he cannot be made perfect. it is in virtue of the living consciences of its individuals that a common conscience is possible to a nation. i cannot work this out here, but i would avoid being misunderstood. although i say, every man stands alone in god, i yet say two or many can meet in god as they cannot meet save in god; nay, that only in god can two or many truly meet; only as they recognize their oneness with god can they become one with each other. in the variety then of his individual treatment of the sick, jesus did the works of his father _as_ his father does them. for the spirit of god speaks to the spirit of the man, and the providence of god arranges everything for the best good of the individual--counting the very hairs of his head. every man had a cure of his own; every woman had a cure of her own--all one and the same in principle, each individual in the application of the principle. this was the foundation of the true church. and yet the members of that church will try to separate upon individual and unavoidable differences! but once more the question recurs: why say so often that this and that one's faith had saved him? was it not enough that he had saved them?--our lord would knit the bond between him and each man by arousing the man's individuality, which is, in deepest fact, his conscience. the cure of a man depended upon no uncertain or arbitrary movement of the feelings of jesus. he was always ready to heal. no one was ever refused who asked him. it rested with the man: the healing could not have its way and enter in, save the man would open his door. it was there for him if he would take it, or rather when he would allow him to bestow it. hence the question and the praise of the patient's faith. there was no danger then of that diseased self-consciousness which nowadays is always asking, "have i faith? have i faith?" searching, in fact, for grounds of self-confidence, and turning away the eyes in the search from the only source whence confidence can flow--the natal home of power and love. how shall faith be born but of the beholding of the faithful? this diseased self-contemplation was not indeed a jewish complaint at all, nor possible in the bodily presence of the master. hence the praise given to a man's faith could not hurt him; it only made him glad and more faithful still. this disease itself is in more need of his curing hand than all the leprosies of judaea and samaria. the cases which remain of this group are of blind men--the first, that recorded by st matthew of the two who followed jesus, crying, "thou son of david, have mercy on us." he asked them if they believed that he was able to do the thing for them, drawing, i say, the bond between them closer thereby. they said they did believe it, and at once he touched their eyes--again the bodily contact, as in the case of the blind man already considered--especially needful in the case of the blind, to associate the healing with the healer. but there are differences between the cases. the man who had not asked to be healed was as it were put through a longer process of cure--i think that his faith and his will might be called into exercise; and the bodily contact was made closer to help the development of his faith and will: he made clay and put it on his eyes, and the man had to go and wash. where the prayer and the confession of faith reveal the spiritual contact already effected, the cure is immediate. "according to your faith," the lord said, "be it unto you." on these men, as on the leper, he laid the charge of silence, by them, as by him, sadly disregarded. the fact that he went into the house, and allowed them to follow him there before he cured them, also shows that he desired in their case, doubtless because of circumstances, to avoid publicity, a desire which they foiled. their gladness overcame, if not their gratitude, yet the higher faith that is one with obedience. when the other leper turned back to speak his gratitude, it was but the delay of a moment in the fulfilling of the command. but the gratitude that disobeys an injunction, that does what the man is told not to do, and so plunges into the irretrievable, is a virtue that needs a development amounting almost to a metamorphosis. in the one remaining case there is a slight confusion in the records. st luke says that it was performed as jesus entered into jericho; st mark says it was as he went out of jericho, and gives the name and parentage of the blind beggar; indeed his account is considerably more minute than that of the others. st matthew agrees with st mark as to the occasion, but says there were two blind men. we shall follow the account of st mark. bartimaeus, having learned the cause of the tumultuous passing of feet, calls, like those former two blind men, upon the son of david to have mercy on him.[3] [footnote 3: in these two cases, the cry is upon the _son of david_: i wonder if this had come to be considered by the blind the correct formula of address to the new prophet. but the cases are almost too few to justify even a passing conjecture at generalization.] the multitude finds fault with his crying and calling. i presume he was noisy in his eagerness after his vanished vision, and the multitude considered it indecorous. or perhaps the rebuke arose from that common resentment of a crowd against any one who makes himself what they consider unreasonably conspicuous, claiming a share in the attention of the potentate to which they cannot themselves pretend. but the lord stops, and tells them to call the man; and some of them, either being his friends, or changing their tone when the great man takes notice of him, begin to congratulate and comfort him. he, casting away his garment in his eagerness, rises, and is led through the yielding crowd to the presence of the lord. to enter in some degree into the personal knowledge of the man before curing him, and to consolidate his faith, jesus, the tones of whose voice, full of the life of god, the cultivated hearing of a blind man would be best able to interpret, began to talk a little with him. "what wilt thou that i should do unto thee?" "lord, that i might receive my sight." "go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole." immediately he saw; and the first use he made of his sight was to follow him who had given it. neither st mark nor st luke, whose accounts are almost exactly the same, says that he touched the man's eyes. st matthew says he touched the eyes of the _two_ blind men whom his account places in otherwise identical circumstances. with a surrounding crowd who knew them, i think the touching was less necessary than in private; but there is no need to inquire which is the more correct account. the former two may have omitted a fact, or st matthew _may_ have combined the story with that of the two blind men already noticed, of which he is the sole narrator. but in any case there are, i think, but two recorded instances of the blind praying for cure. most likely there were more, perhaps there were many such. i have now to consider, as suggested by the idea of this group, the question of prayer generally; for jesus did the works of him who sent him: as jesus did so god does. i have not seen an argument against what is called the efficacy of prayer which appears to me to have any force but what is derived from some narrow conception of the divine nature. if there be a god at all, it is absurd to suppose that his ways of working should be such as to destroy his side of the highest relation that can exist between him and those whom he has cared to make--to destroy, i mean, the relation of the will of the creator to the individual will of his creature. that god should bind himself in an iron net of his own laws--that his laws should bind him in any way, seeing they are just his nature in action--is sufficiently absurd; but that such laws should interfere with his deepest relation to his creatures, should be inconsistent with the highest consequences of that creation which alone gives occasion for those laws--that, in fact, the will of god should be at strife with the foregoing action of god, not to say with the very nature of god--that he should, with an unchangeable order of material causes and effects, cage in for ever the winged aspirations of the human will which he has made in the image of his own will, towards its natural air of freedom in his will, would be pronounced inconceivable, were it not that it has been conceived and uttered--conceived and uttered, however, only by minds to which the fact of this relation was, if at all present, then only in the vaguest and most incomplete form. that he should not leave himself any _willing_ room towards those to whom he gave need, room to go wrong, will to turn and look up and pray and hope, is to me grotesquely absurd. it is far easier to believe that as both--the laws of nature, namely, and the human will--proceed from the same eternally harmonious thought, they too are so in harmony, that for the perfect operation of either no infringement upon the other is needful; and that what seems to be such infringement would show itself to a deeper knowledge of both as a perfectly harmonious co-operation. nor would it matter that we know so little, were it not that with each fresh discovery we are so ready to fancy anew that now, at last, we know all about it. we have neither humility enough to be faithful, nor faith enough to be humble. unfit to grasp any whole, yet with an inborn idea of wholeness which ought to be our safety in urging us ever on towards the unity, we are constantly calling each new part the whole, saying we have found the idea, and casting ourselves on the couch of self-glorification. thus the very need of unity is by our pride perverted to our ruin. we say we have found it, when we have it not. hence, also, it becomes easy to refuse certain considerations, yea, certain facts, a place in our system--for the system will cease to be a system at all the moment they are acknowledged. they may have in them the very germ of life and truth; but what is that, if they destroy this babylon that we have built? are not its forms stately and fair? yea, _can_ there be statelier and fairer? the main point is simply this, that what it would not be well for god to give before a man had asked for it, it may be not only well, but best, to give when he has asked. [footnote 4: _well_ and _best_ must be the same thing with god when he acts.] i believe that the first half of our training is up to the asking point; after that the treatment has a grand new element in it. for god can give when a man is in the fit condition to receive it, what he cannot give before because the man cannot receive it. how give instruction in the harmony of colours or tones to a man who cannot yet distinguish between shade and shade or tone and tone, upon which distinction all harmony depends? a man cannot receive except another will give; no more can a man give if another will not receive; he can only offer. doubtless, god works on every man, else he _could_ have no divine tendency at all; there would be no _thither_ for him to turn his face towards; there could be at best but a sense of want. but the moment the man has given in to god--to use a homely phrase--the spirit for which he prays can work in him all with him, not now (as it _appeared_ then) _against_ him. every parent at all worthy of the relation must know that occasions occur in which the asking of the child makes the giving of the parent the natural correlative. in a way infinitely higher, yet the same at the root, for all is of god, he can give when the man asks what he could not give without, because in the latter case the man would take only the husk of the gift, and cast the kernel away--a husk poisonous without the kernel, although wholesome and comforting with it. but some will say, "we may ask, but it is certain we shall not have everything we ask for." no, thank god, certainly not; we shall have nothing which we ourselves, when capable of judging and choosing with open eyes to its true relation to ourselves, would not wish and choose to have. if god should give otherwise, it must be as a healing punishment of inordinate and hurtful desire. the parable of the father dividing his living at the prayer of the younger son, must be true of god's individual sons, else it could not have been true of the jews on the one hand and the gentiles on the other. he will grant some such prayers because he knows that the swine and their husks will send back his son with quite another prayer on his lips. if my supposed interlocutor answers, "what then is the good of praying, if it is not to go by what i want?" i can only answer, "you have to learn, and it may be by a hard road." in the kinds of things which men desire, there are essential differences. in physical well-being, there is a divine good. in sufficient food and raiment, there is a divine fitness. in wealth, as such, there is _none_. a man may pray for money to pay his debts, for healing of the sickness which incapacitates him for labour or good work, for just judgment in the eyes of his fellow-men, with an altogether different confidence from that with which he could pray for wealth, or for bodily might to surpass his fellows, or for vengeance upon those whose judgment of his merits differed from his own; although even then the divine soul will with his saviour say, "if it be possible: not my will but thine." for he will know that god gives only the best. "but god does not even cure every one who asks him. and so with the other things you say are good to pray for." jesus did not cure all the ills in judaea. but those he did cure were at least real ills and real needs. there was a fitness in the condition of some, a fitness favoured by his own bodily presence amongst them, which met the virtue ready to go out from him. but god is ever present, and i have yet to learn that any man prayed for money to be honest with and to meet the necessities of his family, and did the work of him who had called him from the market-place of the nation, who did not receive his penny a-day. if to any one it seems otherwise, i believe the apparent contradiction will one day be cleared up to his satisfaction. god has not to satisfy the judgment of men as they are, but as they will be and must be, having learned the high and perfectly honest and grand way of things which is his will. for god to give men just what they want would often be the same as for a man to give gin to the night-wanderer whom he had it in his power to take home and set to work for wages. but i must believe that many of the ills of which men complain would be speedily cured if they would work in the strength of prayer. if the man had not taken up his bed when christ bade him, he would have been a great authority with the scribes and chief priests against the divine mission of jesus. the power to work is a diviner gift than a great legacy. but these are individual affairs to be settled individually between god and his child. they cannot be pronounced upon generally because of individual differences. but here as there, now as then, the lack is _faith_. a man may say, "how can i have faith?" i answer, "how can you indeed, who do the thing you know you ought not to do, and have not begun to do the thing you know you ought to do? how should you have faith? it is not well that you should be cured yet. it would have hurt these men to cure them if they would not ask. and you do not pray." the man who has prayed most is, i suspect, the least doubtful whether god hears prayer now as jesus heard it then. that we doubt is well, for we are not yet in the empyrean of simple faith. but i think the man who believes and prays now, has answers to his prayers even better than those which came to the sick in judã¦a; for although the bodily presence of jesus made a difference in their favour, i do believe that the spirit of god, after widening its channels for nearly nineteen hundred years, can flow in greater plenty and richness now. hence the answers to prayer must not only not be of quite the same character as then, but they must be better, coming yet closer to the heart of the need, whether known as such by him who prays, or not. but the change lies in man's power of reception, for god is always the same to his children. only, being infinite, he must speak to them and act for them in the endless diversity which their growth and change render necessary. thus only they can receive of his fulness who is all in all and unchangeable. in our imperfect condition both of faith and of understanding, the whole question of asking and receiving must necessarily be surrounded with mist and the possibility of mistake. it can be successfully encountered only by the man who for himself asks and hopes. it lies in too lofty regions and involves too many unknown conditions to be reduced to formulas of ours; for god must do only the best, and man is greater and more needy than himself can know. yet he who asks _shall_ receive--of the very best. one promise without reserve, and only one, because it includes all, remains: the promise of the holy spirit to them who ask it. he who has the spirit of god, god himself, in him, has the life in him, possesses the final cure of all ill, has in himself the answer to all possible prayer. vi. miracles granted to the prayer of friends. if we allow that prayer may in any case be heard for the man himself, it almost follows that it must be heard for others. it cannot well be in accordance with the spirit of christianity, whose essential expression lies in the sacrifice of its founder, that a man should be heard only when he prays for himself. the fact that in cases of the preceding group faith was required on the part of the person healed as essential to his cure, represents no different principle from that which operates in the cases of the present group. true, in these the condition is not faith on the part of the person cured, but faith on the part of him who asks for his cure. but the possession of faith by the patient was not in the least essential, as far as the power of jesus was concerned, to his bodily cure, although no doubt favourable thereto; it was necessary only to that spiritual healing, that higher cure, for the sake of which chiefly the master brought about the lower. in both cases, the requisition of faith is for the sake of those who ask--whether for themselves or for their friends, it matters not. it is a breath to blow the smoking flax into a flame--a word to draw into closer contact with himself. he cured many without such demand, as his father is ever curing without prayer. cure itself shall sometimes generate prayer and faith. well, therefore, might the cure of others be sometimes granted to prayer. beyond this, however, there is a great fitness in the thing. for so are men bound together, that no good can come to one but all must share in it. the children suffer for the father, the father suffers for the children, and they are also blessed together. if a spiritual good descend upon the heart of a leader of the nation, the whole people might rejoice for themselves, for they must be partakers of the unspeakable gift. to increase the faith of the father may be more for the faith of the child, healed in answer to his prayer, than anything done for the child himself. it is an enlarging of one of the many channels in which the divinest gifts flow. for those gifts chiefly, at first, flow to men through the hearts and souls of those of their fellows who are nearer the father than they, until at length they are thus brought themselves to speak to god face to face. lonely as every man in his highest moments of spiritual vision, yea in his simplest consciousness of duty, turns his face towards the one father, his own individual maker and necessity of his life; painfully as he may then feel that the best beloved understands not as he understands, feels not as he feels; he is yet, in his most isolated adoration of the father of his spirit, nearer every one of the beloved than when eye meets eye, heart beats responsive to heart, and the poor dumb hand seeks by varied pressure to tell the emotion within. often then the soul, with its many organs of utterance, feels itself but a songless bird, whose broken twitter hardens into a cage around it; but even with all those organs of utterance in full play, he is yet farther from his fellow-man than when he is praying to the father in a desert place apart. the man who prays, in proportion to the purity of his prayer, becomes a spiritual power, a nerve from the divine brain, yea, perhaps a ganglion as we call it, whence power anew goes forth upon his fellows. he is a redistributor, as it were, of the divine blessing; not in the exercise of his own will--that is the cesspool towards which all notions of priestly mediation naturally sink--but as the self-forgetting, god-loving brother of his kind, who would be in the world as christ was in the world. when a man prays for his fellow-man, for wife or child, mother or father, sister or brother or friend, the connection between the two is so close in god, that the blessing begged may well flow to the end of the prayer. such a one then is, in his poor, far-off way, an advocate with the father, like his master, jesus christ, the righteous. he takes his friend into the presence with him, or if not into the presence, he leaves him with but the veil between them, and they touch through the veil. the first instance we have in this kind, occurred at cana, in the centre of galilee, where the first miracle was wrought. it is the second miracle in st john's record, and is recorded by him only. doubtless these two had especially attracted his nature--the turning of water into wine, and the restoration of a son to his father. the fatherhood of god created the fatherhood in man; god's love man's love. and what shall he do to whom a son is given whom yet he cannot keep? the divine love in his heart cleaves to the child, and the child is vanishing! what can this nobleman do but seek the man of whom such wondrous rumours have reached his ears? between cana and tiberias, from which came the father with his prayer, was somewhere about twenty miles. "he is at the point of death," said the father. "except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe," said jesus. "sir, come down ere my child die." "go thy way, thy son liveth." if the nobleman might have understood the remark the lord made, he was in no mood for principles, and respectfully he expostulates with our lord for spending time in words when the need was so urgent. the sun of his life was going down into the darkness. he might deserve reproof, but even reproof has its season. "sir, come down ere my child die." whatever the lord meant by the words he urged it no farther. he sends him home with the assurance of the boy's recovery, showing him none of the signs or wonders of which he had spoken. had the man been of unbelieving kind he would, when he returned and found that all had occurred in the most natural fashion, that neither here had there been sign or wonder, have gradually reverted to his old carelessness as to a higher will and its ordering of things below. but instead of this, when he heard that the boy began to get better the very hour when jesus spoke the word--a fact quite easy to set down as a remarkable coincidence--he believed, and all his people with him. probably he was in ideal reality the head of his house, the main source of household influences--if such, then a man of faith, for, where a man does not himself look up to the higher, the lower will hardly look faithfully up to him--surely a fit man to intercede for his son, with all his house ready to believe with him. it may be said they too shared in the evidence--such as it was--not much of a sign or wonder to them. true; but people are not ready to believe the best evidence except they are predisposed in the direction of that evidence. if it be said, "they should have thought for themselves," i answer--to think with their head was no bad sign that they did think for themselves. a great deal of what is called freedom of thought is merely the self-assertion which would persuade itself of a freedom it would possess but cannot without an effort too painful for ignorance and self-indulgence. the man would _feel_ free without being free. to assert one's individuality is not necessarily to be free: it _may_ indeed be but the outcome of absolute slavery. but if this nobleman was a faithful man, whence our lord's word, "except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe"? i am not sure. it may have been as a rebuke to those about him. this man--perhaps, as is said, a nobleman of herod's court--may not have been a pure-bred jew, and hence our lord's remark would bear an import such as he uttered more plainly in the two cases following, that of the greek woman, and that of the roman centurion: "except _ye_ see signs and wonders ye will not believe; _but this man_--." with this meaning i should probably have been content, were it not that the words were plainly addressed to the man. i do not think this would destroy the interpretation, for the lord may have wished to draw the man out, and make him, a gentile or doubtful kind of jew, rebuke the disciples; only the man's love for his son stood in the way: he could think of nothing, speak of nothing save his son; but it makes it unsatisfactory. and indeed i prefer the following interpretation, because we have the other meaning in other places; also because this is of universal application, and to us of these days appears to me of special significance and value, applying to the men of science on the one hand, and the men of superstition on the other. my impression is, that our lord, seeing the great faith of the nobleman, grounded on what he had heard of the master from others, chiefly of his signs and wonders, did in this remark require of him a higher faith still. it sounds to me an expostulation with him. to express in the best way my feeling concerning it, i would dare to imagine our lord speaking in this fashion:-"why did you not pray the father? why do you want always to _see_? the door of prayer has been open since ever god made man in his own image: why are signs and wonders necessary to your faith? but i will do just as my father would have done if you had asked him. only when i do it, it is a sign and a wonder that you may believe; and i wish you could believe without it. but believe then for the very work's sake, if you cannot believe for the word and the truth's sake. go thy way, thy son liveth." i would not be understood to say that the lord _blamed_ him, or others in him, for needing signs and wonders: it was rather, i think, that the lord spoke out of the fulness of his knowledge to awake in them some infant sense of what constituted all his life--the presence of god; just as the fingers of the light go searching in the dark mould for the sleeping seeds, to touch and awake them. the order of creation, the goings on of life, were ceaselessly flowing from the very heart of the father: why should they seek signs and wonders differing from common things only in being uncommon? in essence there was no difference. uncommonness is not excellence, even as commonness is not inferiority. the sign, the wonder is, in fact, the lower thing, granted only because of men's hardness of heart and slowness to believe--in itself of inferior nature to god's chosen way. yet, if signs and wonders could help them, have them they should, for neither were they at variance with the holy laws of life and faithfulness: they were but less usual utterances of the same. "go thy way: thy son liveth." the man, noble-man certainly in this, obeyed, and found his obedience justify his faith. but his son would have to work out his belief upon grounds differing from those his father had. in himself he could but recognize the resumption of the _natural_ sway of life. he would not necessarily know that it was god working in him. for the cause of his cure, he would only hear the story of it from his father--good evidence--but he himself had not seen the face of the holy one as his father had. in one sense or another, he must seek and find him. every generation must do its own seeking and its own finding. the fault of the fathers often is that they expect their finding to stand in place of their children's seeking--expect the children to receive that which has satisfied the need of their fathers upon their testimony; whereas rightly, their testimony is not ground for their children's belief, only for their children's search. that search is faith in the bud. no man can be sure till he has found for himself. all that is required of the faithful nature is a willingness to seek. he cannot even know the true nature of the thing he wants until he has found it; he has but a dim notion of it, a faint star to guide him eastward to the sunrise. hopefully, the belief of the father has the heart in it which will satisfy the need of the child; but the doubt of this in the child, is the father's first ground for hoping that the child with his new needs will find for himself the same well of life--to draw from it with a new bucket, it may be, because the old will hold water no longer: its staves may be good, but its hoops are worn asunder; or, rather, it will be but a new rope it needs, which he has to twist from the hemp growing in his own garden. the son who was healed might have many questions to ask which the father could not answer, had never thought of. he had heard of the miracle of cana; he had heard of many things done since: he believed that the man could cure his son, and he had cured him. "yes," the son might say, "but i must know more of him; for, if what i hear now be true, i must cast all at his feet. he cannot be a healer only; he must be the very lord of life--it may be of the universe." his simple human presence had in it something against the supposition--contained in it what must have _appeared_ reason for doubting this conclusion from his deeds, especially to one who had not seen his divine countenance. but to one at length enlightened of the great spirit, his humanity would contain the highest ground for believing in his divinity, for what it meant would come out ever and ever loftier and grander. the lord who had made the universe--how _should_ he show it but as the healer did? he could not make the universe over again in the eyes of every man. if he did, the heart of the man could not hold the sight. he must reveal himself as the curing god--the god who set things which had gone wrong, right again: _that could_ be done in the eyes of each individual man. this man may be he--the messiah--immanuel, god with-us. we can imagine such the further thoughts of the son--possibly of the father first--only he had been so full of the answer to his prayer, of the cure of his son, that he could not all at once follow things towards their grand conclusions. in this case, as in the two which follow, the lord heals from a distance. i have not much to remark upon this. there were reasons for it; one perhaps the necessity of an immediate answer to the prayer; another probably lay in its fitness to the faith of the supplicants. for to heal thus, although less of a sign or a wonder to the unbelieving, had in it an element of finer power upon the faith of such as came not for the sign or the wonder, but for the cure of the beloved; for he who loves can believe what he who loves not cannot believe; and he who loves most can believe most. in this respect, these cures were like the healing granted to prayer in all ages--not that god is afar off, for he is closer to every man than his own conscious being is to his unconscious being--but that we receive the aid from the unseen. though there be no distance with god, it looks like it to men; and when jesus cured thus, he cured with the same appearances which attended god's ordinary healing. the next case i take up is similar. it belongs to another of my classes, but as a case of possession there is little distinctive about it, while as the record of the devotion of a mother to her daughter--a devotion quickening in her faith so rare and lovely as to delight the very heart of jesus with its humble intensity--it is one of the most beautiful of all the stories of healing. the woman was a greek, and had not had the training of the jew for a belief in the messiah. her misconceptions concerning the healer of whom she had heard must have been full of fancies derived from the legends of her race. but she had yet been trained to believe, for her mighty love of her own child was the best power for the development of the child-like in herself. no woman can understand the possible depths of her own affection for her daughter. i say _daughter_, not _child_, because although love is the same everywhere, it is nowhere the same. no two loves of individuals in the same correlation are the same. much more the love of a woman for her daughter differs from the love of a father for his son--differs as the woman differs from the man. there is in it a peculiar tenderness from the sense of the same womanly consciousness in both of undefendedness and self-accountable modesty--a modesty, in this case, how terribly tortured in the mother by the wild behaviour of the daughter under the impulses of the unclean spirit! surely if ever there was a misery to drive a woman to the healer in an agony of rightful claim and prostrate entreaty, it was the misery of a mother whose daughter was thus possessed. the divine nature of her motherhood, of her womanhood, drew her back to its source to find help for one who shared in the same, but in whom its waters were sorely troubled and grievously defiled. she came crying to him. about him stood his disciples, proud of being jews. for their sakes this chosen gentile must be pained a little further, must bear with her saviour her part of suffering for the redemption even of his chosen apostles. they counted themselves the children, and such as she the dogs. he must show them the divine nature dwelling in her. for the sake of this revelation he must try her sorely, but not for long. "have mercy on me," she cried, "o lord, thou son of david; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil." but not a word of reply came from the lips of the healer. his disciples must speak first. they must supplicate for their gentile sister. he would arouse in them the disapproval of their own exclusiveness, by putting it on for a moment that they might see it apart from themselves. their hearts were moved for the woman. "send her away," they said, meaning, "give her what she wants;" but to move the heart of love to grant the prayer, they--poor intercessors--added a selfish reason to justify the deed of goodness, either that they would avoid being supposed to acknowledge her claim on a level with that of a jewess, and would make of it what both puritans and priests would call "an uncovenanted mercy," or that they actually thought it would help to overcome the scruples of the master. possibly it was both. "she crieth after us," they said--meaning, "she is troublesome." they would have him give as the ungenerous and the unjust give to the importunate. but no healing could be granted on such a ground--not even to the prayer of an apostle. the woman herself must give a better. "i am not sent," he said, "but unto the lost sheep of the house of israel." they understood the words falsely. we know that he did come for the gentiles, and he was training them to see what they were so slow to understand, that he had other sheep which were not of this fold. he had need to begin with them thus early. most of the troubles of his latest, perhaps greatest apostle, came from the indignation of jewish christians that he preached the good news to the gentiles as if it had been originally meant for them. they would have had them enter into its privileges by the gates of judaism. what they did at length understand by these words is expressed in the additional word of our lord given by st mark: "let the children first be filled." but even this they could not understand until afterwards. they could not see that it was for the sake of the gentiles as much as the jews that jesus came to the jews first. for whatever glorious exceptions there were amongst the gentiles, surpassing even similar amongst the jews; and whatever the wide-spread refusal of the jewish nation, he _could_ not have been received amongst the gentiles as amongst the jews. in judã¦a alone could the leaven work; there alone could the mustard-seed take fitting root. once rooted and up, it would become a great tree, and the birds of the world would nestle in its branches. it was not that god loved the jews more than the gentiles that he chose them first, but that he must begin somewhere: _why,_ god himself knows, and perhaps has given us glimmerings. upheld by her god-given love, not yet would the woman turn away. even such hard words as these could not repulse her. she came now and fell at his feet. it is as the master would have it: she presses only the nearer, she insists only the more; for the devil has a hold of her daughter. "lord, help me," is her cry; for the trouble of her daughter is her own. the "help _me_" is far more profound and pathetic than the most vivid blazon of the daughter's sufferings. but he answered and said,-"it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs." terrible words! more dreadful far than any he ever spoke besides! surely now she will depart in despair! but the lord did not mean in them to speak _his_ mind concerning the relation of jew and gentile; for not only do the future of his church and the teaching of his spirit contradict it: but if he did mean what he said, then he acted as was unmeet, for he did cast a child's bread to a dog. no. he spoke as a jew felt, that the elect jews about him might begin to understand that in him is neither jew nor gentile, but all are brethren. and he has gained his point. the spirit in the woman has been divinely goaded into utterance, and out come the glorious words of her love and faith, casting aside even insult itself as if it had never been--all for the sake of a daughter. now, indeed, it is as he would have it. "yes, lord; yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs." or, as st matthew gives it: "truth, lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table." a retort quite greek in its readiness, its symmetry, and its point! but it was not the intellectual merit of the answer that pleased the master. cleverness is cheap. it is the faith he praises, [footnote 5: far more precious than any show of the intellect, even in regard of the intellect itself. the quickness of her answer was the scintillation of her intellect under the glow of her affection. love is the quickening nurse of the whole nature. faith in god will do more for the intellect at length than all the training of the schools. it will make the best that can be made of the whole man.] which was precious as rare--unspeakably precious even when it shall be the commonest thing in the universe, but precious now as the first fruits of a world redeemed--precious now as coming from the lips of a gentile--more precious as coming from the lips of a human mother pleading for her daughter. "o woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt." or, as st mark gives it, for we cannot afford to lose a varying word, "for this saying, go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter." the loving mother has conquered the tormenting devil. she has called in the mighty aid of the original love. through the channel of her love it flows, new-creating, "and her daughter was made whole from that very hour." where, o disciples, are your children and your dogs now? is not the wall of partition henceforth destroyed? no; you too have to be made whole of a worse devil, that of personal and national pride, before you understand. but the day of the lord is coming for you, notwithstanding ye are so incapable of knowing the signs and signals of its approach that, although its banners are spread across the flaming sky, it must come upon you as a thief in the night. for the woman, we may well leave her to the embraces of her daughter. they are enough for her now. but endless more will follow, for god is exhaustless in giving where the human receiving holds out. god be praised that there are such embraces in the world! that there are mothers who are the salvation of their children! we now complete a little family group, as it were, with the story of another foreigner, a roman officer, who besought the lord for his servant. this captain was at capernaum at the time, where i presume he had heard of the cure which jesus had granted to the nobleman for his son. it seems almost clear from the quality of his faith, however, that he must have heard much besides of jesus--enough to give him matter of pondering for some time, for i do not think such humble confidence as his could be, like jonah's gourd, the growth of a night. he was evidently a man of noble and large nature. instead of lording it over the subject jews of capernaum, he had built them a synagogue; and his behaviour to our lord is marked by that respect which, shown to any human being, but especially to a person of lower social condition, is one of the surest marks of a finely wrought moral temperament. such a nature may be beautifully developed, by a military training, in which obedience and command go together; and the excellence of faith and its instant response in action, would be more readily understood by the thoughtful officer of a well-disciplined army than by any one to whom organization was unknown. hence arose the parallel the centurion draws between his own and the master's position, which so pleased the lord by its direct simplicity. but humble as the man was, i doubt if anything less than some spiritual perception of the nobility of the character of jesus, some perception of that which was altogether beyond even the power of healing, could have generated such perfect reverence, such childlike confidence as his. it is no wonder the lord was pleased with it, for that kind of thing must be just what his father loves. according to st luke, the roman captain considered himself so unworthy of notice from the carpenter's son--they of capernaum, which was "his own city," knew his reputed parentage well enough--that he got the elders of the jews to go and beg for him that he would come and heal his servant. they bore testimony to his worth, specifying that which would always be first in the eyes of such as they, that he loved their nation, and had built them a synagogue. little they thought how the lord was about to honour him above all their nation and all its synagogues. he went with them at once. but before they reached the house, the centurion had a fresh inroad of that divine disease, humility, [footnote 6: in him it was almost morbid, one might be tempted to say, were it not that it was own sister to such mighty faith.] and had sent other friends to say, "lord, trouble not thyself, for i am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof. wherefore, neither thought i myself worthy to come unto thee; but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed. for i also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and i say unto one, go, and he goeth; and to another, come, and he cometh; and to my servant, do this, and he doeth it." this man was a philosopher: he ascended from that to which he was accustomed to that to which he was not accustomed. nor did his divine logic fail him. he begins with acknowledging his own subjection, and states his own authority; then leaves it to our lord to understand that he recognizes in him an authority beyond all, expecting the powers of nature to obey their master, just as his soldiers or his servants obey him. how grandly he must have believed in him! but beyond suspicion of flattery, he avoids the face of the man whom in heart he worships. how unlike those who press into the presence of a phantom-greatness! "a poor creature like me go and talk to him!" the roman captain would exclaim. "no, i will worship from afar off." and it is to be well heeded that the lord went no further--turned at once. with the tax-gatherer zacchaeus he would go home, if but to deliver him from the hopelessness of his self-contempt; but what occasion was there here? it was all right here. the centurion was one who needed but to go on. in heart and soul he was nearer the lord now than any of the disciples who followed him. surely some one among the elders of the jews, his friends, would carry him the report of what the master said. it would not hurt him. the praise of the truly great will do no harm, save it fall where it ought not, on the heart of the little. the praise of god never falls wrong, therefore never does any one harm. the lord even implies we ought to seek it. his praise would but glorify the humility and the faith of this roman by making both of them deeper and nobler still. there is something very grand in the lord's turning away from the house of the man who had greater faith than any he had found in israel; for such were the words he spoke to those who followed him, of whom in all likelihood the messenger elders were nearest. having turned to say them, he turned not again but went his way. st luke, whose narrative is in other respects much fuller than st matthew's (who says that the centurion himself came to jesus, and makes no mention of the elders), does not represent the master as uttering a single word of cure, but implies that he just went away marvelling at him; while "they that were sent, returning to the house, found the servant whole that had been sick." if any one ask how jesus could marvel, i answer, jesus could do more things than we can well understand. the fact that he marvelled at the great faith, shows that he is not surprised at the little, and therefore is able to make all needful and just, yea, and tender allowance. here i cannot do better for my readers than give them four lines, dear to me, but probably unknown to most of them, written, i must tell them, for the sake of their loving catholicity, by an english jesuit of the seventeenth century. they touch the very heart of the relation between jesus and the centurion:- thy god was making haste into thy roof; thy humble faith and fear keeps him aloof: he'll be thy guest; because he may not be, he'll come--into thy house? no, into thee. as i said, we thus complete a kind of family group, for surely the true servant is one of the family: we have the prayer of a father for a son, of a mother for a daughter, of a master for a servant. alas! the dearness of this latter bond is not now known as once. there never was a rooted institution in parting with which something good was not lost for a time, however necessary its destruction might be for the welfare of the race. there are fewer free servants that love their masters and mistresses now, i fear, than there were roman bondsmen and bondswomen who loved theirs. and, on the other hand, very few masters and mistresses regard the bond between them and their servants with half the respect and tenderness with which many among the romans regarded it. slavery is a bad thing and of the devil, yet mutual jealousy and contempt are worse. but the time will yet come when a servant will serve for love as more than wages; and when the master of such a servant will honour him even to the making him sit down to meat, and coming forth and serving him. the next is the case of the palsied man, so graphically given both by st mark and st luke, and with less of circumstance by st matthew. this miracle also was done in capernaum, called his own city. pharisees and doctors of the law from every town in the country, hearing of his arrival, had gathered to him, and were sitting listening to his teaching. there was no possibility of getting near him, and the sick man's friends had carried him up to the roof, taken off the tiles, and let him down into the presence. it should not be their fault if the poor fellow was not cured. "jesus seeing their faith--when jesus saw their faith--and when he saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, son, be of good cheer--son--man, thy sins are forgiven thee." the forgiveness of the man's sins is by all of the narrators connected with the faith of his friends. this is very remarkable. the only other instance in which similar words are recorded, is that of the woman who came to him in simon's house, concerning whom he showed first, that her love was a sign that her sins were already forgiven. what greater honour could he honour their faith withal than grant in their name, unasked, the one mighty boon? they had brought the man to him; to them he forgave his sins. he looked into his heart, and probably saw, as in the case of the man whom he cured by the pool of bethesda, telling him to go and sin no more, that his own sins had brought upon him this suffering, a supposition which aids considerably to the understanding of the consequent conversation; saw, at all events, that the assurance of forgiveness was what he most needed, whether because his conscience was oppressed with a sense of guilt, or that he must be brought to think more of the sin than of the suffering; for it involved an awful rebuke to the man, if he required it still--that the lord should, when he came for healing, present him with forgiveness. nor did he follow it at once with the cure of his body, but delayed that for a little, probably for the man's sake, as probably for the sake of those present, whom he had been teaching for some time, and in whose hearts he would now fix the lesson concerning the divine forgiveness which he had preached to them in bestowing it upon the sick man. for his words meant nothing, except they meant that god forgave the man. the scribes were right when they said that none could forgive sins but god--that is, in the full sense in which forgiveness is still needed by every human being, should all his fellows whom he has injured have forgiven him already. they said in their hearts, "he is a blasphemer." this was what he had expected. "why do you think evil in your hearts?" he said, that is, _evil of me--that i am a blasphemer_. he would now show them that he was no blasphemer; that he had the power to forgive, that it was the will of god that he should preach the remission of sins. how could he show it them? in one way only: by dismissing the consequence, the punishment of those sins, sealing thus in the individual case the general truth. he who could say to a man, by the eternal law suffering the consequences of sin: "be whole, well, strong; suffer no more," must have the right to pronounce his forgiveness; else there was another than god who had to cure with a word the man whom his maker had afflicted. if there were such another, the kingdom of god must be trembling to its fall, for a stronger had invaded and reversed its decrees. power does not give the right to pardon, but its possession may prove the right. "whether is easier--to say, thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, rise up and walk?" if only god can do either, he who can do the one must be able to do the other. "that ye may know that the son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins--arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house." up rose the man, took up that whereon he had lain, and went away, knowing in himself that his sins _were_ forgiven him, for he was able to glorify god. it seems to me against our lord's usual custom with the scribes and pharisees to grant them such proof as this. certainly, to judge by those recorded, the whole miracle was in aspect and order somewhat unusual. but i think the men here assembled were either better than the most of their class, or in a better mood than common, for st luke says of them that the power of the lord was present to heal them. to such therefore proof might be accorded which was denied to others. that he might heal these learned doctors around him, he forgave the sins first and then cured the palsy of the man before him. for their sakes he performed the miracle thus. then, _like priests, like people_; for where their leaders were listening, the people broke open the roof to get the helpless into his presence. "they marvelled and glorified god which had given such power unto men"--"saying, we never saw it on this fashion."--"they were filled with fear, saying, we have seen strange things to-day." and yet capernaum had to be brought down to hell, and no man can tell the place where it stood. two more cases remain, both related by st mark alone. they brought him a man partially deaf and dumb. he led him aside from the people: he would be alone with him, that he might come the better into relation with that individuality which, until molten from within, is so hard to touch. possibly had the man come of himself, this might have been less necessary; but i repeat there must have been in every case reason for the individual treatment in the character and condition of the patient. these were patent only to the healer. in this case the closeness of the personal contact, as in those cases of the blind, is likewise remarkable. "he put his fingers into his ears, he spit and touched his tongue." always in present disease, bodily contact--in defects of the senses, sometimes of a closer kind. he would generate assured faith in himself as the healer. but there is another remarkable particular here, which, as far as i can remember, would be alone in its kind but for a fuller development of it at the raising of lazarus. "and looking up to heaven, he sighed." what did it mean? what first of all _was_ it? that look, was it not a look up to his own father? that sigh, was it not the unarticulated prayer to the father of the man who stood beside him? but did _he_ need to look up as if god was in the sky, seeing that god was in _him_, in his very deepest, inmost being, in fulness of presence, and receiving conscious response, such as he could not find anywhere else--not from the whole gathered universe? why should he send a sigh, like a david's dove, to carry the thought of his heart to his father? true, if all the words of human language had been blended into one glorious majesty of speech, and the lord had sought therein to utter the love he bore his father, his voice must needs have sunk into the last inarticulate resource--the poor sigh, in which evermore speech dies helplessly triumphant--appealing to the hearer to supply the lack, saying _i cannot, but thou knowest_--confessing defeat, but claiming victory. but the lord could talk to his father evermore in the forms of which words are but the shadows, nay, infinitely more, without forms at all, in the thoughts which are the souls of the forms. why then needs he look up and sigh?--that the man, whose faith was in the merest nascent condition, might believe that whatever cure came to him from the hand of the healer, came from the hand of god. jesus did not care to be believed in as the doer of the deed, save the deed itself were recognized as given him of the father. if they saw him only, and not the father through him, there was little gained indeed. the upward look and the sigh were surely the outward expression of the infrangible link which bound both the lord and the man to the father of all. he would lift the man's heart up to the source of every gift. no cure would be worthy gift without that: it might be an injury. the last case is that of the blind man of bethsaida, whom likewise he led apart, out of the town, and whose dull organs he likewise touched with his spittle. then comes a difference. the deaf man was at once cured; when he had laid his hands on the blind man, his vision was but half-restored. "he asked him if he saw ought? and he looked up and said, i see the men: for like trees [footnote 7: could it be translated, "_as well as_ (that is besides) trees, i see walkers about"?] i see them walking about." he could tell they were men and not trees, only by their motion. the master laid his hands once more upon his eyes, and when he looked up again, he saw every man clearly. in thus graduating the process, our lord, i think, drew forth, encouraged, enticed into strength the feeble faith of the man. he brooded over him with his holy presence of love. he gave the faith time to grow. he cared more for his faith than his sight. he let him, as it were, watch him, feel him doing it, that he might know and believe. there is in this a peculiar resemblance to the ordinary modes god takes in healing men. these last miracles are especially full of symbolism and analogy. but in considering any of the miracles, i do not care to dwell upon this aspect of them, for in this they are only like all the rest of the doings of god. nature is brimful of symbolic and analogical parallels to the goings and comings, the growth and the changes of the highest nature in man. it could not be otherwise. for not only did they issue from the same thought, but the one is made for the other. nature as an outer garment for man, or a living house, rather, for man to live in. so likewise must all the works of him who did the works of the father bear the same mark of the original of all. the one practical lesson contained in this group is nearer the human fact and the human need than any symbolic meaning, grand as it must be, which they may likewise contain; nearer also to the constitution of things, inasmuch as what a man must _do_ is more to the man and to his maker than what he can only _think_; inasmuch, also, as the commonest things are the best, and any man can do right, although he may be unable to tell the difference between a symbol and a sign:--it is that if ever there was a man such as we read about here, then he who prays for his friends shall be heard of god. i do not say he shall have whatever he asks for. god forbid. but he shall be heard. and the man who does not see the good of that, knows nothing of the good of prayer; can, i fear, as yet, only pray for himself, when most he fancies he is praying for his friend. often, indeed, when men suppose they are concerned for the well-beloved, they are only concerned about what they shall do without them. let them pray for themselves instead, for that will be the truer prayer. i repeat, all prayer is assuredly heard:--what evil matter is it that it should be answered only in the right time and right way? the prayer argues a need--that need will be supplied. one day is with the lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. all who have prayed shall one day justify god and say--thy answer is beyond my prayer, as thy thoughts and thy ways are beyond my thoughts and my ways. vii. the casting out of devils. before attempting to say the little i can concerning this group of miracles, i would protect myself against possible misapprehension. the question concerning the nature of what is called _possession_ has nothing whatever to do with that concerning the existence or nonexistence of a personal and conscious power of evil, the one great adversary of the kingdom of heaven, commonly called satan, or the devil. i say they are two distinct questions, and have so little in common that the one may be argued without even an allusion to the other. many think that in the cases recorded we have but the symptoms of well-known diseases, which, from their exceptionally painful character, involving loss of reason, involuntary or convulsive motions, and other abnormal phenomena, the imaginative and unscientific easterns attributed, as the easiest mode of accounting for them, to a foreign power taking possession of the body and mind of the man. they say there is no occasion whatever to resort to an explanation involving an agency of which we know nothing from any experience of our own; that, as our lord did not come to rectify men's psychological or physiological theories, he adopted the mode of speech common amongst them, but cast out the evil spirits simply by healing the diseases attributed to their influences. there seems to me nothing unchristian in this interpretation. all diseases that trouble humanity may well be regarded as inroads of the evil powers upon the palaces and temples of god, where only the holy spirit has a right to dwell; and to cast out such, is a marvel altogether as great as to expel the intruding forces to which the jews attributed some of them. certainly also our lord must have used multitudes of human expressions which did not more than adumbrate his own knowledge. and yet i cannot admit that the solution meets all the appearances of the difficulty. i say _appearances_, because i could not be dogmatic here if i would. i know too little, understand too little, to dare give such an opinion as possesses even the authority of personal conviction. all i have to say on the subject must therefore come to little. perhaps if the marvellous, as such, were to me more difficult of belief, anything i might have to say on the side of it would have greater weight. but to me the marvellous is not therefore incredible, always provided that in itself the marvellous thing appears worthy. i have no difficulty in receiving the old jewish belief concerning possession; and i think it better explains the phenomena recorded than the growing modern opinion; while the action of matter upon mind may well be regarded as involving greater mystery than the action of one spiritual nature upon another. that a man should rave in madness because some little cell or two in the grey matter of his brain is out of order, is surely no more within the compass of man's understanding than the supposition that an evil spirit, getting close to the fountain of a man's physical life, should disturb all the goings on of that life, even to the production of the most appalling moral phenomena. in either case it is not the man himself who originates the resulting actions, but an external power operating on the man. "but we do not even know that there are such spirits, and we do know that a diseased brain is sufficient to account for the worst of the phenomena recorded." i will not insist on the fact that we do _not_ know that the diseased brain is enough to account for the phenomena, that we only know it as in many cases a concomitant of such phenomena; i will grant so much, and yet insist that, as the explanation does not fit the statements of the record, and as we know so little of what is, any hint of unknown possibilities falling from unknown regions, should, even as a stranger, receive the welcome of contemplation and conjecture, so long as in itself it involves no moral contradiction. the man who will not speculate at all, can make no progress. the thinking about the possible is as genuine, as lawful, and perhaps as edifying an exercise of the mind as the severest induction. better lies still beyond. experiment itself must follow in the track of sober conjecture; for if we know already, where is the good of experiment? there seems to me nothing unreasonable in the supposition of the existence of spirits who, having once had bodies such as ours, and having abused the privileges of embodiment, are condemned for a season to roam about bodiless, ever mourning the loss of their capacity for the only pleasures they care for, and craving after them in their imaginations. such, either in selfish hate of those who have what they have lost, or from eagerness to come as near the possession of a corporeal form as they may, might well seek to _enter into_ a man. the supposition at least is perfectly consistent with the facts recorded. possibly also it may be consistent with the phenomena of some of the forms of the madness of our own day, although all its forms are alike regarded as resulting from physical causes alone. the first act of dispossession recorded is that told by st mark and st luke, as taking place at capernaum, amongst his earliest miracles, and preceding the cure of simon's mother-in-law. he was in the synagogue on the sabbath day, teaching the congregation, when a man present, who had an unclean spirit, cried out. if i accept the narrative, i find this cry far more intelligible on the old than on the new theory. the speaker, no doubt using the organs of the man, brain and all, for utterance, recognizes a presence--to him the cause of terror--which he addresses as the holy one of god. this holy one he would propitiate by entreaty and the flattering acknowledgment of his divine mission, with the hope of being left unmolested in the usurpation and cruelty by which he ministered to his own shadowy self-indulgences. could anything be more consistently diabolic? what other word could jesus address to such than, "hold thy peace, and come out of him"? a being in such a condition could not be permitted to hold converse with the saviour; for he recognized no salvation but what lay in the continuance of his own pleasures at the expense of another. the form of the rebuke plainly assumes that it was not the man but some one in the man who had spoken; and the narrative goes on to say that when the devil had thrown him down and torn him and cried with a loud voice--his rage and disappointment, i presume, finding its last futile utterance in the torture of his captive--he came out of him and left him unhurt. thereupon the people questioned amongst themselves saying, "what thing is this? it is a teaching new, and with authority: he commandeth even the unclean spirits, and they obey him;" [footnote 8: st mark, i. 27. authorized version revised by dean alford.] thus connecting at once his power over the unclean spirits with the doctrine he taught, just as our lord in an after-instance associates power over demons with spiritual condition. it was the truth in him that made him strong against the powers of untruth. many such cures were performed, but the individual instances recorded are few. the next is that of the man--dumb, according to st luke, both blind and dumb, according to st matthew--who spake and saw as soon as the devil was cast out of him. with unerring instinct the people concluded that he who did such deeds must be the son of david; the devils themselves, according to st mark, were wont to acknowledge him the son of god; the scribes and pharisees, the would-be guides of the people, alone refused the witness, and in the very imbecility of unbelief, eager after any theory that might seem to cover the facts without acknowledging a divine mission in one who would not admit _their_ authority, attributed to beelzebub himself the deliverance of distressed mortals from the powers of evil. regarding the kingdom of god as a thing of externals, they were fortified against recognizing in jesus himself or in his doctrine any sign that he was the enemy of satan, and might even persuade themselves that such a cure was only one of satan's tricks for the advancement of his kingdom with the many by a partial emancipation of the individual. but our lord attributes this false conclusion to its true cause--to no incapacity or mistake of judgement; to no over-refining about the possible chicaneries of beelzebub; but to a preference for any evil which would support them in their authority with the people--in itself an evil. careless altogether about truth itself, they would not give a moment's quarter to any individual utterance of it which tended to destroy their honourable position in the nation. each man to himself was his own god. the spirit of god they shut out. to them forgiveness was not offered. they must pay the uttermost farthing--whatever that may mean--and frightful as the doom must be. that he spoke thus against them was but a further carrying out of his mission, a further inroad upon the kingdom of that beelzebub. and yet they were the accredited authorities in the church of that day; and he who does not realize this, does not understand the battle our lord had to fight for the emancipation of the people. it was for the sake of the people that he called the pharisees _hypocrites_, and not for their own sakes, for how should he argue with men who taught religion for their own aggrandizement? it is to be noted that our lord recognizes the power of others besides himself to cast out devils. "by whom do your children cast them out?" _did you ever say of them it was by beelzebub? why say it of me_? what he claims he freely allows. the saviour had no tinge of that jealousy of rival teaching--as if truth could be two, and could avoid being one--which makes so many of his followers grasp at any waif of false argument. he knew that all good is of god, and not of the devil. all were _with_ him who destroyed the power of the devil. they who were cured, and they in whom self-worship was not blinding the judgment, had no doubt that he was fighting satan on his usurped ground. torture was what might be expected of satan; healing what might be expected of god. the reality of the healing, the loss of the man, morally as well as physically, to the kingdom of evil, was witnessed in all the signs that followed. our lord rests his argument on the fact that satan had lost these men. we hear next, from st luke, of certain women who followed him, having been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, amongst whom is mentioned "mary, called magdalene, out of whom went seven devils." no wonder a woman thus delivered should devote her restored self to the service of him who had recreated her. we hear nothing of the circumstances of the cure, only the result in her constant ministration. hers is a curious instance of the worthlessness of what some think it a mark of high-mindedness to regard alone--the opinion, namely, of posterity. without a fragment of evidence, this woman has been all but universally regarded as impure. but what a trifle to her! down in this squabbling nursery of the race, the name of mary magdalene may be degraded even to a subject for pictorial sentimentalities; but the woman herself is with that jesus who set her free. to the end of time they may call her what they please: to her it is worth but a smile of holy amusement. and just as worthy is the applause of posterity associated with a name. to god alone we live or die. let us fall, as, thank him, we must, into his hands. let him judge us. posterity may be wiser than we; but posterity is not our judge. we come now to a narrative containing more of the marvellous than all the rest. the miracle was wrought on the south-eastern side of the lake--st matthew says, upon two demoniacs; st mark and st luke make mention only of one. the accounts given by the latter evangelists are much more circumstantial than that by the former. it was a case of peculiarly frightful character. the man, possessed of many demons, was ferocious, and of marvellous strength, breaking chains and fetters, and untameable. it is impossible to analyse the phenomena, saying which were the actions of the man, and which those of the possessing demons. externally all were the man's, done by the man finally, some part, i presume, from his own poor withered will, far the greater from the urging of the demons. even in the case of a man driven by appetite or passion, it is impossible to say how much is to be attributed to the man himself, and how much to that lower nature in him which he ought to keep in subjection, but which, having been allowed to get the upper hand, has become a possessing demon. he met the lord worshipping, and, as in a former instance, praying for such clemency as devils can value. was it the devils, then, that urged the man into the presence of the lord? was it not rather the other spirit, the spirit of life, which not the presence of a legion of the wicked ones could drive from him? was it not the spirit of the father in him which brought him, ignorant, fearing, yet vaguely hoping perhaps, to the feet of the son? he knew not why he came; but he came--drawn or driven; he could not keep away. when he came, however, the words at least of his prayer were moulded by the devils--"i adjure thee by god that thou torment me not." think of the man, tortured by such awful presences, praying to the healer not to torment him! the prayer was compelled into this shape by the indwelling demons. they would have him pray for indulgence for them. but the lord heard the deeper prayer, that is, the need and misery of the man, the horror that made him cry and cut himself with stones--and commanded the unclean spirit to come out of him. thereupon, st mark says, "he besought him much that he would not send them out of the country." probably the country was one the condition of whose inhabitants afforded the demons unusual opportunities for their coveted pseudo-embodiment. st luke says, "they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep"--to such beings awful, chiefly because there they must be alone, afar from matter and all its forms. in such loneliness the good man would be filled with the eternal presence of the living god; but they would be aware only of their greedy, hungry selves--desires without objects. no. here were swine. "send us into the swine, that we may enter into them." deprived of the abode they preferred, debarred from men, swine would serve their turn. but even the swine--animals created to look unclean, for a type to humanity of the very form and fashion of its greed--could not endure their presence. the man had cut himself with stones in his misery; the swine in theirs rushed into the waters of the lake and were drowned. the evil spirits, i presume, having no further leave, had to go to their deep after all. the destruction of the swine must not be regarded as miraculous. but there must have been a special reason in the character and condition of the people of gadara for his allowing this destruction of their property. i suppose that although it worked vexation and dismay at first, it prepared the way for some after-reception of the gospel. now, seeing him who had been a raving maniac, sitting at the feet of jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and hearing what had come to the swine, they were filled with fear, and prayed the healer to depart from them. but who can imagine the delight of the man when that wild troop of maddening and defiling demons, which had possessed him with all uncleanness, vanished! scarce had he time to know that he was naked, before the hands of loving human beings, in whom the good spirit ruled, were taking off their own garments, and putting them upon him. he was a man once more, and amongst men with human faces, human hearts, human ways. he was with his own; and that supreme form and face of the man who had set him free was binding them all into one holy family. now he could pray of himself the true prayer of a soul which knew what it wanted, and could say what it meant. he sat down like a child at the feet of the man who had cured him; and when, yielding at once to the desire of those who would be rid of his presence, jesus went down to the boat, he followed, praying that he might be with him; for what could he desire but to be near that power which had restored him his divine self, and the consciousness thereof--his own true existence, that of which god was thinking when he made him? but he would be still nearer the lord in doing his work than in following him about. it is remarkable that while more than once our lord charged the healed to be silent, he leaves this man as his apostle--his witness with those who had banished him from their coasts. something may be attributed to the different natures of the individuals; some in preaching him would also preach themselves, and so hurt both. but this man was not of such. to be with the lord was all his prayer. therefore he was fit to be without him, and to aid his work apart. but i think it more likely that the reason lay in the condition of the people. judã¦a was in a state of excitement about him--that excitement had unhealthy elements, and must not be fanned. in some places the lord would not speak at all. through some he would pass unknown. but here all was different. he had destroyed their swine; they had prayed him to depart; if he took from them this one sign of his real presence, that is, of the love which heals, not the power which destroys, it would be to abandon them. but it is very noteworthy that he sent the man to his own house, to his own friends. they must be the most open to such a message as his, and from such lips--the lips of their own flesh and blood. he had been raving in tombs and deserts, tormented with a legion of devils; now he was one of themselves again, with love in his eyes, adoration in the very tones of his voice, and help in his hands--reason once more supreme on the throne of his humanity. he obeyed, and published in gadara, and the rest of the cities of decapolis, the great things, as jesus himself called them, which god had done for him. for it was god who had done them. he was doing the works of his father. one more instance remains, having likewise peculiar points of difficulty, and therefore of interest. when jesus was on the mount of transfiguration, a dumb, epileptic, and lunatic boy was brought by his father to those disciples who were awaiting his return. but they could do nothing. to their disappointment, and probably to their chagrin, they found themselves powerless over the evil spirit. when jesus appeared, the father begged of him the aid which his disciples could not give: "master, i beseech thee, look upon my son, for he is mine only child." whoever has held in his arms his child in delirium, calling to his father for aid as if he were distant far, and beating the air in wild and aimless defence, will be able to enter a little into the trouble of this man's soul. to have the child, and yet see him tormented in some region inaccessible; to hold him to the heart and yet be unable to reach the thick-coming fancies which distract him; to find himself with a great abyss between him and his child, across which the cry of the child comes, but back across which no answering voice can reach the consciousness of the sufferer--is terror and misery indeed. but imagine in the case before us the intervals as well--the stupidity, the vacant gaze, the hanging lip, the pale flaccid countenance and bloodshot eyes, idiocy alternated with madness--no voice of human speech, only the animal babble of the uneducated dumb--the misery of his falling down anywhere, now in the fire, now in the water, and the divine shines out as nowhere else--for the father loves his only child even to agony. what was there in such a child to love? _everything_: the human was there, else whence the torture of that which was not human? whence the pathos of those eyes, hardly up to the dog's in intelligence, yet omnipotent over the father's heart? god was there. the misery was that the devil was there too. thence came the crying and tears. "rescue the divine; send the devil to the deep," was the unformed prayer in the father's soul. before replying to his prayer, jesus uttered words that could not have been addressed to the father, inasmuch as he was neither faithless nor perverse. which then of those present did he address thus? to which of them did he say, "how long shall i be with you? how long shall i suffer you?" i have thought it was the bystanders: but why they? they had not surely reached the point of such rebuke. i have thought it was the disciples, because perhaps it was their pride that rendered them unable to cast out the demon, seeing they tried it without faith enough in god. but the form of address does not seem to belong to them: the word generation could not well apply to those whom he had chosen out of that generation. i have thought, and gladly would i continue to think, if i could honestly, that the words were intended for the devils who tormented his countrymen and friends; and but for st mark's story, i might have held to it. he, however, gives us one point which neither st matthew nor st luke mention--that "when he came to his disciples he saw a great multitude about them, and the scribes questioning with them." he says the multitude were greatly amazed when they saw him--why, i do not know, except it be that he came just at the point where his presence was needful to give the one answer to the scribes pressing hard upon his disciples because they could not cast out this devil. these scribes, these men of accredited education, who, from their position as students of the law and the interpretations thereof, arrogated to themselves a mastery over the faith of the people, but were themselves so careless about the truth as to be utterly opaque to its illuminating power--these scribes, i say, i do think it was whom our lord addressed as "faithless and perverse generation." the immediately following request to the father of the boy, "bring him unto me," was the one answer to their arguments. a fresh paroxysm was the first result. but repressing all haste, the lord will care for the father as much as for the child. he will help his growing faith. "how long is it ago since thus hath come unto him?" "from a child. and oft-times it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him; but if thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us." [footnote 9: again the _us_--so full of pathos.] "_if thou canst_?" [footnote 10: the oldest manuscripts. (_dean alford_). "if thou canst have faith--all things," &c. ("new translation of the gospel of st mark." _rev. f.h. godwin_).] all things are possible to him that believeth." "lord, i believe; help thou mine unbelief." whether the words of jesus, "him that believeth," meant himself as believing in the father, and therefore gifted with all power, or the man as believing in him, and therefore capable of being the recipient of the effects of that power, i am not sure. i incline to the former. the result is the same, for the man resolves the question practically and personally: what was needful in him should be in him. "i believe; help thou mine unbelief." in the honesty of his heart, lest he should be saying more than was true--for how could he be certain that jesus would cure his son? or how could he measure and estimate his own faith?--he appeals to the lord of truth for all that he ought to be, and think, and believe. "help thou mine unbelief." it is the very triumph of faith. the unbelief itself cast like any other care upon him who careth for us, is the highest exercise of belief. it is the greatest effort lying in the power of the man. no man can help doubt. the true man alone, that is, the faithful man, can appeal to the truth to enable him to believe what is true, and refuse what is false. how this applies especially to our own time and the need of the living generations, is easy to see. of all prayers it is the one for us. possibly our lord might have held a little farther talk with him, but the people came crowding about. "he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, thou dumb and deaf spirit, i charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. and the spirit cried and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, he is dead. but jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose." "why could not we cast him out?" asked his disciples as soon as they were alone. "this kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting." what does this answer imply? the prayer and fasting must clearly be on the part of those who would heal. they cannot be required of one possessed with a demon. if he could fast and pray, the demon would be gone already. it implies that a great purity of soul is needful in him who would master the powers of evil. i take prayer and fasting to indicate a condition of mind elevated above the cares of the world and the pleasures of the senses, in close communion with the god of life; therefore by its very purity an awe and terror to the unclean spirits, a fit cloud whence the thunder of the word might issue against them. the expulsion would appear to be the result of moral, and hence natural, superiority--a command resting upon oneness with the ultimate will of the supreme, in like manner as an evil man is sometimes cowed in the presence of a good man. the disciples had not attained this lofty condition of faith. from this i lean to think that the words of our lord--"all things are possible to him that believeth"--apply to our lord himself. the disciples could not help the child: "if thou canst do anything," said the father. "all things are possible to him that believeth," says our lord. _he_ can help him. that it was the lack of faith in the disciples which rendered the thing impossible for them, st matthew informs us explicitly, for he gives the reply of our lord more fully than the rest: "because of your unbelief," he said, and followed with the assertion that faith could remove mountains. but the words--_"this kind"_--suggest that the case had its peculiarities. it would appear--although i am not certain of this interpretation--that some kinds of spirits required for their expulsion, or at least some cases of possession required for their cure, more than others of the presence of god in the healer. i do not care to dwell upon this farther than to say that there are points in the narrative which seem to indicate that it was an unusually bad case. the lord asked how long he had been ill, and was told, from childhood. the demon--to use the language of our ignorance--had had time and opportunity, in his undeveloped condition, to lay thorough hold upon him; and when he did yield to the superior command of the lord, he left him as dead--so close had been the possession, that for a time the natural powers could not operate when deprived of the presence of a force which had so long usurped, maltreated, and exhausted, while falsely sustaining them. the disciples, although they had already the power to cast out demons, could not cast this one out, and were surprised to find it so. there appears to me no absurdity, if we admit the demons at all, in admitting also that some had greater force than others, be it regarded as courage or obstinacy, or merely as grasp upon the captive mortal. in all these stories there is much of comfort both to the friends of those who are insane, and to those who are themselves aware of their own partial or occasional insanity. for such sorrow as that of charles and mary lamb, walking together towards the asylum, when the hour had come for her to repair thither, is there not some assuagement here? it may be answered--we have no ground to hope for such cure now. i think we have; but if our faith will not reach so far, we may at least, like athanasius, recognize the friendship of death, for death is the divine cure of many ills. but we all need like healing. no man who does not yet love the truth with his whole being, who does not love god with all his heart and soul and strength and mind, and his neighbour as himself, is in his sound mind, or can act as a rational being, save more or less approximately. this is as true as it would be of us if possessed by other spirits than our own. every word of unkindness, god help us! every unfair hard judgment, every trembling regard of the outward and fearless disregard of the inward life, is a siding with the spirit of evil against the spirit of good, with our lower and accidental selves, against our higher and essential--our true selves. these the spirit of good would set free from all possession but his own, for that is their original life. out of us, too, the evil spirits can go by that prayer alone in which a man draws nigh to the holy. nor can we have any power over the evil spirit in others except in proportion as by such prayer we cast the evil spirit out of ourselves. viii. the raising of the dead. i linger on the threshold. how shall i enter the temple of this wonder? through all ages men of all degrees and forms of religion have hoped at least for a continuance of life beyond its seeming extinction. without such a hope, how could they have endured the existence they had? true, there are in our day men who profess unbelief in that future, and yet lead an enjoyable life, nor even say to themselves, "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die;" but say instead, with nobleness, "let us do what good we may, for there are men to come after us." of all things let him who would be a christian be fair to every man and every class of men. before, however, i could be satisfied that i understood the mental condition of such, i should require a deeper insight than i possess in respect of other men. these, however numerous they seem in our day, would appear to be exceptions to the race. no doubt there have always been those who from absorption in the present and its pleasures, have not cared about the future, have not troubled themselves with the thought of it. some of them would rather not think of it, because if there be such a future, they cannot be easy concerning their part in it; while others are simply occupied with the poor present--a present grand indeed if it be the part of an endless whole, but poor indeed if it stand alone. but here are thoughtful men, who say, "there is no more. let us make the best of this." nor is their notion of _best_ contemptible, although in the eyes of some of us, to whom the only worth of being lies in the hope of becoming that which, at the rate of present progress, must take ages to be realized, it is poor. i will venture one or two words on the matter. their ideal does not approach the ideal of christianity for _this_ life even. before i can tell whether their words are a true representation of themselves, in relation to this future, i must know both their conscious and unconscious being. no wonder i should be loath to judge them. no poet of high rank, as far as i know, ever disbelieved in the future. he might fear that there was none; but that very fear is faith. the greatest poet of the present day believes with ardour. that it is not proven to the intellect, i heartily admit. but if it were true, it were such as the intellect could not grasp, for the understanding must be the offspring of the life--in itself essential. how should the intellect understand its own origin and nature? it is too poor to grasp this question; for the continuity of existence depends on the nature of existence, not upon external relations. if after death we should be conscious that we yet live, we shall even then, i think, be no more able to prove a further continuance of life, than we can now prove our present being. it may be easier to believe--that will be all. but we constantly act upon grounds which we cannot prove, and if we cannot feel so sure of life beyond the grave as of common every-day things, at least the want of proof ought neither to destroy our hope concerning it, nor prevent the action demanded by its bare possibility. but last, i do say this, that those men, who, disbelieving in a future state, do yet live up to the conscience within them, however much lower the requirements of that conscience may be than those of a conscience which believes itself enlightened from "the lord, who is that spirit," shall enter the other life in an immeasurably more enviable relation thereto than those who say _lord, lord_, and do not the things he says to them. it may seem strange that our lord says so little about the life to come--as we call it--though in truth it is one life with the present--as the leaf and the blossom are one life. even in argument with the sadducees he supports his side upon words accepted by them, and upon the nature of god, but says nothing of the question from a human point of regard. he seems always to have taken it for granted, ever turning the minds of his scholars towards that which was deeper and lay at its root--the life itself--the oneness with god and his will, upon which the continuance of our conscious being follows of a necessity, and without which if the latter were possible, it would be for human beings an utter evil. when he speaks of the world beyond, it is as _his father's house_. he says there are many mansions there. he attempts in no way to explain. man's own imagination enlightened of the spirit of truth, and working with his experience and affections, was a far safer guide than his intellect with the best schooling which even our lord could have given it. the memory of the poorest home of a fisherman on the shore of the galilean lake, where he as a child had spent his years of divine carelessness in his father's house, would, at the words of our lord _my father's house_, convey to peter or james or john more truth concerning the many mansions than a revelation to their intellect, had it been possible, as clear as the apocalypse itself is obscure. when he said "i have overcome the _world_" he had overcome the cause of all doubt, the belief in the outside appearances and not in the living truth: he left it to his followers to say, from their own experience knowing the thing, not merely from the belief of his resurrection, "he has conquered death and the grave. o death, where is thy sting? o grave, where is thy victory?" it is the inward life of truth that conquers the outward death of appearance; and nothing else, no revelation from without, could conquer it. these miracles of our lord are the nearest we come to news of any kind concerning--i cannot say _from_--the other world. i except of course our lord's own resurrection. of that i shall yet speak as a miracle, for miracle it was, as certainly as any of our lord's, whatever interpretation be put upon the word. and i say _the nearest to news we come_, because not one of those raised from the dead gives _us_ at least an atom of information. is it possible they may have told their friends something which has filtered down to us in any shape? i turn to the cases on record. they are only three. the day after he cured the servant of the centurion at capernaum, jesus went to nain, and as they approached the gate--but i cannot part the story from the lovely words in which it is told by st luke: "there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and much people of the city was with her. and when the lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, weep not. and he came and touched the bier; and they that bare him stood still. and he said, young man, i say unto thee, arise. and he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. and he delivered him to his mother." in each of the cases there is an especial fitness in the miracle. this youth was the only son of a widow; the daughter of jairus was his "one only daughter;" lazarus was the brother of two orphan sisters. i will not attempt by any lingering over the simple details to render the record more impressive. that lingering ought to be on the part of the reader of the narrative itself. friends crowded around a loss--the centre of the gathering that which _was not_--the sole presence the hopeless sign of a vanished treasure--an open gulf, as it were, down which love and tears and sad memories went plunging in a soundless cataract: the weeping mother--the dead man borne in the midst. they were going to the house of death, but life was between them and it--was walking to meet them, although they knew it not. a face of tender pity looks down on the mother. she heeds him not. he goes up to the bier, and lays his hand on it. the bearers recognize authority, and stand. a word, and the dead sits up. a moment more, and he is in the arms of his mother. o mother! mother! wast thou more favoured than other mothers? or was it that, for the sake of all mothers as well as thyself, thou wast made the type of the universal mother with the dead son--the raising of him but a foretaste of the one universal bliss of mothers with dead sons? that thou wert an exception would have ill met thy need, for thy motherhood could not be justified in thyself alone. it could not have its rights save on grounds universal. thy motherhood was common to all thy sisters. to have helped thee by exceptional favour would not have been to acknowledge thy motherhood. that must go mourning still, even with thy restored son in its bosom, for its claims are universal or they _are_ not. thou wast indeed a chosen one, but that thou mightest show to all the last fate of the mourning mother; for in god's dealings there are no exceptions. his laws are universal as he is infinite. jesus wrought no new thing--only the works of the father. what matters it that the dead come not back to us, if we go to them? _what matters it?_ said i! it is tenfold better. dear as home is, he who loves it best must know that what he calls home is not home, is but a shadow of home, is but the open porch of home, where all the winds of the world rave by turns, and the glowing fire of the true home casts lovely gleams from within. certainly this mother did not thus lose her son again. doubtless next she died first, knowing then at last that she had only to wait. the dead must have their sorrow too, but when they find it is well with them, they can sit and wait by the mouth of the coming stream better than those can wait who see the going stream bear their loves down to the ocean of the unknown. the dead sit by the river-mouths of time: the living mourn upon its higher banks. but for the joy of the mother, we cannot conceive it. no mother even who has lost her son, and hopes one blessed eternal day to find him again, can conceive her gladness. had it been all a dream? a dream surely in this sense, that the final, which alone, in the full sense, is god's will, must ever cast the look of a dream over all that has gone before. when we last awake, we shall know that we dreamed. even every honest judgment, feeling, hope, desire, will show itself a dream--with this difference from some dreams, that the waking is the more lovely, that nothing is lost, but everything gained, in the full blaze of restored completeness. how triumphant would this mother die, when her turn came! and how calmly would the restored son go about the duties of the world. [footnote:11 those who can take the trouble, and are capable of understanding it, will do well to study robert browning's "epistle of an arab physician."] he sat up and began to speak. it is vain to look into that which god has hidden; for surely it is by no chance that we are left thus in the dark. "he began to speak." why does not the evangelist go on to give us some hint of what he said? would not the hearts of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, wives, children, husbands--who shall say where the divine madness of love will cease?--grandfathers, grandmothers--themselves with flickering flame--yes, grandchildren, weeping over the loss of the beloved gray head and tremulously gentle voice--would not all these have blessed god for st luke's record of what the son of the widow said? for my part, i thank god he was silent. when i think of the pictures of heaven drawn from the attempt of prophecy to utter its visions in the poor forms of the glory of earth, i see it better that we should walk by faith, and not by a fancied sight. i judge that the region beyond is so different from ours, so comprising in one surpassing excellence all the goods of ours, that any attempt of the had-been-dead to describe it, would have resulted in the most wretched of misconceptions. such might please the lower conditions of christian development--but so much the worse, for they could not fail to obstruct its further growth. it is well that st luke is silent; or that the mother and the friends who stood by the bier, heard the words of the returning spirit only as the babble of a child from which they could draw no definite meaning, and to which they could respond only by caresses. the story of the daughter of jairus is recorded briefly by st matthew, more fully by st luke, most fully by st mark. one of the rulers of the synagogue at capernaum falls at the feet of our lord, saying his little daughter is at the point of death. she was about twelve years of age. he begs the lord to lay his hands on her that she may live. our lord goes with him, followed by many people. on his way to restore the child he is arrested by a touch. he makes no haste to outstrip death. we can imagine the impatience of the father when the lord stood and asked who touched him. what did that matter? his daughter was dying; death would not wait. but the woman's heart and soul must not be passed by. the father with the only daughter must wait yet a little. the will of god cannot be outstripped. "while he yet spake, there came from the ruler of the synagogue's house certain which said, thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the master any further?" "ah! i thought so! there it is! death has won the race!" we may suppose the father to say--bitterly within himself. but jesus, while he tried the faith of men, never tried it without feeding its strength. with the trial he always gives the way of escape. "as soon as jesus heard the word that was spoken"--not leaving it to work its agony of despair first--"he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, be not afraid; only believe." they are such simple words--commonplace in the ears of those who have heard them often and heeded them little! but containing more for this man's peace than all the consolations of philosophy, than all the enforcements of morality; yea, even than the raising of his daughter itself. to arouse the higher, the hopeful, the trusting nature of a man; to cause him to look up into the unknown region of mysterious possibilities--the god so poorly known--is to do infinitely more for a man than to remove the pressure of the direst evil without it. i will go further: to arouse the hope that there may be a god with a heart like our own is more for the humanity in us than to produce the absolute conviction that there is a being who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and the fountains of waters. jesus is the express image of god's substance, and in him we know the heart of god. to nourish faith in himself was the best thing he could do for the man. we hear of no word from the ruler further. if he answered not our lord in words, it is no wonder. the compressed lip and the uplifted eye would say more than any words to the heart of the saviour. now it would appear that he stopped the crowd and would let them go no farther. they could not all see, and he did not wish them to see. it was not good for men to see too many miracles. they would feast their eyes, and then cease to wonder or think. the miracle, which would be all, and quite dissociated from religion, with many of them, would cease to be wonderful, would become a common thing with most. yea, some would cease to believe that it had been. they would say she did sleep after all--she was not dead. a wonder is a poor thing for faith after all; and the miracle could be only a wonder in the eyes of those who had not prayed for it, and could not give thanks for it; who did not feel that in it they were partakers of the love of god. jesus must have hated anything like display. god's greatest work has never been done in crowds, but in closets; and when it works out from thence, it is not upon crowds, but upon individuals. a crowd is not a divine thing. it is not a body. its atoms are not members one of another. a crowd is a chaos over which the spirit of god has yet to move, ere each retires to his place to begin his harmonious work, and unite with all the rest in the organized chorus of the human creation. the crowd must be dispersed that the church may be formed. the relation of the crowd to the miracle is rightly reflected in what came to the friends of the house. to them, weeping and wailing greatly, after the eastern fashion, he said when he entered, "why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth." they laughed him to scorn. he put them all out. but what did our lord mean by those words--"the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth"? not certainly that, as we regard the difference between death and sleep, his words were to be taken literally; not that she was only in a state of coma or lethargy; not even that it was a case of suspended animation as in catalepsy; for the whole narrative evidently intends us to believe that she was dead after the fashion we call death. that this was not to be dead after the fashion our lord called death, is a blessed and lovely fact. neither can it mean, that she was not dead as others, in that he was going to wake her so soon; for they did not know that, and therefore it could give no ground for the expostulation, "why make ye this ado, and weep?" nor yet could it come only from the fact that to his eyes death and sleep were so alike, the one needing the power of god for awaking just as much as the other. true they must be more alike in his eyes than even in the eyes of the many poets who have written of "death and his brother sleep;" but he sees the differences none the less clearly, and how they look to us, and his knowledge could be no reason for reproaching our ignorance. the explanation seems to me large and simple. these people professed to believe in the resurrection of the dead, and did believe after some feeble fashion. they were not sadducees, for they were the friends of a ruler of the synagogue. our lord did not bring the news of resurrection to the world: that had been believed, in varying degrees, by all peoples and nations from the first: the resurrection he taught was a far deeper thing--the resurrection from dead works to serve the living and true god. but as with the greater number even of christians, although it was part of their creed, and had some influence upon their moral and spiritual condition, their practical faith in the resurrection of the body was a poor affair. in the moment of loss and grief, they thought little about it. they lived then in the present almost alone; they were not saved by hope. the reproach therefore of our lord was simply that they did not take from their own creed the consolation they ought. if the child was to be one day restored to them, then she was not dead as their tears and lamentations would imply. any one of themselves who believed in god and the prophets, might have stood up and said--"mourners, why make such ado? the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. you shall again clasp her to your bosom. hope, and fear not--only believe." it was in this sense, i think, that our lord spoke. but it may not at first appear how much grander the miracle itself appears in the light of this simple interpretation of the master's words. the sequel stands in the same relation to the words as if--turning into the death-chamber, and bringing the maid out by the hand--he had said to them: "see--i told you she was not dead but sleeping." the words apply to all death, just as much as to that in which this girl lay. the lord brings his assurance, his knowledge of what we do not know, to feed our feeble faith. it is as if he told us that our notion of death is all wrong, that there is no such thing as we think it; that we should be nearer the truth if we denied it altogether, and gave to what we now call death the name of sleep, for it is but a passing appearance, and no right cause of such misery as we manifest in its presence. i think it was from this word of our lord, and from the same utterance in the case of lazarus, that st paul so often uses the word sleep for die and for death. indeed the notion of death, as we feel it, seems to have vanished entirely from st paul's mind--he speaks of things so in a continuity, not even referring to the change--not even saying before death or after death, as if death made no atom of difference in the progress of holy events, the divine history of the individual and of the race together. in a word, when he raised the dead, the son did neither more nor less nor other than the work of the father--what he is always doing; he only made it manifest a little sooner to the eyes and hearts of men. but they to whom he spoke laughed him to scorn. they knew she was dead, and their unfaithfulness blinded their hearts to what he meant. they were unfit to behold the proof of what he had said. such as they, in such mood, could gather from it no benefit. a faithful heart alone is capable of understanding the proof of the truest things. it is faith towards god which alone can lay hold of any of his facts. there is a foregoing fitness. therefore he put them all out. but the father and mother, whose love and sorrow made them more easily persuaded of mighty things, more accessible to holy influences, and the three disciples, whose faith rendered them fit to behold otherwise dangerous wonders, he took with him into the chamber where the damsel lay--dead toward men--sleeping toward god. dead as she was, she only slept. "damsel, i say unto thee, arise." "and her spirit came again," "and straightway the damsel arose and walked," "and he commanded to give her meat." for in the joy of her restoration, they might forget that the more complete the health of a worn and exhausted body, the more needful was food--food which, in all its commonness, might well support the miracle; for not only did it follow by the next word to that which had wrought the miracle, but it worked in perfect harmony with the law which took shape in this resurrection, and in its relations to the human being involved no whit less marvel than lay in the miracle itself. the raising of the dead and the feeding of the living are both and equally divine--therefore in utter harmony. and we do not any more understand the power in the body which takes to itself that food, than we understand the power going out from jesus to make this girl's body capable of again employing its ministrations. they are both of one and must be perfect in harmony, the one as much the outcome of law as the other. he charges the parents to be silent, it may be for his sake, who did not want to be made a mere wonder of, but more probably for their sakes, that the holy thing might not evaporate in speech, or be defiled with foolish talk and the glorification of self-importance in those for whom a mighty wonder had been done; but that in silence the seed might take root in their hearts and bring forth living fruit in humility, and uprightness, and faith. and now for the wonderful story of lazarus. in this miracle one might think the desire of jesus for his friend's presence through his own coming trouble, might have had a share, were it not that we never find him working a miracle for himself. he knew the perfect will of the father, and left all to him. those who cannot know that will and do not care for it, have to fall into trouble that they may know god as the saviour from their own doings--as the fountain of all their well-being. this jesus had not to learn, and therefore could need no miracle wrought for him. even his resurrection was all for others. that miracle was wrought in, not for him. he knew lazarus was dying. he abode where he was and let him die. for a hard and therefore precious lesson for sisters and friends lay in that death, and the more the love the more precious the lesson--the same that lies in every death; and the end the same for all who love--resurrection. the raising of lazarus is the type of the raising of all the dead. of lazarus, as of the daughter of jairus, he said "he sleepeth; but i go that i may awake him out of sleep." he slept as every dead man sleeps. read the story. try to think not only what the disciples felt, but what jesus was thinking; how he, who saw the other side, regarded the death he was about to destroy. "lord, if thou hadst been here," said martha, "my brother had not died." did she mean to hint what she had not faith enough to ask? "thy brother shall rise again," said the lord. but her faith was so weak that she took little comfort from the assurance. alas! she knew what it meant. she knew all about it. he spoke of the general far-off resurrection, which to her was a very little thing. it was true he should rise again; but what was that to the present consuming grief? a thousand years might be to god as one day, but to martha the one day was a thousand years. it is only to him who entirely believes in god that the thousand years become one day also. for he that believes shares in the vision of him in whom he believes. it is through such faith that jesus would help her--far beyond the present awful need. he seeks to raise her confidence in himself by the strongest assertions of the might that was in him. "i am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live!" the death of not believing in god--the god revealed in jesus--is the only death. the other is nowhere but in the fears and fancies of unbelief. "and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." there is for him nothing to be called death; nothing that is what death looks to us. "believest thou this?" martha was an honest woman. she did not fully understand what he meant. she could not, therefore, do more than assent to it. but she believed in him, and that much she could tell him plainly. "yea, lord: i believe that thou art the christ, the son of god, which should come into the world." and that hope with the confession arose in her heart, she gave the loveliest sign: she went and called her sister. but even in the profounder mary faith reached only to the words of her sister: "lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." when he saw her trouble, and that of the jews with her, he was troubled likewise. but why? the purest sympathy with what was about to vanish would not surely make him groan in his spirit. why, then, this trouble in our lord's heart? we have a right, yea, a duty, to understand it if we can, for he showed it. i think it was caused by an invading sense of the general misery of poor humanity from the lack of that faith in the father without which he, the son, could do, or endure, nothing. if the father ceased the son must cease. it was the darkness between god and his creatures that gave room for and was filled with their weeping and wailing over their dead. to them death must appear an unmitigated and irremediable evil. how frightful to feel as they felt! to see death as they saw it! nothing could help their misery but that faith in the infinite love which he had come to bring them; but how hard it was to persuade them to receive it! and how many weeping generations of loving hearts must follow! his father was indeed with them all, but how slowly and painfully would each learn the one precious fact! "where have ye laid him?" he asked. "lord, come and see," they answered, in such mournful accents of human misery that he wept with them. they come to the grave. "take ye away the stone." "lord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days," said she who believed in the resurrection and the life! they are the saddest of sad words. i hardly know how to utter the feeling they raise. in all the relations of mortality to immortality, of body to soul, there are painful and even ugly things, things to which, by common consent, we refer only upon dire necessity, and with a sense of shame. happy they in whom the mortal has put on immortality! decay and its accompaniments, all that makes the most beloved of the _appearances_ of god's creation a terror, compelling us to call to the earth for succour, and pray her to take our dead out of our sight, to receive her own back into her bosom, and unmake in secret darkness that which was the glory of the light in our eyes--this was upper-most with martha, even in the presence of him to whom death was but a slave to come and go at his will. careful of his feelings, of the shock to his senses, she would oppose his will. for the dead brother's sake also, that he should not be dishonoured in his privacy, she would not have had that stone removed. but had it been as martha feared, who so tender with feeble flesh as the son of man? who so unready to impute the shame it could not help? who less fastidious over the painful working of the laws of his own world? entire affection hateth nicer hands. and at the worst, what was decay to him, who could recall the disuniting atoms under the restored law of imperial life? "said i not unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of god?" again i say _the essential_ glory of god who raises all the dead, not merely _an exceptional_ glory of god in raising this one dead man. they should see not corruption but glory. no evil odour of dissolution should assail them, but glowing life should spring from the place of the dead; light should be born from the very bosom of the darkness. they took away the friendly stone. then jesus spoke, not to the dead man, but to the living father. the men and women about him must know it as the father's work. "and jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, father, i thank thee that thou hast heard me. and i knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by i said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me." so might they believe that the work was god's, that he was doing the will of god, and that they might trust in the god whose will was such as this. he claimed the presence of god in what he did, that by the open claim and the mighty deed following it they might see that the father justified what the son said, and might receive him and all that he did as the manifestation of the father. and now-"lazarus, come forth." slow toiling, with hand and foot bound in the grave clothes, he that had been dead struggled forth to the light. what an awful moment! when did ever corruption and glory meet and embrace as now! oh! what ready hands, eager almost to helplessness, were stretched trembling towards the feeble man returning from his strange journey, to seize and carry him into the day--their poor day, which they thought _all_ the day, forgetful of that higher day which for their sakes he had left behind, content to walk in moonlight a little longer, gladdened by the embraces of his sisters, and--perhaps--i do not know--comforting their hearts with news of the heavenly regions! joy of all joys! the dead come back! is it any wonder that this mary should spend three hundred pence on an ointment for the feet of the raiser of the dead? i doubt if he told them anything? i do not think he could make even his own flesh and blood--of woman-kind, quick to understand--know the things he had seen and heard and felt. all that can be said concerning this, is thus said by our beloved brother tennyson in his book _in memoriam_: 'where wert thou, brother, those four days?' there lives no record of reply, which telling what it is to die, had surely added praise to praise. behold a man raised up by christ! the rest remaineth unrevealed; he told it not; or something sealed the lips of that evangelist. why are we left in such ignorance? without the raising of the dead, without the rising of the saviour himself, christianity would not have given what it could of _hope_ for the future. hope is not faith, but neither is faith sight; and if we have hope we are not miserable men. but christianity must not, could not interfere with the discipline needful for its own fulfilment, could not depose the schoolmaster that leads unto christ. one main doubt and terror which drives men towards the revelation in jesus, is this strange thing death. how shall any man imagine he is complete in himself, and can do without a father in heaven, when he knows that he knows neither the mystery whence he sprung by birth, nor the mystery to which he goes by death? god has given us room away from himself as robert browning says:- ..."god, whose pleasure brought man into being, stands away, as it were, an hand-breadth off, to give room for the newly-made to live, and look at him from a place apart, and use his gifts of brain and heart"-and this room, in its time-symbol, is bounded by darkness on the one hand, and darkness on the other. whence i came and whither i go are dark: how can i live in peace without the god who ordered it thus? faith is my only refuge--an absolute belief in a being so much beyond myself, that he can do all for this _me_ with utter satisfaction to this _me_, protecting all its rights, jealously as his own from which they spring, that he may make me at last one with himself who is my deeper self, inasmuch as his thought of me is my life. and not to know him, even if i could go on living and happy without him, is death. it may be said, "why all this? why not go on like a brave man to meet your fate, careless of what that fate may be?" "but what if this fate _should_ depend on myself? am i to be careless then?" i answer. "the fate is so uncertain! if it be annihilation, why quail before it? cowardice at least is contemptible." "is not indifference more contemptible? that one who has once thought should not care to go on to think? that this glory should perish--is it no grief? is life not a good with all its pain? ought one to be willing to part with a good? ought he not to cleave fast thereto? have you never grudged the coming sleep, because you must cease for the time to _be_ so much as you were before? for my part, i think the man who can go to sleep without faith in god has yet to learn what being is. he who knows not god cannot, however, have much to lose in losing being. and yet--and yet--did he never love man or woman or child? is he content that there should be no more of it? above all, is he content to go on with man and woman and child now, careless of whether the love is a perishable thing? if it be, why does he not kill himself, seeing it is all a lie--a false appearance of a thing too glorious to be fact, but for which our best nature calls aloud--and cannot have it? if one knew for certain that there was no life beyond this, then the noble thing would be to make the best of this, yea even then to try after such things as are written in the gospel as we call it--for they _are_ the noblest. that i am sure of, whatever i may doubt. but not to be sure of annihilation, and yet choose it to be true, and act as if it were true, seems to me to indicate a nature at strife with immortality--bound for the dust by its own choice--of the earth, and returning to the dust." the man will say, "that is yielding everything. let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. i am of the dust, for i believe in nothing beyond." "no," i return. "i recognize another law in myself which seems to me infinitely higher. and i think that law is in you also, although you are at strife with it, and will revive in you to your blessed discontent. by that i will walk, and not by yours--a law which bids me strive after what i am not but may become--a law in me striving against the law of sin and down-dragging decay--a law which is one with my will, and, if true, must of all things make one at last. if i am made to live i ought not to be willing to cease. this unwillingness to cease--above all, this unwillingness to cease to love my own, the fore-front to me of my all men--may be in me the sign, may _well_ be in me the sign that i am made to live. above all to pass away without the possibility of making reparation to those whom i have wronged, with no chance of saying _i am sorry--what shall i do for you? grant me some means of delivering myself from this burden of wrong_--seems to me frightful. no god to help one to be good now! no god who cares whether one is good or not! if a god, then one who will not give his creature time enough to grow good, even if he is growing better, but will blot him out like a rain-drop! great god, forbid--if thou art. if thou art not, then this, like all other prayers, goes echoing through the soulless vaults of a waste universe, from the thought of which its peoples recoil in horror. death, then, is genial, soul-begetting, and love-creating; and life is nowhere, save in the imaginations of the children of the grave. whence, then, oh! whence came those their imaginations? death, thou art not my father! grave, thou art not my mother! i come of another kind, nor shall ye usurp dominion over me." what better sign of immortality than the raising of the dead could god give? he cannot, however, be always raising the dead before our eyes; for then the holiness of death's ends would be a failure. we need death; only it shall be undone once and again for a time, that we may know it is not what it seems to us. i have already said that probably we are not capable of being told in words what the other world is. but even the very report through the ages that the dead came back, as their friends had known them, with the old love unlost in the grave, with the same face to smile and bless, is precious indeed. that they remain the same in all that made them lovely, is the one priceless fact--if we may but hope in it as a fact. that we shall behold, and clasp, and love them again follows of simple necessity. we cannot be sure of the report as if it were done before our own eyes, yet what a hope it gives even to him whose honesty and his faith together make him, like martha, refrain speech, not daring to say _i believe_ of all that is reported! i think such a one will one day be able to believe more than he even knows how to desire. for faith in jesus will well make up for the lack of the sight of the miracle. does god, then, make death look what it is not? why not let it appear what it is, and prevent us from forming false judgments of it? it is our low faithlessness that makes us misjudge it, and nothing but faith could make us judge it aright. and that, while in faithlessness, we should thus misjudge it, is well. in what it appears to us, it is a type of what we are without god. but there is no falsehood in it. the dust must go back to the dust. he who believes in the body more than in the soul, cleaves to this aspect of death: he who believes in thought, in mind, in love, in truth, can see the other side--can rejoice over the bursting shell which allows the young oak to creep from its kernel-prison. the lower is true, but the higher overcomes and absorbs it. "when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." when the spirit of death is seen, the body of death vanishes from us. death is god's angel of birth. we fear him. the dying stretches out loving hands of hope towards him. i do not believe that death is to the dying the dreadful thing it looks to the beholders. i think it is more like what the spirit may then be able to remember of its own birth as a child into this lower world, this porch of the heavenly. how will he love his mother then! and all humanity in her, and god who gave her, and god who gives her back! the future lies dark before us, with an infinite hope in the darkness. to be at peace concerning it on any other ground than the love of god, would be an absolute loss. better fear and hope and prayer, than knowledge and peace without the prayer. to sum up: an express revelation in words would probably be little intelligible. in christ we have an ever-growing revelation. he is the resurrection and the life. as we know him we know our future. in our ignorance lies a force of need, compelling us towards god. in our ignorance likewise lies the room for the development of the simple will, as well as the necessity for arousing it. hence this ignorance is but the shell of faith. in this, as in all his miracles, our lord _shows_ in one instance what his father is ever doing without showing it. even the report of this is the best news we can have from the _other_ world--as we call it. ix. the government of nature. the miracles i include in this class are the following:-1. the turning of water into wine, already treated of, given by st john. 2. the draught of fishes, given by st luke. 3. the draught of fishes, given by st john. 4 the feeding of the four thousand, given by st matthew and st mark. 5. the feeding of the five thousand, recorded by all the evangelists. 6. the walking on the sea, given by st matthew, st mark, and st john. 7. the stilling of the storm, given by st matthew, st mark, and st luke. 8. the fish bringing the piece of money, told by st matthew alone. these miracles, in common with those already considered, have for their end the help or deliverance of man. they differ from those, however, in operating mediately, through a change upon external things, and not at once on their human objects. but besides the fact that they have to do with what we call nature, they would form a class on another ground. in those cases of disease, the miracles are for the setting right of what has gone wrong, the restoration of the order of things,--namely, of the original condition of humanity. no doubt it is a law of nature that where there is sin there should be suffering; but even its cure helps to restore that righteousness which is highest nature; for the cure of suffering must not be confounded with the absence of suffering. but the miracles of which i have now to speak, show themselves as interfering with what we may call the righteous laws of nature. water should wet the foot, should ingulf him who would tread its surface. bread should come from the oven last, from the field first. fishes should be now here now there, according to laws ill understood of men--nay, possibly according to a piscine choice quite unknown of men. wine should take ripening in the grape and in the bottle. in all these cases it is otherwise. yet even in these, i think, the restoration of an original law--the supremacy of righteous man, is foreshown. while a man cannot order his own house as he would, something is wrong in him, and therefore in his house. i think a true man should be able to rule winds and waters and loaves and fishes, for he comes of the father who made the house for him. had jesus not been capable of these things, he might have been the best of men, but either he could not have been a perfect man, or the perfect god, if such there were, was not in harmony with the perfect man. man is not master in his own house because he is not master in himself, because he is not a law unto himself--is not himself obedient to the law by which he exists. harmony, that is law, alone is power. discord is weakness. god alone is perfect, living, self-existent law. i will try, in a few words, to give the ground on which i find it possible to accept these miracles. i cannot lay it down as for any other man. i do not wonder at most of those to whom the miracles are a stumbling-block. i do a little wonder at those who can believe in christ and yet find them a stumbling-block. how god creates, no man can tell. but as man is made in god's image, he may think about god's work, and dim analogies may arise out of the depth of his nature which have some resemblance to the way in which god works. i say then, that, as we are the offspring of god--the children of his will, like as the thoughts move in a man's mind, we live in god's mind. when god thinks anything, then that thing _is_. his thought of it is its life. everything is because god thinks it into being. can it then be very hard to believe that he should alter by a thought any form or appearance of things about us? "it is inconsistent to work otherwise than by law." true; but we know so little of this law that we cannot say what is essential in it, and what only the so far irregular consequence of the unnatural condition of those for whom it was made, but who have not yet willed god's harmony. we know so little of law that we cannot certainly say what would be an infringement of this or that law. that which at first sight appears as such, may be but the operating of a higher law which rightly dominates the other. it is the law, as we call it, that a stone should fall to the ground. a man may place his hand beneath the stone, and then, _if his hand be strong enough_, it is the law that the stone shall not fall to the ground. the law has been lawfully prevented from working its full end. in similar ways, god might stop the working of one law by the intervention of another. such intervention, if not understood by us, would be what we call a miracle. possibly a different condition of the earth, producible according to law, might cause everything to fly off from its surface instead of seeking it. the question is whether or not we can believe that the usual laws might be set aside by laws including higher principles and wider operations. all i have to answer is--give me good reason, and i can. a man may say--"what seems good reason to you, does not to me." i answer, "we are both accountable to that being, if such there be, who has lighted in us the candle of judgment. to him alone we stand or fall. but there must be a final way of right, towards which every willing heart is led,--and which no one can find who does not seek it." all i want to show here, is a conceivable region in which a miracle might take place without any violence done to the order of things. our power of belief depends greatly on our power of imagining a region in which the things might be. i do not see how some people _could_ believe what to others may offer small difficulty. let us beware lest what we call faith be but the mere assent of a mind which has cared and thought so little about the objects of its so-called faith, that it has never seen the difficulties they involve. some such believers are the worst antagonists of true faith--the children of the pharisees of old. if any one say we ought to receive nothing of which we have no experience; i answer, there is in me a necessity, a desire before which all my experience shrivels into a mockery. its complement must lie beyond. we ought, i grant, to accept nothing for which we cannot see the probability of some sufficient reason, but i thank god that this sufficient reason is not for me limited to the realm of experience. to suppose that it was, would change the hope of a life that might be an ever-burning sacrifice of thanksgiving, into a poor struggle with events and things and chances--to doom the psyche to perpetual imprisonment in the worm. i desire the higher; i care not to live for the lower. the one would make me despise my fellows and recoil with disgust from a self i cannot annihilate; the other fills me with humility, hope, and love. is the preference for the one over the other foolish then--even to the meanest judgment? a higher condition of harmony with law, may one day enable us to do things which must now _appear_ an interruption of law. i believe it is in virtue of the absolute harmony in him, his perfect righteousness, that god can create at all. if man were in harmony with this, if he too were righteous, he would inherit of his father a something in his degree correspondent to the creative power in him; and the world he inhabits, which is but an extension of his body, would, i think, be subject to him in a way surpassing his wildest dreams of dominion, for it would be the perfect dominion of holy law--a virtue flowing to and from him through the channel of a perfect obedience. i suspect that our lord in all his dominion over nature, set forth only the complete man--man as god means him one day to be. why should he not know where the fishes were? or even make them come at his will? why should not that will be potent as impulse in them? if we admit what i hail as the only fundamental idea upon which i can speculate harmoniously with facts, and as alone disclosing regions wherein contradictions are soluble, and doubts previsions of loftier truth--i mean the doctrine of the incarnation; or if even we admit that jesus was good beyond any other goodness we know, why should it not seem possible that the whole region of inferior things might be more subject to him than to us? and if more, why not altogether? i believe that some of these miracles were the natural result of a physical nature perfect from the indwelling of a perfect soul, whose unity with the life of all things and in all things was absolute--in a word, whose sonship was perfect. if in the human form god thus visited his people, he would naturally show himself lord over their circumstances. he will not lord it over their minds, for such lordship is to him abhorrent: they themselves must see and rejoice in acknowledging the lordship which makes them free. there was no grand display, only the simple doing of what at the time was needful. some say it is a higher thing to believe of him that he took things just as they were, and led the revealing life without the aid of wonders. on any theory this is just what he did as far as his own life was concerned. but he had no ambition to show himself the best of men. he comes to reveal the father. he will work even wonders to that end, for the sake of those who could not believe as he did and had to be taught it. no miracle was needful for himself: he saw the root of the matter--the care of god. but he revealed this root in a few rare and hastened flowers to the eyes that could not see to the root. there is perfect submission to lower law for himself, but revelation of the father to them by the introduction of higher laws operating in the upper regions bordering upon ours, not separated from ours by any impassable gulf--rather connected by gently ascending stairs, many of whose gradations he could blend in one descent. he revealed the father as being _under_ no law, but as law itself, and the cause of the laws we know--the cause of all harmony because himself _the_ harmony. men had to be delivered not only from the fear of suffering and death, but from the fear, which is a kind of worship, of nature. nature herself must be shown subject to the father and to him whom the father had sent. men must believe in the great works of the father through the little works of the son: all that he showed was little to what god was doing. they had to be helped to see that it was god who did such things as often as they were done. he it is who causes the corn to grow for man. he gives every fish that a man eats. even if things are terrible yet they are god's, and the lord will still the storm for their faith in him--tame a storm, as a man might tame a wild beast--for his father measures the waters in the hollow of his hand, and men are miserable not to know it. for himself, i repeat, his faith is enough; he sleeps on his pillow nor dreams of perishing. on the individual miracles of this class, i have not much to say. the first of them was wrought in the animal kingdom. he was teaching on the shore of the lake, and the people crowded him. that he might speak with more freedom, he stepped into an empty boat, and having prayed simon the owner of it, who was washing his nets near by, to thrust it a little from the shore, sat down, and no longer incommoded by the eagerness of his audience, taught them from the boat. when he had ended he told simon to launch out into the deep, and let down his nets for a draught. simon had little hope of success, for there had been no fish there all night; but he obeyed, and caught such a multitude of fishes that the net broke. they had to call another boat to their aid, and both began to sink from the overload of fishes. but the great marvel of it wrought on the mind of simon as every wonder tends to operate on the mind of an honest man: it brought his sinfulness before him. in self-abasement he fell down at jesus' knees. whether he thought of any individual sins at the moment, we cannot tell; but he was painfully dissatisfied with himself. he knew he was not what he ought to be. i am unwilling however to believe that such a man desired, save, it may be, as a passing involuntary result of distress, to be rid of the holy presence. i judge rather that his feeling was like that of the centurion--that he felt himself unworthy to have the lord in his boat. he may have feared that the lord took him for a good man, and his honesty could not endure such a mistake: "depart from me, for i am a sinful man, o lord." the lord accepted the spirit, therefore _not_ the word of his prayer. "fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men." his sense of sinfulness, so far from driving the lord from him, should draw other men to him. as soon as that cry broke from his lips, he had become fit to be a fisher of men. he had begun to abjure that which separated man from man. after his resurrection, st john tells us the lord appeared one morning, on the shore of the lake, to some of his disciples, who had again been toiling all night in vain. he told them once more how to cast their net, and they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes. "it is the lord," said st john, purer-hearted, perhaps therefore keener-eyed, than the rest. since the same thing had occurred before, simon had become the fisher of men, but had sinned grievously against his lord. he knew that lord so much better now, however, that when he heard it was he, instead of crying _depart from me_, he cast himself into the sea to go to him. i take next the feeding of the four thousand with the seven loaves and the few little fishes, and the feeding of the five thousand with the five loaves and the two fishes. concerning these miracles, i think i have already said almost all i have to say. if he was the son of god, the bread might as well grow in his hands as the corn in the fields. it is, i repeat, only a doing in condensed form, hence one more easily associated with its real source, of that which god is for ever doing more widely, more slowly, and with more detail both of fundamental wonder and of circumstantial loveliness. whence more fittingly might food come than from the hands of such an elder brother? no doubt there will always be men who cannot believe it:--happy are they who demand a good reason, and yet can believe a wonder! associated with words which appeared to me foolish, untrue, or even poor in their content, i should not believe it. associated with such things as he spoke, i can receive it with ease, and i cherish it with rejoicing. it must be noted in respect of the feeding of the five thousand, that while the other evangelists merely relate the deed as done for the necessities of the multitude, st john records also the use our lord made of the miracle. it was the outcome of his essential relation to humanity. of humanity he was ever the sustaining food. to humanity he was about to give himself in an act of such utter devotion as could only be shadowed--now in the spoken, afterwards in the acted symbol of the eucharist. the miracle was a type of his life as the life of the world, a sign that from him flows all the weal of his creatures. the bread we eat is but its outer husk: the true bread is the lord himself, to have whom in us is eternal life. "except ye eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you." he knew that the grand figure would disclose to the meditation of the loving heart infinitely more of the truth of the matter than any possible amount of definition and explanation, and yet must ever remain far short of setting forth the holy fact to the boldest and humblest mind. but lest they should start upon a wrong track for the interpretation of it, he says to his disciples afterwards, that this body of his should return to god; that what he had said concerning the eating of it had a spiritual sense: "it is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing"--for that. in words he contradicts what he said before, that they might see the words to have meant infinitely more than as words they were able to express; that not their bodies on his body, but their souls must live on his soul, by a union and communion of which the eating of his flesh and the drinking of his blood was, after all, but a poor and faint figure. in this miracle, for the souls as for the bodies of men, he did and revealed the work of the father. he who has once understood the meaning of christ's words in connection with this miracle, can never be content they should be less than true concerning his father in heaven. whoever would have a perfect father, must believe that he bestows his very being for the daily food of his creatures. he who loves the glory of god will be very jealous of any word that would enhance his greatness by representing him incapable of suffering. verily god has taken and will ever take and endure his share, his largest share of that suffering in and through which the whole creation groans for the sonship. follows at once the equally wonderful story of his walking on the sea to the help of his disciples. after the former miracle, the multitude would have taken him by force to make him their king. any kind of honour they would readily give him except that obedience for the truth's sake which was all he cared for. he left them and went away into a mountain alone to pray to his father. likely he was weary in body, and also worn in spirit for lack of that finer sympathy which his disciples could not give him being very earthly yet. he who loves his fellows and labours among those who can ill understand him will best know what this weariness of our lord must have been like. he had to endure the world-pressure of surrounding humanity in all its ungodlike phases. hence even he, the everlasting son of the father, found it needful to retire for silence and room and comfort into solitary places. there his senses would be free, and his soul could the better commune with the father. the mountain-top was his chamber, the solitude around him its closed door, the evening sky over his head its open window. there he gathered strength from the will of the father for what yet remained to be done for the world's redemption. how little could the men below, who would have taken him by force and made him a king, understand of such communion! yet every one of them must go hungering and thirsting and grasping in vain, until the door of that communion was opened for him. they would have made him a king: he would make them poor in spirit, mighty in aspiration, all kings and priests unto god. but amidst his prayer, amidst the eternal calm of his rapturous communion, he saw his disciples thwarted by a wind stronger than all their rowing: he descended the hill and walked forth on the water to their help. if ignorant yet devout speculation may be borne with here, i venture to say that i think the change of some kind that was necessary somehow before the body of the son of man could, like the spirit of old, move upon the face of the waters, passed, not upon the water, but, by the will of the son of man himself, upon his own body. i shall have more to say concerning this in a following chapter--now i merely add that we know nothing yet, or next to nothing, of the relation between a right soul and a healthy body. to some no doubt the notion of a healthy body implies chiefly a perfection of all the animal functions, which is, on the supposition, a matter of course; but what i should mean by an absolutely healthy body is, one entirely under the indwelling spirit, and responsive immediately to all the laws of its supremacy, whatever those laws may be in the divine ideal of a man. as we are now, we find the diseased body tyrannizing over the almost helpless mind: the healthy body would be the absolutely obedient body. what power over his own dwelling a saviour coming fresh from the closest speech with him who made that body for holy subjection, might have, who can tell! if i hear of any reasonable wonder resulting therefrom, i shall not find it hard to believe, and shall be willing to wait until i, pure, inhabit an obedient house, to understand the plain thing which is now a mystery. meantime i can honour the laws i do know, and which honest men tell me they have discovered, no less than those honest men who--without my impulse, it may be, to speculate in this direction--think such as i foolish in employing the constructive faculty with regard to these things. but where, i pray them, lies any field so absolutely its region as the unknown which yet the heart yearns to know? such cannot be the unknowable. it is endless comfort to think of something that _might_ be true. and the essence of whatever seems to a human heart to be true, i expect to find true--in greater forms, and without the degrading accidents which so often accompany it in the brain of the purest thinker. why should i not speculate in the only direction in which things to me worthy of speculation appear likely to lie? there is a wide _may be_ around us; and every true speculation widens the probability of changing the may _be_ into the _is_. the laws that are known and the laws that shall be known are all lights from the father of lights: he who reverently searches for such will not long mistake a flash in his own brain for the candle of the lord. but if he should mistake, he will be little the worse, so long as he is humble, and ready to acknowledge error; while, if he should be right, he will be none the worse for having seen the glimmer of the truth from afar--may, indeed, come to gather a little honour from those who, in the experimental verification of an idea, do not altogether forget that, without some foregone speculation, the very idea on which they have initiated their experiment, and are now expending their most valued labour, would never have appeared in their firmament to guide them to new facts and realities. nor would it be impossible to imagine how st peter might come within the sphere of the holy influence, so that he, too, for a moment should walk on the water. faith will yet prove itself as mighty a power as it is represented by certain words of the lord which are at present a stumbling-block even to devout christians, who are able to accept them only by putting explanations upon them which render them unworthy of his utterance. when i say _a power_, i do not mean in itself, but as connecting the helpless with the helpful, as uniting the empty need with the full supply, as being the conduit through which it is right and possible for the power of the creating god to flow to the created necessity. when the lord got into the boat, the wind ceased, "and immediately," says st john, "the ship was at the land whither they went." as to whether the ceasing of the wind was by the ordinary laws of nature, or some higher law first setting such in operation, no one who has followed the spirit of my remarks will wonder that i do not care to inquire: they are all of one. nor, in regard to their finding themselves so quickly at the end of their voyage, will they wonder if i think that we may have just one instance of space itself being subject to the obedient god, and that his wearied disciples, having toiled and rowed hard for so long, might well find themselves at their desired haven as soon as they received him into their boat. either god is all in all, or he is nothing. either jesus is the son of the father, or he did no miracle. either the miracles are fact, or i lose--not my faith in this man--but certain outward signs of truths which these very signs have aided me to discover and understand and see in themselves. the miracle of the stilling of the storm naturally follows here. why should not he, who taught his disciples that god numbered the very hairs of their heads, do what his father is constantly doing--still storms--bring peace out of uproar? of course, if the storm was stilled, it came about by natural causes--that is, by such as could still a storm. that anything should be done by unnatural causes, that is, causes not of the nature of the things concerned, is absurd. the sole question is whether nature works alone, as some speculators think, or whether there is a soul in her, namely, an intent;--whether these things are the result of thought, or whether they spring from a dead heart; unconscious, yet productive of conscious beings, to think, yea, speculate eagerly concerning a conscious harmony hinted at in their broken music and conscious discord; beings who, although thus born of unthinking matter, invent the notion of an all lovely, perfect, self-denying being, whose thought gives form to matter, life to nature, and thought to man--subjecting himself for their sakes to the troubles their waywardness has brought upon them, that they too may at length behold a final good--may see the holy face to face--think his thoughts and will his wisdom! that things should go by a law which does not recognize the loftiest in him, a man feels to be a mockery of him. there lies little more satisfaction in such a condition of things than if the whole were the fortuitous result of ever conflicting, never combining forces. wherever individual and various necessity, choice, and prayer, come in, there must be the present god, able and ready to fit circumstances to the varying need of the thinking, willing being he has created. machinery will not do here--perfect as it may be. that god might make a world to go on with absolute physical perfection to all eternity, i could easily believe; but where the gain?--nay, where the fitness, if he would train thinking beings to his own freedom? for such he must be ever present, ever have room to order things for their growth and change and discipline and enlightenment. the present living idea informing the cosmos, is nobler than all forsaken perfection--nobler, as a living man is nobler than an automaton. if one should say: "the laws of god ought to admit of no change," i answer: the same working of unalterable laws might under new circumstances _look_ a breach of those laws. that god will never alter his laws, i fully admit and uphold, for they are the outcome of his truth and fact; but that he might not act in ways unrecognizable by us as consistent with those laws, i have yet to see reason ere i believe. why should his perfect will be limited by our understanding of that will? should he be paralyzed because we are blind? that he should ever require us to believe of him what we think wrong, i do not believe; that he should present to our vision what may be inconsistent with our half-digested and constantly changing theories, i can well believe. why not--if only to keep us from petrifying an imperfect notion, and calling it an _idea_? what i would believe is, that a present god manages the direction of those laws, even as a man, in his inferior way, works out his own will in the midst and by means of those laws. shall god create that which shall fetter and limit and enslave himself? what should his laws, as known to us, be but the active mode in which he embodies certain truths--that mode also the outcome of his own nature? if so, they must be always capable of falling in with any, if not of effecting every, expression of his will. there remains but one miracle of this class to consider--one to some minds involving greater difficulties than all the rest. they say the story of the fish with a piece of money in its mouth is more like one of the tales of eastern fiction than a sober narrative of the quiet-toned gospel. i acknowledge a likeness: why might there not be some likeness between what god does and what man invents? but there is one noticeable difference: there is nothing of colour in the style of the story. no great roc, no valley of diamonds, no earthly grandeur whatever is hinted at in the poor bare tale. peter had to do with fishes every day of his life: an ordinary fish, taken with the hook, was here the servant of the lord--and why should not the poor fish have its share in the service of the master? why should it not show for itself and its kind that they were utterly his? that along with the waters in which they dwelt, and the wind which lifteth up the waves thereof, they were his creatures, and gladly under his dominion? what the scaly minister brought was no ring, no rich jewel, but a simple piece of money, just enough, i presume, to meet the demand of those whom, although they had no legal claim, our lord would not offend by a refusal; for he never cared to stand upon his rights, or treat that as a principle which might be waived without loss of righteousness. i take for granted that there was no other way at hand for those poor men to supply the sum required of them. x. miracles of destruction. if we regard the miracles of our lord as an epitome of the works of his father, there must be room for what we call destruction. in the grand process of existence, destruction is one of the phases of creation; for the inferior must ever be giving way for the growth of the superior: the husk must crumble and decay, that the seed may germinate and appear. as the whole creation passes on towards the sonship, death must ever be doing its sacred work about the lower regions, that life may ever arise triumphant, in its ascent towards the will of the father. i cannot therefore see good reason why the almost solitary act of destruction recorded in the story should seem unlike the master. true this kind is unlike the other class in this, that it has only an all but solitary instance: he did not come for the manifestation of such power. but why, when occasion appeared, should it not have its place? why might not the lord, consistently with his help and his healing, do that in one instance which his father is doing every day? i refer now, of course, to the withering of the fig-tree. in the midst of the freshest greenery of summer, you may see the wan branches of the lightning-struck tree. as a poet drawing his pen through syllable or word that mars his clear utterance or musical comment, such is the destruction of the maker. it is the indrawn sigh of the creating breath. our lord had already spoken the parable of the fig-tree that bore no fruit. this miracle was but the acted parable. here he puts into visible form that which before he had embodied in words. all shapes of argument must be employed to arouse the slumbering will of men. even the obedience that comes of the lowest fear is a first step towards an infinitely higher condition than that of the most perfect nature created incapable of sin. the right interpretation of the external circumstances, however, is of course necessary to the truth of the miracle. it seems to me to be the following. i do not know to whom i am primarily indebted for it. the time of the gathering of figs was near, but had not yet arrived: upon any fruitful tree one might hope to find a few ripe figs, and more that were eatable. the lord was hungry as he went to jerusalem from bethany, and saw on the way a tree with all the promise that a perfect foliage could give. he went up to it, "if haply he might find anything thereon." the leaves were all; fruit there was none in any stage; the tree was a pretence; it fulfilled not that for which it was sent. here was an opportunity in their very path of enforcing, by a visible sign proceeding from himself, one of the most important truths he had striven to teach them. what he had been saying was in him a living truth: he condemned the tree to become in appearance that which it was in fact--a useless thing: when they passed the following morning, it had withered away, was dried up from the roots. he did not urge in words the lesson of the miracle-parable; he left that to work when the fate of fruitless jerusalem should also have become fact. for the present the marvel of it possessed them too much for the reading of its lesson; therefore, perhaps, our lord makes little of the marvel and much of the power of faith; assuring them of answers to their prayers, but adding, according to st mark, that forgiveness of others is the indispensable condition of their own acceptance --fit lesson surely to hang on that withered tree. after all, the thing destroyed was only a tree. in respect of humanity there is but one distant, and how distant approach to anything similar! in the pseudo-evangels there are several tales of vengeance--not one in these books. the fact to which i refer is recorded by st john alone. it is, that when the "band of men and officers from the chief priests and pharisees" came to take him, and "jesus went forth and said unto them, whom seek ye?" and in reply to theirs, had said "i am he, they went backward and fell to the ground." there are one or two facts in connection with the record of this incident, which although not belonging quite immediately to my present design, i would yet note, with the questions they suggest. the synoptical gospels record the judas-kiss: st john does not. st john alone records the going backward and falling to the ground--prefacing the fact with the words, "and judas also, which betrayed him, stood with them." had not the presence of judas, then--perhaps his kiss--something to do with the discomfiture of these men? if so--and it seems to me probable--how comes it that st john alone omits the kiss--st john alone records the recoil? i repeat--if the kiss had to do with the recoil--as would seem from mystical considerations most probable, from artistic most suitable--why are they divided? i think just because those who saw, saw each a part, and record only what they saw or had testimony concerning. had st john seen the kiss, he who was so capable of understanding the mystical fitness of the connection of such a kiss with such a recoil, could hardly have omitted it, especially seeing he makes such a point of the presence of judas. had he been an inventor--here is just such a thing as he would have invented; and just here his record is barer than that of the rest--bare of the one incident which would have best helped out his own idea of the story. the consideration is suggestive. but why this exercise of at least repellent, which is half-destructive force, reminding us of milton's words- yet half his strength he put not forth, but checked his thunder in mid volley? it may have had to do with the repentance of judas which followed. it may have had to do with the future history of the jewish men who composed that band. but i suspect the more immediate object of our lord was the safety of his disciples. as soon as the men who had gone backward and fallen to the ground, had risen and again advanced, he repeated the question--"whom seek ye?" "jesus of nazareth," they replied. "i am he," said the lord again, but added, now that they had felt his power--"if therefore ye seek me, let these go their way." st john's reference in respect of these words to a former saying of the lord, strengthens this conclusion. and there was no attempt even to lay hands on them. he had astonished and terrified his captors to gain of them his sole request--that his friends should go unhurt. there was work for them to do in the world; and he knew besides that they were not yet capable of enduring for his sake. at all events it was neither for vengeance nor for self-preservation that this gentlest form of destruction was manifested. i suspect it was but another shape of the virtue that went forth to heal. a few men fell to the ground that his disciples might have time to grow apostles, and redeem the world with the news of him and his father. for the sake of humanity the fig-tree withered; for the resurrection of the world, his captors fell: small hurt and mighty healing. daring to interpret the work of the father from the work of the son, i would humbly believe that all destruction is for creation--that, even for this, death alone is absolutely destroyed--that, namely, which stands in the way of the outgoing of the father's will, then only completing its creation when men are made holy. god does destroy; but not life. its outer forms yield that it may grow, and growing pass into higher embodiments, in which it can grow yet more. that alone will be destroyed which has the law of death in itself--namely, sin. sin is death, and death must be swallowed up of hell. life, that is god, is the heart of things, and destruction must be destroyed. for this victory endless _forms_ of life must yield;--even the _form_ of the life of the son of god himself must yield upon the cross, that the life might arise a life-giving spirit; that his own words might be fulfilled--"for if i depart not, the comforter will not come unto you." all spirit must rise victorious over form; and the form must die lest it harden to stone around the growing life. no form is or can be great enough to contain the truth which is its soul; for all truth is infinite being a thought of god. it is only in virtue of the flowing away of the form, that is death, and the ever gathering of new form behind, that is birth or embodiment, that any true revelation is possible. on what other terms shall the infinite embrace the finite but the terms of an endless change, an enduring growth, a recognition of the divine as for ever above and beyond, a forgetting of that which is behind, a reaching unto that which is before? therefore destruction itself is holy. it is as if the eternal said, "i will show myself; but think not to hold me in any form in which i come. the form is not i." the still small voice is ever reminding us that the lord is neither in the earthquake nor the wind nor the fire; but in the lowly heart that finds him everywhere. the material can cope with the eternal only in virtue of everlasting evanescence. xi. the resurrection. the works of the lord he himself represents as given him of the father: it matters little whether we speak of his resurrection as a miracle wrought by himself, or wrought in him by the father. if he was one with the father, the question cannot be argued, seeing that jesus apart from the father is not a conceivable idea. it is only natural that he who had power to call from the grave the body which had lain there for four days, should have power over the body he had himself laid down, to take it again with reanimating possession. for distinctly do i hold that he took again the same body in which he had walked about on the earth, suffered, and yielded unto death. in the same body--not merely the same form, in which he had taught them, he appeared again to his disciples, to give them the final consolations of a visible presence, before departing for the sake of a yet higher presence in the spirit of truth, a presence no longer limited by even the highest forms of the truth. it is not surprising that the records of such a marvel, grounded upon the testimony of men and women bewildered first with grief, and next all but distracted with the sudden inburst of a gladness too great for that equanimity which is indispensable to perfect observation, should not altogether correspond in the minutiae of detail. all knew that the lord had risen indeed: what matter whether some of them saw one or two angels in the tomb? the first who came saw one angel outside and another inside the sepulchre. one at a different time saw two inside. what wonder then that one of the records should say of them all, that they saw two angels? i do not care to set myself to the reconciliation of the differing reports. their trifling disagreement is to me even valuable from its truth to our human nature. all i care to do is to suggest to any one anxious to understand the records the following arrangement of facts. when mary magdalene found the tomb empty, not seeing, or heedless of the angel, she forsook her companions, and ran to the chief of the disciples to share the agony of this final loss. perhaps something might yet be done to rescue the precious form, and lay it aside with all futile honours. with peter and john she returned to the grave, whence, in the mean time, her former companions, having seen and conversed with the angel outside and the angel inside, had departed to find their friends. peter and john, having, the one entered, the other looked into the tomb, and seen only the folded garments of desertion, returned home, but mary lingered weeping by the place which was not now even the grave of the beloved, so utterly had not only he but the signs of him vanished. as she wept, she stooped down into the sepulchre. there sat the angels in holy contemplation, one at the head, the other at the feet where the body of jesus had lain. peter nor john had beheld them: to the eyes of mary as of the other women they were manifest. it is a lovely story that follows, full of marvel, as how should it not be? "woman, why weepest thou?" said the angels. "because they have taken away my lord, and i know not where they have laid him," answered mary, and turning away, tear-blinded, saw the gardener, as she thought. "woman, why weepest thou?" repeats the gardener. "whom seekest thou?" hopelessness had dulled every sense: not even a start at the sound of his voice! "sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and i will take him away." "mary!" "master!" "touch me not; for i am not yet ascended to my father; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, i ascend unto my father and your father; and to my god and your god." she had the first sight of him. it would almost seem that, arrested by her misery, he had delayed his ascent, and shown himself sooner than his first intent. "touch me not, for i am not yet ascended." she was about to grasp him with the eager hands of reverent love: why did he refuse the touch? doubtless the tone of the words deprived them of any sting. doubtless the self-respect of the woman was in no way wounded by the master's recoil. for the rest, we know so little of the new conditions of his bodily nature, that nothing is ours beyond conjecture. it may be, for anything i know, that there were even physical reasons why she should not yet touch him; but my impression is that, after the hard work accomplished, and the form in which he had wrought and suffered resumed, he must have the father's embrace first, as after a long absence any man would seek first the arms of his dearest friend. it may well be objected to this notion, that he had never been absent from god--that in his heart he was at home with him continually. and yet the body with all its limitations, with all its partition-walls of separation, is god's, and there must be some way in which even _it_ can come into a willed relation with him to whom it is nearer even than to ourselves, for it is the offspring of his will, or as the prophets of old would say--the work of his hands. that which god has invented and made, which has its very origin in the depth of his thought, _can_ surely come nigh to god. therefore i think that in some way which we cannot understand, jesus would now seek the presence of the father; would, having done the work which he had given him to do, desire first of all to return in the body to him who had _sent_ him by giving him a body. hence although he might delay his return at the sound of the woman's grief, he would rather _she_ did not touch him first. if any one thinks this founded on too human a notion of the saviour, i would only reply that i suspect a great part of our irreligion springs from our disbelief in the humanity of god. there lie endless undiscovered treasures of grace. after he had once ascended to the father, he not only appeared to his disciples again and again, but their hands handled the word of life, and he ate in their presence. he had been to his father, and had returned that they might know him lifted above the grave and all that region in which death has power; that as the elder brother, free of the oppressions of humanity, but fulfilled of its tenderness, he might show himself captain of their salvation. upon the body he inhabited, death could no longer lay his hands, and from the vantage-ground he thus held, he could stretch down the arm of salvation to each and all. for in regard of this glorified body of jesus, we must note that it appeared and disappeared at the will of its owner; and it would seem also that other matter yielded and gave it way; yes, even that space itself was in some degree subjected to it. upon the first of these, the record is clear. if any man say he cannot believe it, my only answer is that i can. if he ask how it _could_ be, the nearest i can approach to an answer is to indicate the region in which it may be possible: the border-land where thought and matter meet is the region where all marvels and miracles are generated. the wisdom of this world can believe that matter generates mind: what seems to me the wisdom from above can believe that mind generates matter--that matter is but the manifest mind. on this supposition matter may well be subject to mind; much more, if jesus be the son of god, his own body must be subject to his will. i doubt, indeed, if the condition of any man is perfect before the body he inhabits is altogether obedient to his will--before, through his own absolute obedience to the father, the realm of his own rule is put under him perfectly. it may be objected that although this might be credible of the glorified body of even the human resurrection, it is hard to believe that the body which suffered and died on the cross could become thus plastic to the will of the indwelling spirit. but i do not see why that which was born of the spirit of the father, should not be so inter-penetrated and possessed by the spirit of the son, that, without the loss of one of its former faculties, it should be endowed with many added gifts of obedience; amongst the rest such as are indicated in the narrative before us. why was this miracle needful? perhaps, for one thing, that men should not limit him, or themselves in him, to the known forms of humanity; and for another, that the best hope might be given them of a life beyond the grave; that their instinctive desires in that direction might thus be infinitely developed and assured. i suspect, however, that it followed just as the natural consequence of all that preceded. if christ be risen, then is the grave of humanity itself empty. we have risen with him, and death has henceforth no dominion over us. of every dead man and woman it may be said: he--she--is not here, but is risen and gone before us. ever since the lord lay down in the tomb, and behold it was but a couch whence he arose refreshed, we may say of every brother: he is not dead but sleepeth. he too is alive and shall arise from his sleep. the way to the tomb may be hard, as it was for him; but we who look on, see the hardness and not the help; we see the suffering but not the sustaining: that is known only to the dying and god. they can tell us little of this, and nothing of the glad safety beyond. with any theory of the conditions of our resurrection, i have scarcely here to do. it is to me a matter of positively no interest whether or not, in any sense, the matter of our bodies shall be raised from the earth. it is enough that we shall possess forms capable of revealing ourselves and of bringing us into contact with god's other works; forms in which the idea, so blurred and broken in these, shall be carried out--remaining so like, that friends shall doubt not a moment of the identity, becoming so unlike, that the tears of recognition shall be all for the joy of the gain and the gratitude of the loss. not to believe in mutual recognition beyond, seems to me a far more reprehensible unbelief than that in the resurrection itself. i can well understand how a man should not believe in any life after death. i will confess that although probabilities are for it, _appearances_ are against it. but that a man, still more a woman, should believe in the resurrection of the very same body of jesus, who took pains that his friends should recognize him therein; that they should regard his resurrection as their one ground for the hope of their own uprising, and yet not believe that friend shall embrace friend in the mansions prepared for them, is to me astounding. such a shadowy resumption of life i should count unworthy of the name of resurrection. then indeed would the grave be victorious, not alone over the body, not alone over all which made the life of this world precious and by which we arose towards the divine--but so far victorious over the soul that henceforth it should be blind and deaf to what in virtue of loveliest memories would have added a new song to the praises of the father, a new glow to the love that had wanted but that to make it perfect. in truth i am ashamed of even combating such an essential falsehood. were it not that here and there a weak soul is paralysed by the presence of the monstrous lie, and we dare not allow sympathy to be swallowed up of even righteous disdain, a contemptuous denial would be enough. what seemed to the disciples the final acme of disappointment and grief, the vanishing of his body itself, was in reality the first sign of the dawn of an illimitable joy. he was not there because he had risen. xii. the transfiguration. i have judged it fitting to close this series of meditations with some thoughts on the transfiguration, believing the story to be as it were a window through which we gain a momentary glimpse of the region whence all miracles appear--a glimpse vague and dark for all the transfiguring light, for god himself is "by abundant clarity invisible." in the story we find a marvellous change, a lovely miracle, pass upon the form itself whence the miracles flowed, as if the pent-up grace wrought mightily upon the earthen vessel which contained it. our lord would seem to have repeatedly sought some hill at eventide for the solitude such a place alone could afford him. it must often have been impossible for him to find any other chamber in which to hold communion with his father undisturbed. this, i think, was one of such occasions. he took with him the favoured three, whom also he took apart from the rest in the garden of gethsemane, to retire even from them a little, that he might be alone with the father, yet know that his brothers were near him--the ocean of human need thus drawn upwards in an apex of perfect prayer towards the throne of the father. i think this, his one only material show, if we except the entry into jerusalem upon the ass, took place in the night. then the son of joseph the carpenter was crowned, not his head only with a crown placed thereon from without, but his whole person with a crown of light born in him and passing out from him. according to st luke he went up the mountain to pray, "but peter and they that were with him were _heavy with sleep_." st luke also says that "on the next day, when they were come down from the mountain," that miracle was performed which st matthew and st mark represent as done _immediately_ on the descent. from this it appears more than likely that the night was spent upon the mountain. st luke says that "the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering." st matthew says, "his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light." st mark says, "his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them." st luke is alone in telling us that it was while he prayed that this change passed upon him. he became outwardly glorious from inward communion with his father. but we shall not attain to the might of the meaning, if we do not see what was the more immediate subject of his prayer. it is, i think, indicated in the fact, also recorded by st luke, that the talk of his heavenly visitors was "of his decease which he should accomplish at jerusalem." associate with this the fact that his talk with his disciples, as they came down the mountain, pointed in the same direction, and that all open report of the vision was to be withheld until he should have risen from the dead, and it will appear most likely that the master, oppressed with the thought of that which now drew very nigh, sought the comfort and sympathy of his father, praying in the prospect of his decease. let us observe then how, in heaving off the weight of this awful shadow by prayer, he did not grow calm and resigned alone, if he were ever other than such, but his faith broke forth so triumphant over the fear, that it shone from him in physical light. every cloud of sorrow or dread, touched with such a power of illumination, is itself changed into a glory. the radiance goes hand in hand with the coming decay and the three days' victory of death. it is as a foretaste of his resurrection, a putting on of his new glorified body for a moment while he was yet in the old body and the awful shadow yet between. it may be to something like this as taking place in other men that the apostle refers when he says: "we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." that coming death was to be but as the overshadowing cloud, from which the glory should break anew and for ever. the transfiguration then was the divine defiance of the coming darkness. let us now speculate for a moment upon the relation of the spiritual and physical manifested in it. he became, i repeat, outwardly glorious from inward communion with his father. in like circumstance, the face of moses shone marvellously. and what wonder? what should make a man's face shine, if not the presence of the holy? if not communion with the father of his spirit? in the transfiguration of jesus we have, i think, just the perfect outcome of those natural results of which we have the first signs in moses--the full daylight, of which his shining face was as the dawn. thus, like the other miracles, i regard it as simply a rare manifestation of the perfect working of nature. who knows not that in moments of lofty emotion, in which self is for the time forgotten, the eyes shine, and the face is so transfigured that we are doubtful whether it be not in a degree absolutely luminous! i say once more, in the lord we find the perfecting of all the dull hunts of precious things which common humanity affords us. if so, what a glory must await every lowliest believer, since the communion of our elder brother with his father and our father, a communion for whose perfecting in us he came, caused not only his face to shine, but the dull garments he wore to become white as snow through the potency of the permeating light issuing from his whole person! the outer man shone with the delight of the inner man--for his father was with him--so that even his garments shared in the glory. such is what the presence of the father will do for every man. may i not add that the shining of the garments is a type of the glorification of everything human when brought into its true relations by and with the present god? keeping the same point of view, i turn now to the resurrection with which the whole fact is so closely associated:--i think the virtue of divine presence which thus broke in light from the body of jesus, is the same by which his risen body, half molten in power, was rendered plastic to the will of the indwelling spirit. what if this light were the healing agent of the bodies of men, as the deeper other light from which it sprung is the healing agent of themselves? are not the most powerful of the rays of light invisible to our vision? some will object that this is a too material view of life and its facts. i answer that the question is whether i use the material to interpret the spiritual, as i think i do, or to account for it, as i know i do not. in my theory, the spiritual _both_ explains and accounts for the material. if the notions we have of what we may call _material light_ render it the only fitting image to express the invisible truth, the being of god, there must be some closest tie between them--not of connection only, but of unity. such a fitness could not exist without such connection; except, indeed, there were one god of the natural and another of the supernatural, who yet were brothers, and thought in similar modes, and the one had to supplement the work of the other. the essential truth of god it must be that creates its own visual image in the sun that enlightens the world: when man who is the image of god is filled with the presence of the eternal, he too, in virtue of his divine nature thus for the moment ripened to glory, radiates light from his very person. where, when, or how the inner spiritual light passes into or generates outward physical light, who can tell? this border-land, this touching of what we call mind and matter, is the region of miracles--of material creation, i might have said, which is _the_ great--suspect, the _only_ miracle. but if matter be the outcome of spirit, and body and soul be one man, then, if the soul be radiant of truth, what can the body do but shine? i conjecture then, that truth, which is light in the soul, might not only cast out disease, which is darkness in the body, but change that body even, without the intervention of death, into the likeness of the body of jesus, capable of all that could be demanded of it. except by violence i do not think the body of jesus could have died. no physiologist can tell why man should die. i think a perfect soul would be capable of keeping its body alive. an imperfect one cannot fill it with light in every part--cannot thoroughly inform the brute matter with life. the transfiguration of jesus was but the visible outbreak of a life so strong as to be life-giving, life-restoring. the flesh it could melt away and evermore renew. such a body might well walk upon the stormiest waters. a body thus responsive to and interpenetrative of light, which is the visible life, could have no sentence of death in it. it would never have died. but i find myself in regions where i dare tread no further for the darkness of ignorance. i see many glimmers: they are too formless and uncertain. when or how the light died away, we are not told. my own fancy is that it went on shining but paling all the night upon the lonely mount, to vanish in the dawn of the new day. when he came down from the mountain the virtue that dwelt in him went forth no more in light to the eyes, but in healing to the poor torn frame of the epileptic boy. so he vanished at last from the eyes of his friends, only to draw nearer--with a more intense and healing presence--to their hearts and minds. even so come, lord jesus. archives <freethought@despammed.com> production notes: a reply to dr lightfoot's essays by walter r. cassels (4-sep-1826 to 10-jun-1907) originally published anonymously in 1889. transcribed by the freethought archives <freethought@despammed.com> a reply to dr lightfoot's essays by the author of "supernatural religion" london 1889 introduction. i sincerely rejoice that dr. lightfoot has recovered from his recent illness. of this restoration the vigorous energy of his preface to his republication of the essays on _supernatural religion_ affords decided evidence, and i hope that no refutation of this inference at least may be possible, however little we may agree on other points. it was natural that dr. lightfoot should not be averse to preserving the more serious part of these essays, the preparation of which cost him so much time and trouble; and the republication of this portion of his reply to my volumes, giving as it does the most eloquent and attractive statement of the ecclesiastical case, must be welcome to many. i cannot but think that it has been an error of judgment and of temper, however, to have rescued from an ephemeral state of existence and conferred literary permanence on much in his present volume, which is mere personal attack on his adversary and a deliberate attempt to discredit a writer with whom he pretends to enter into serious argument. a material part of the volume is composed of such matter. i cannot congratulate him on the spirit which he has displayed. personally i am profoundly indifferent to such attempts at detraction, and it is with heretical amusement that i contemplate the large part which purely individual and irrelevant criticism is made to play in stuffing out the proportions of orthodox argument. in the first moment of irritation, i can well understand that hard hitting, even below the belt, might be indulged in against my work by an exasperated theologian--for even a bishop is a man,--but that such attacks should not only be perpetuated, but repeated after years of calm reflection, is at once an error and a compliment for which i was not prepared. anything to prevent readers from taking up _supernatural religion_: any misrepresentation to prejudice them against its statements. elaborate literary abuse against the author is substituted for the effective arguments against his reasoning which are unhappily wanting. in the later editions of my work, i removed everything that seemed likely to irritate or to afford openings for the discussion of minor questions, irrelevant to the main subject under treatment. whilst dr. lightfoot in many cases points out such alterations, he republishes his original attacks and demonstrates the disparaging purpose of his essays by the reiterated condemnation of passages which had so little to do with the argument that they no longer exist in the complete edition of supernatural religion. could there be more palpable evidence of the frivolous and superficial character of his objections? it is not too much to say that in no part of these essays has dr. lightfoot at all seriously entered upon the fundamental proposition of _supernatural religion_. he has elaborately criticised notes and references: he has discussed dates and unimportant details: but as to the question whether there is any evidence for miracles and the reality of alleged divine revelation, his volume is an absolute blank. bampton lecturers and distinguished apologetic writers have frankly admitted that the christian argument must be reconstructed. they have felt the positions, formerly considered to be impregnable, crumbling away under their feet, but nothing could more forcibly expose the feebleness of the apologetic case than this volume of dr lightfoot's essays. the substantial correctness of the main conclusions of _supernatural religion_ is rendered all the more apparent by the reply to its reasoning. the eagerness with which dr. lightfoot and others rush up all the side issues and turn their backs upon the more important central proposition is in the highest degree remarkable. those who are in doubt and who have understood what the problem to be solved really is will not get any help from his volume. the republication of these essays, however, has almost forced upon me the necessity of likewise republishing the reply i gave at the time of their appearance. the first essay appeared in the _fortnightly review_, and others followed in the preface to the sixth edition of _supernatural religion_, and in that and the complete edition, in notes to the portions attacked, where reply seemed necessary. i cannot hope that readers will refer to these scattered arguments, and this volume is published with the view of affording a convenient form of reference for those interested in the discussion. i add brief notes upon those essays which did not require separate treatment at the time, and such further explanations as seem to me desirable for the elucidation of my statements. of course, the full discussion of dr. lightfoot's arguments must still be sought in the volumes of _supernatural religion_, but i trust that i may have said enough here to indicate the nature of his allegations and their bearing on my argument. i have likewise thought it right to add the conclusions, without any alteration, which were written for the complete edition, when, for the first time, having examined all the evidence, i was in a position to wind up the case. this is all the more necessary as they finally show the inadequacy of dr. lightfoot's treatment. but i have still more been moved to append these conclusions in order to put them within easier reach of those who only possess the earlier editions, which do not contain them. dr. lightfoot again reproaches me with my anonymity. i do not think that i am open to much rebuke for not having the courage of my opinions; but i may distinctly say that i have always held that arguments upon very serious subjects should be impersonal, and neither gain weight by the possession of a distinguished name nor lose by the want of it. i leave the bishop any advantage he has in his throne, and i take my stand upon the basis of reason and not of reputation. contents i. a reply to dr. lightfoot's first essay on "supernatural religion" ii. the silence of eusebius--the ignatian epistles iii. polycarp of smyrna iv. papias of hierapolis v. melito of sardis--claudius apollinaris--polycrates vi. the churches of gaul vii. tatian's "diatessaron" viii. conclusions [endnotes] index. i. _a reply to dr. lightfoot's first essay on "supernatural religion."_ [endnote 1:1] the function of the critic, when rightly exercised, is so important, that it is fitting that a reviewer seriously examining serious work should receive serious and respectful consideration, however severe his remarks and however unpleasant his strictures. it is scarcely possible that a man can so fully separate himself from his work as to judge fairly either of its effect as a whole or its treatment in detail; and in every undertaking of any magnitude it is almost certain that flaws and mistakes must occur, which can best be detected by those whose perception has not been dulled by continuous and over-strained application. no honest writer, however much he may wince, can feel otherwise than thankful to anyone who points out errors or mistakes which can be rectified; and, for myself, i may say that i desire nothing more than such frankness, and the fair refutation of any arguments which may be fallacious. reluctant as i must ever be, therefore, to depart from the attitude of silent attention which i think should be maintained by writers in the face of criticism, or to interrupt the fair reply of an opponent, the case is somewhat different when criticism assumes the vicious tone of the rev. dr. lightfoot's article upon _supernatural religion_ in the december number of the "contemporary review." whilst delivering severe lectures upon want of candour and impartiality, and preaching temperance and moderation, the practice of the preacher, as sometimes happens, falls very short of his precept. the example of moderation presented to me by my clerical critic does not seem to me very edifying, his impartiality does not appear to be beyond reproach, and in his tone i fail to recognise any of the [greek: epieikeia] which mr. matthew arnold so justly admires. i shall not emulate the spirit of that article, and i trust that i shall not scant the courtesy with which i desire to treat dr. lightfoot, whose ability i admire and whose position i understand. i should not, indeed, consider it necessary at present to notice his attack at all, but that i perceive the attempt to prejudice an audience and divert attention from the issues of a serious argument by general detraction. the device is far from new, and the tactics cannot be pronounced original. in religious as well as legal controversy, the threadbare maxim: "a bad case--abuse the plaintiff's attorney," remains in force; and it is surprising how effectual the simple practice still is. if it were granted, for the sake of argument, that each slip in translation, each error in detail and each oversight in statement, with which canon lightfoot reproaches _supernatural religion_ were well founded, it must be evident to any intelligent mind that the mass of such a work would not really be affected; such flaws--and what book of the kind escapes them--which can most easily be removed, would not weaken the central argument, and after the apologist's ingenuity has been exerted to the utmost to blacken every blot, the basis of supernatural religion would not be made one whit more secure. it is, however, because i recognise that, behind this skirmishing attack, there is the constant insinuation that misstatements have been detected which have "a vital bearing" upon the question at issue, arguments "wrecked" which are of serious importance, and omissions indicated which change the aspect of reasoning, that i have thought it worth my while at once to reply. i shall endeavour briefly to show that, in thus attempting to sap the strength of my position, dr. lightfoot has only exposed the weakness of his own. dr. lightfoot somewhat scornfully says that he has the "misfortune" "to dispute not a few propositions which 'most critics' are agreed in maintaining." he will probably find that "most critics," for their part, will not consider it a very great misfortune to differ from a divine who has the misfortune of differing on so many points, from most critics. the first and most vehement attack made upon me by dr. lightfoot is regarding "a highly important passage of irenaeus," containing a reference to some other and unnamed authority, in which he considers that i am "quite unconscious of the distinction between the infinitive and indicative;" a point upon which "any fairly trained schoolboy" would decide against my reasoning. i had found fault with tischendorf in the text, and with dr. westcott in a note, for inserting the words "say they," and "they taught," in rendering the oblique construction of a passage whose source is in dispute, without some mark or explanation, in the total absence of the original, that these special words were supplementary and introduced by the translator. i shall speak of tischendorf presently, and for the moment i confine myself to dr. westcott. irenaeus (_adv. haer._ v. 36, 1) makes a statement as to what "the presbyters say" regarding the joys of the millennial kingdom, and he then proceeds (§ 2) with indirect construction, indicating a reference to some other authority than himself, to the passage in question, in which a saying similar to john xiv. 2 is introduced. this passage is claimed by tischendorf as a quotation from the work of papias, and is advanced in discussing the evidence of the bishop of hierapolis. dr. westcott, without any explanation, states in his text: "in addition to the gospels of st. matthew and st. mark, papias appears to have been acquainted with the gospel of st. john;" [4:1] and in a note on an earlier page: "the passage quoted by irenaeus from 'the elders' may probably be taken as a specimen of his style of interpretation;" [4:2] and then follows the passage in which the indirect construction receives a specific direction by the insertion of "they taught." [4:3] neither dr. westcott nor dr. lightfoot makes the slightest allusion to the fact that they are almost alone in advancing this testimony, which dr. lightfoot describes as having "a vital bearing on the main question at issue, the date of the fourth gospel." the reader who had not the work of irenaeus before him to estimate the justness of the ascription of this passage to papias, and who was not acquainted with all the circumstances, and with the state of critical opinion on the point, could scarcely, on reading such statements, understand the real position of the case. now the facts are as follows: routh [4:4] conjectured that the whole passage in irenaeus was derived from the work of papias, and in this he was followed by dorner, [4:5] who practically introduced the suggestion to the critics of germany, with whom it found no favour, and no one whom i remember, except tischendorf and perhaps professor hofstede de groot, now seriously supports this view. zeller, [5:1] in his celebrated treatise on the external testimony for the fourth gospel, argued against dorner that, in spite of the indirect construction of the passage, there is not the slightest certainty that irenaeus did not himself interpolate the words from the fourth gospel, and he affirmed the fact that there is no evidence whatever that papias knew that work. anger, [5:2] discussing the evidence of the presbyters quoted by irenaeus in our gospels, refers to this passage in a note with marked doubt, saying, that _fortasse_ (in italics), on account the chiliastic tone of the passage, it may, as routh conjectures, be from the work of papias; but in the text he points out the great caution with which these quotations from "the presbyters" should be used. he says, "sed in usu horum testimoniorum faciendo cautissime versandum est, tum quod, nisi omnia, certe pleraque ab irenaeo _memoriter_ repetuntur, tum quia hic illic incertissimum est, utrum ipse loquatur irenaeus an presbyterorum verba recitet." meyer, [5:3] who refers to the passage, remarks that it is doubtful whether these presbyters, whom he does not connect with papias, derived the saying from the gospel or from tradition. riggenbach [5:4] alludes to it merely to abandon the passage as evidence connected with papias, and only claims the quotation, in an arbitrary way, as emanating from the first half of the second century. professor hofstede de groot, [5:5] the translator of tischendorf's work into dutch, and his warm admirer, brings forward the quotation, after him, as either belonging to the circle of papias or to that father himself. hilgenfeld [5:6] distinctly separates the presbyters of this passage from papias, and asserts that they may have lived in the second half of the second century. luthardt, [6:1] in the new issue of his youthful work on the fourth gospel, does not attempt to associate the quotation with the book of papias, but merely argues that the presbyters to whom irenaeus was indebted for it formed a circle to which polycarp and papias belonged. zahn [6:2] does not go beyond him in this. dr. davidson, while arguing that "it is impossible to show that the four (gospels) were current as early as a.d. 150," refers to this passage, and says: "it is precarious to infer with tischendorf either that irenaeus derived his account of the presbyters from papias's book, or that the authority of the elders carries us back to the termination of the apostolic times;" and he concludes: "is it not evident that irenaeus employed it (the word 'elders') loosely, without an exact idea of the persons he meant?" [6:3] in another place dr. davidson still more directly says: "the second proof is founded on a passage in irenaeus where the father, professing to give an account of the eschatological tradition of 'the presbyter, a disciple of the apostles,' introduces the words, 'and that therefore the lord said, "in my father's house are many mansions."' here it is equally uncertain whether a work of papias be meant as the source of the quotation, and whether that father did not insert something of his own, or something borrowed elsewhere, and altered according to the text of the gospel." [6:4] with these exceptions, no critic seems to have considered it worth his while to refer to this passage at all. neither in considering the external evidences for the antiquity of the fourth gospel, nor in discussing the question whether papias was acquainted with it, do apologetic writers like bleek, ebrard, olshausen, guericke, kirchhofer, thiersch, or tholuck, or impartial writers like credner, de wette, gfrörer, lücke, and others commit the mistake of even alluding to it, although many of them directly endeavour to refute the article of zeller, in which it is cited and rejected, and all of them point out so indirect an argument for his knowledge of the gospel as the statement of eusebius that papias made use of the first epistle of john. indeed, on neither side is the passage introduced into the controversy at all; and whilst so many conclude positively that papias was not acquainted with the fourth gospel, the utmost that is argued by the majority of apologetic critics is, that his ignorance of it is not actually proved. those who go further and urge the supposed use of the epistle as testimony in favour of his also knowing the gospel would only too gladly have produced this passage, if they could have maintained it as taken from the work of papias. it would not be permissible to assume that any of the writers to whom we refer were ignorant of the existence of the passage, because they are men thoroughly acquainted with the subject generally, and most of them directly refer to the article of zeller in which the quotation is discussed. this is an instance in which dr. lightfoot has the "misfortune to dispute not a few propositions, which most critics are agreed in maintaining." i have no objection to his disputing anything. all that i suggest desirable in such a case is some indication that there is anything in dispute, which, i submit, general readers could scarcely discover from the statements of dr. westcott or the remarks of dr. lightfoot. now in regard to myself, in desiring to avoid what i objected to in others, i may have gone to the other extreme. but although i perhaps too carefully avoided any indication as to who says "that there is this distinction of dwelling," &c., i did what was possible to attract attention to the actual indirect construction, a fact which must have been patent, as dr. lightfoot says, to a "fairly trained schoolboy." i doubly indicated, by a mark and by adding a note, the commencement of the sentence, and not only gave the original below, but actually inserted in the text the opening words, [greek: einai de tên diastolên tautên tês oikêseôs], for the express purpose of showing the construction. that i did not myself mistake the point is evident, not only from this, but from the fact that i do not make any objection to the translations of tischendorf and dr. westcott, beyond condemning the _unmarked_ introduction of precise words, and that i proceed to argue that "the presbyters," to whom the passage is referred, are in no case necessarily to be associated with the work of papias, which would have been mere waste of time had i intended to maintain that irenaeus quoted direct from the gospel. an observation made to me regarding my note on dr. westcott, showed me that i had been misunderstood, and led me to refer to the place again. i immediately withdrew the note which had been interpreted in a way very different from what i had intended, and at the same time perceiving that my argument was obscure and liable to the misinterpretation of which dr. lightfoot has made such eager use, i myself at once recast it as well as i could within the limits at my command, [8:1] and this was already published before dr. lightfoot's criticism appeared, and before i had any knowledge of his articles. [8:2] with regard to tischendorf, however, the validity of my objection is practically admitted in the fullest way by dr. lightfoot himself. "tischendorf's words," he says, "are 'und deshalb, sagen sie, habe der herr den ausspruch gethan.' he might have spared the 'sagen sie,' because the german idiom 'habe' enables him to express the main fact that the words were not irenaeus's own without this addition." writing of a brother apologist of course he apologetically adds: "but he has not altered any idea which the original contains." [9:1] i affirm, on the contrary, that he has very materially altered an idea--that, in fact, he has warped the whole argument, for dr. lightfoot has mercifully omitted to point out that the words just quoted are introduced by the distinct assertion "that irenaeus quotes even out of the mouth of the presbyters, those high authorities of papias." the german apologist, therefore, not giving the original text, not saying a word of the adverse judgment of most critics, after fully rendering the construction of irenaeus by the "habe," quietly inserts "say they," in reference to these "high authorities of papias," without a hint that these words are his own. [9:2] my argument briefly is, that there is no ground for asserting that the passage in question, with its reference to "many mansions," was derived from the presbyters of papias, or from his book, and that it is not a quotation from a work which quotes the presbyters as quoting these words, but one made more directly by irenaeus--not directly from the gospel, but probably from some contemporary, and representing nothing more than the exegesis of his own day. the second point of canon lightfoot's attack is in connection with a discussion of the date of celsus. dr. lightfoot quotes a passage from origen given in my work, [10:1] upon which he comments as follows: "on the strength of the passage so translated, our author supposes that origen's impression concerning the date of celsus had meanwhile been 'considerably modified,' and remarks that he now 'treats him as a contemporary.' unfortunately, however, the tenses, on which everything depends, are freely handled in this translation. origen does not say 'celsus _has promised_,' but 'celsus _promises_ ([greek: epangellomenon])--_i.e._, in the treatise before him, origen's knowledge was plainly derived from the book itself. and, again, he does not say 'if he _has not fulfilled_ his promise to write,' but 'if he _did not write_ as he undertook to do' ([greek: _egrapsen huposchomenos_]); nor 'if he _has commenced and finished_,' but 'if he _commenced and finished_' ([greek: _arxamenos sunetelese_]). thus origen's language itself here points to a past epoch, and is in strict accordance with the earlier passages in his work." [10:2] these remarks, and the triumphant exclamation of dr. lightfoot at the close that here "an elaborate argument is wrecked on this rock of grammar," convey a totally wrong impression of the case. the argument regarding this passage in origen occurs in a controversy between tischendorf and volkmar, the particulars of which i report; [10:3] and to avoid anticipation of the point, i promise to give the passage in its place, which i subsequently do. all the complimentary observations which dr. lightfoot makes upon the translation actually fall upon the head of his brother apologist, tischendorf, whose rendering, as he so much insists upon it, i merely reproduce. the manner in which tischendorf attacks volkmar in connection with this passage forcibly reminds me of the amenities addressed to myself by dr. lightfoot, who seems unconsciously to have caught the trick of his precursor's scolding. volkmar had paraphrased origen's words in a way of which his critic disapproved, and tischendorf comments as follows: "but here again we have to do with nothing else than a completely abortive fabrication, a certificate of our said critic's poverty. for the assertion derived from the close of the work of origen rests upon gross ignorance or upon intentional deception. the words of origen to his patron ambrosius, who had prompted him to the composition of the whole apology, run as follows" [and here i must give the german]: "'wenn dass celsus versprochen hat' [_has promised_] 'jedenfalls in seinem gegen das christenthum gerichteten und von origenes widerlegten buche) noch eine andere schrift nach dieser zu verfassen, worin u.s.w.' 'wenn er nun diese zweite schrift trotz seines versprechens nicht geschrieben hat' [_has not written_], 'so genügt es uns mit diesen acht büchern auf seine schrift geantwortet zu haben. wenn er aber auch jene unternommen und vollendet hat' [_has undertaken and completed_], 'so treib das buch auf und schicke es, damit wir auch darauf antworten,'" &c. [11:1] now this translation of tischendorf is not made carelessly, but deliberately, for the express purpose of showing the actual words of origen, and correcting the version of volkmar; and he insists upon these tenses not only by referring to the greek of these special phrases, but by again contrasting with them the paraphrase of volkmar. [11:2] whatever disregard of tenses and "free handling" of origen there may be here, therefore, are due to tischendorf, who may be considered as good a scholar as dr. lightfoot, and not a less zealous apologist. instead of depending on the "strength of the passage so translated," however, as canon lightfoot represents, my argument is independent of this or any other version of origen's words; and, in fact, the point is only incidentally introduced, and more as the view of others than my own. i point out [12:1] that origen evidently knows nothing of his adversary: and i add that "it is almost impossible to avoid the conviction that, during the time he was composing his work, his impressions concerning the date and identity of his opponent became considerably modified." i then proceed to enumerate some of the reasons. in the earlier portion of his first book (i. 8), origen has heard that his celsus is the epicurean of the reign of hadrian and later, but a little further on (i. 68), he confesses his ignorance as to whether he is the same celsus who wrote against magic, which celsus the epicurean actually did. in the fourth book (iv. 36) he expresses uncertainty as to whether the epicurean celsus had composed the work against christians which he is refuting, and at the close of his treatise he treats him as a contemporary, for, as i again mention, volkmar and others assert, on the strength of the passage in the eighth book and from other considerations, that celsus really was a contemporary of origen. i proceed to argue that, even if celsus were the epicurean friend of lucian, there could be no ground for assigning to him an early date; but, on the contrary, that so far from being an epicurean, the celsus attacked by origen evidently was a neo-platonist. this, and the circumstance that his work indicates a period of persecution against christians, leads to the conclusion, i point out, that he must be dated about the beginning of the third century. my argument, in short, scarcely turns upon the passage in origen at all, and that which renders it incapable of being wrecked is the fact that celsus never mentions the gospels, and much less adds anything to our knowledge of their authors, which can entitle them to greater credit as witnesses for the reality of divine revelation. i do not intend to bandy many words with canon lightfoot regarding translations. nothing is so easy as to find fault with the rendering of passages from another language, or to point out variations in tenses and expressions, not in themselves of the slightest importance to the main issue, in freely transferring the spirit of sentences from their natural context to an isolated position in quotation. such a personal matter as dr. lightfoot's general strictures, in this respect, i feel cannot interest the readers of this review. i am quite ready to accept correction even from an opponent where i am wrong, but i am quite content to leave to the judgment of all who will examine them in a fair spirit the voluminous quotations in my work. the 'higher criticism,' in which dr. lightfoot seems to have indulged in this article, scarcely rises above the correction of an exercise or the conjugation of a verb. [13:1] i am extremely obliged to dr. lightfoot for pointing out two clerical errors which had escaped me, but which have been discovered and magnified by his microscopic criticism, and thrown at my head by his apologetic zeal. the first is in reference to what he describes as "a highly important question of biblical criticism." in speaking, _en passant_, of a passage in john v. 3, 4, in connection with the "age of miracles," the words "it is argued that" were accidentally omitted from vol. i. p. 113, line 19, and the sentence should read, "and it is argued that it was probably a later interpolation." [14:1] in vol. ii. p. 420, after again mentioning the rejection of the passage, i proceed to state my own personal belief that the words must have originally stood in the text, because v. 7 indicates the existence of such a context. the second error is in vol. ii. p. 423, line 24, in which "only" has been substituted for "never" in deciphering my ms. since this is such a _common-place_ of "apologists," as dr. lightfoot points out, surely he might have put a courteous construction upon the error, instead of venting upon me so much righteous indignation. i can assure him that i do not in the slightest degree grudge him the full benefit of the argument that the fourth gospel never once distinguishes john the baptist from the apostle john by the addition [greek: ho baptistês]. [15:1] i turn, however, to a more important matter. canon lightfoot attacks me in no measured terms for a criticism upon dr. westcott's mode of dealing with a piece of information regarding basilides. he says- "dr. westcott writes of basilides as follows:- "'at the same time he appealed to the authority of glaucias, who, as well as st. mark, was "an interpreter of st. peter."' ('canon,' p. 264) "the inverted commas are given here as they appear in dr. westcott's book. it need hardly be said that dr. westcott is simply illustrating the statement of basilides that glaucias was an interpreter of st. peter by the similar statement of papias and others that st. mark was an interpreter of the same apostle--a very innocent piece of information, one would suppose. on this passage, however, our author remarks- "'now we have here again an illustration of the same misleading system which we have already condemned, and shall further refer to, in the introduction after "glaucias" of the words "_who, as well as st. mark, was_ an interpreter of st. peter." the words in italics are the gratuitous addition of canon westcott himself, and can only have been inserted for one of two purposes--(1) to assert the fact that glaucias was actually an interpreter of peter, as tradition represented mark to be; or (2) to insinuate to unlearned readers that basilides himself acknowledged mark as well as glaucias as the interpreter of peter. we can hardly suppose the first to have been the intention, and we regret to be forced back upon the second, and infer that the temptation to weaken the inferences from the appeal of basilides to the uncanonical glaucias, by coupling with it the allusion to mark, was, unconsciously, no doubt, too strong for the apologist.' ('s.r.' i. p. 459) "dr. westcott's honour may safely be left to take care of itself. it stands far too high to be touched by insinuations like these. i only call attention to the fact that our author has removed dr. westcott's inverted commas, and then founded on the passage so manipulated a charge of unfair dealing, which could only be sustained in their absence, and which even then no one but himself would have thought of." [16:1] in order to make this matter clear, i must venture more fully to quote dr. westcott's statements regarding basilides. dr. westcott says: "since basilides lived on the verge of the apostolic times, it is not surprising that he made use of other sources of christian doctrine besides the canonical books. the belief in divine inspiration was still fresh and real; and eusebius relates that he set up imaginary prophets, barcabbas and barcoph (parchor)--'names to strike terror into the superstitious'--by whose writings he supported his peculiar views. at the same time he appealed to the authority of glaucias, who, as well as st. mark, was 'an interpreter of st. peter;' [16:2] and he also made use of certain 'traditions of matthias,' which claimed to be grounded on 'private intercourse with the saviour.' [16:3] it appears, moreover, that he himself published a gospel--a 'life of christ,' as it would perhaps be called in our days, or 'the philosophy of christianity'--but he admitted the historic truth of all the facts contained in the canonical gospels, and used them as scripture. for, in spite of his peculiar opinions, the testimony of basilides to our 'acknowledged' books is comprehensive and clear. in the few pages of his writings which remain, there are certain references to the gospels of st. matthew, st. luke, and st. john, &c." and in a note dr. westcott adds, "the following examples will be sufficient to show his mode of quotation, &c." [17:1] not a word of qualification or doubt is added to these extraordinary statements, for a full criticism of which i must beg the reader to be good enough to refer to _supernatural religion_, ii. pp. 41-54. setting aside here the important question as to what the "gospel" of basilides--to which dr. westcott gives the fanciful names of a "life of christ," or "philosophy of christianity," without a shadow of evidence--really was, it could scarcely be divined, for instance, that the statement that basilides "admitted the historic truth of all the facts contained in the canonical gospels" rests solely upon a sentence in the work attributed to hippolytus, to the effect that, after his generation, all things regarding the saviour--according to the _followers_ of basilides--occurred in the same way as they are written in the gospels. again, it could scarcely be supposed by an ordinary reader that the assertion that basilides used the "canonical gospels"--there certainly were no "canonical" gospels in his day--"as scripture," that his testimony to our 'acknowledged' books is comprehensive and clear, and that "in the few pages of his writings which remain there are certain references" to those gospels, which show "his method of quotation," is not based upon any direct extracts from his writings, but solely upon passages in an epitome by hippolytus of the views of the school of basilides, not ascribed directly to basilides himself, but introduced by a mere indefinite [greek: phêsi]. [17:2] why, i might enquire in the vein of dr. lightfoot, is not a syllable said of all this, or of the fact, which completes the separation of these passages from basilides, that the gnosticism described by hippolytus is not that of basilides, but clearly of a later type; and that writers of that period, and notably hippolytus himself, were in the habit of putting, as it might seem, by the use of an indefinite "he says," sentiments into the mouth of the founder of a sect which were only expressed by his later followers? as dr. lightfoot evidently highly values the testimony of luthardt, i will quote the words of that staunch apologist to show that, in this, i do not merely represent the views of a heterodox school. in discussing the supposed quotations from the fourth gospel, which dr. westcott represents as "certain references" to it by basilides himself, luthardt says: "but to this is opposed the consideration that, as we know from irenaeus, &c., the original system of basilides had a dualistic character, whilst that of the 'philosophumena' is pantheistic. we must recognise that hippolytus, in the 'philosophumena,' not unfrequently makes the founder of a sect responsible for that which in the first place concerns his disciples, so that from these quotations only the use of the johannine gospel in the school of basilides is undoubtedly proved, but not on the part of the founder himself." [18:1] it is difficult to recognise in this fancy portrait the basilides regarding whom a large body of eminent critics conclude that he did not know our gospels at all, but made use of an uncanonical work, supplemented by traditions from glaucias and matthias; but, as if the heretic had not been sufficiently restored to the odour of sanctity, the additional touch is given in the passage more immediately before us. dr. westcott conveys the information contained in the single sentence of clement of alexandria, [greek: kathaper ho basileidês kan glaukian epigraphêtai didaskalon, hôs auchousin autoi, ton petrou hermênea], [19:1] in the following words; and i quote the statement exactly as it has stood in my text from the very first, in order to show the inverted commas upon which dr. lightfoot lays so much stress as having been removed. in mentioning this fact canon westcott says: "at the same time he appealed to the authority of glaucias, who, as well as st. mark, was 'an interpreter of st. peter.' [19:2] now we have here, again, an illustration," &c.; and then follows the passage quoted by dr. lightfoot. the positive form given to the words of clement, and the introduction of the words "as well as st. mark," seem at once to impart a full flavour of orthodoxy to basilides which i do not find in the original. i confess that i fail to see any special virtue in the inverted commas; but as dr. lightfoot does, let me point out to him that he commences his quotation--upon the strength of which he accuses me of "manipulating" a passage, and then founding upon it a charge of unfair dealing--immediately after the direct citation from dr. westcott's work, in which those inverted commas are given. the words they mark are a quotation from clement, and in my re-quotation a few lines lower down they are equally well indicated by being the only words not put in italics. the fact is, that dr. lightfoot has mistaken and misstated the whole case. he has been so eagerly looking for the mote in my eye that he has failed to perceive the beam which is in his own eye. it is by this wonderful illustration that he "exemplifies the elaborate looseness which pervades the critical portion of this (my) book." [19:3] it rather exemplifies the uncritical looseness which pervades his own article. dr. lightfoot says, and says rightly, that "dr. westcott's honour may safely be left to take care of itself." it would have been much better to have left it to take care of itself, indeed, than trouble it by such advocacy. if anything could check just or generous expression, it would be the tone adopted by dr. lightfoot; but nevertheless i again say, in the most unreserved manner, that neither in this instance nor in any other have i had the most distant intention of attributing "corrupt motives" to a man like dr. westcott, whose single-mindedness i recognise, and for whose earnest character i feel genuine respect. the utmost that i have at any time intended to point out is that, utterly possessed as he is by orthodox views in general, and of the canon in particular, he sees facts, i consider, through a dogmatic medium, and unconsciously imparts his own peculiar colouring to statements which should be more impartially made. dr. lightfoot will not even give me credit for fairly stating the arguments of my adversaries. "the author," he says, "does indeed single out from time to time the weaker arguments of 'apologetic' writers, and on these he dwells at great length; but their weightier facts and lines of reasoning are altogether ignored by him, though they often occur in the same books, and even in the same contexts which he quotes." [20:1] i am exceedingly indebted to dr. lightfoot for having had compassion upon my incapacity to distinguish these arguments, and for giving me "samples" of the "weightier facts and lines of reasoning" of apologists which i have ignored. the first of these with which he favours me is in connection with an anachronism in the epistle ascribed to polycarp, ignatius being spoken of in chapter thirteen as living, and information requested regarding him "and those who are with him;" whereas in an earlier passage he is represented as dead. dr. lightfoot reproaches me:-"why, then, does he not notice the answer which he might have found in any common source of information, that when the latin version (the greek is wanting here) 'de his qui cum eo sunt' is re-translated into the original language, [greek: tois sun autô], the 'anachronism' altogether disappears?" [21:1] as dr. lightfoot does not apparently attach much weight to my replies, i venture to give my reasons for not troubling my readers with this argument in words which, i hope, may find more favour with him. dr. donaldson, in his able work on "christian literature and doctrine," says: "in the ninth chapter ignatius is spoken of as a martyr, an example to the philippians of patience ... in the thirteenth chapter polycarp requests information with regard to 'ignatius and those with him.' these words occur only in the latin translation of the epistle. to get rid of the difficulty which they present, it has been supposed that the words 'de his qui cum eo sunt' are a wrong rendering of the greek [greek: peri ton met' autou]. and then the words are supposed to mean, 'concerning ignatius (of whose death i heard, but of which i wish particulars) and those who _were_ with him.' but even the greek could not be forced into such a meaning as this; and, moreover, there is no reason to impugn the latin translation, except the peculiar difficulty presented by a comparison with the ninth chapter." [21:2] dr. lightfoot, however, does impugn it. it is apparently his habit to impugn translations. he accuses the ancient latin translator of freely handling the tenses of a greek text which the critic himself has never seen. here it is dr. lightfoot's argument which is "wrecked upon this rock of grammar." the next example of the "weightier facts and lines of reasoning" of apologists which i have ignored is as follows:- "again, when he devotes more than forty pages to the discussion of papias, why does he not even mention the view maintained by dr. westcott and others (and certainly suggested by a strict interpretation of papias' own words), that this father's object, in his 'exposition,' was not to construct a new evangelical narrative, but to interpret and to illustrate by oral tradition one already lying before him in written documents? this view, if correct, entirely alters the relation of papias to the written gospels; and its discussion was a matter of essential importance to the main question at issue." [22:1] i reply that the object of my work was not to discuss views advanced without a shadow of evidence, contradicted by the words of papias himself, and absolutely incapable of proof. my object was the much more practical and direct one of ascertaining whether papias affords any evidence with regard to our gospels which could warrant our believing in the occurrence of miraculous events for which they are the principal testimony. even if it could be proved, which it cannot be, that papias actually had "written documents" before him, the cause of our gospels would not be one jot advanced, inasmuch as it could not be shown that these documents were our gospels; and the avowed preference of papias for tradition over books, so clearly expressed, implies anything but respect for any written documents with which he was acquainted. however important such a discussion may appear to dr. lightfoot in the absence of other evidence, it is absolutely devoid of value in an enquiry into the reality of divine revelation. the next "sample" of these ignored "weightier facts and lines of reasoning" given by dr. lightfoot is the following: "again, when he reproduces the tübingen fallacy respecting 'the strong prejudice' of hegesippus against st. paul, and quotes the often-quoted passage from stephanus gobarus, in which this writer refers to the language of hegesippus condemning the use of the words, 'eye hath not seen,' &c., why does he not state that these words were employed by heretical teachers to justify their rites of initiation, and consequently 'apologetic' writers contend that hegesippus refers to the words, not as used by st. paul, but as misapplied by these heretics? since, according to the tübingen interpretation, this single notice contradicts everything else which we now of the opinions of hegesippus, the view of 'apologists' might, perhaps, have been worth a moment's consideration." [23:1] i reply, why does this punctilious objector omit to point out that i merely mention the anti-pauline interpretation incidentally in a single sentence, [23:2] and after a few words as to the source of the quotation in cor. ii. 9, i proceed: "this, however, does not concern us here, and we have merely to examine 'the saying of the lord,' which hegesippus opposes to the passage, 'blessed are your eyes,'" &c., this being, in fact, the sole object of my quotation from stephanus gobarus? why does he not also state that i distinctly refer to tischendorf's denial that hegesippus was opposed to paul? and why does he not further state that, instead of being the "single notice" from which the view of the anti-pauline feelings of hegesippus is derived, that conclusion is based upon the whole tendency of the fragments of his writings which remain? it was not my purpose to enter into any discussion of the feeling against paul entertained by a large section of the early church. what i have to say upon that subject will appear in my examination of the acts of the apostles. "and again," says dr. lightfoot, proceeding with his samples of ignored weightier lines of reasoning, "in the elaborate examination of justin martyr's evangelical quotations ... our author frequently refers to dr. westcott's book to censure it, and many comparatively insignificant points are discussed at great length. why, then, does he not once mention dr. westcott's argument founded on the looseness of justin martyr's quotations from the old testament as throwing some light on the degree of accuracy which he might be expected to show in quoting the gospels? a reader fresh from the perusal of _supernatural religion_ will have his eyes opened as to the character of justin's mind when he turns to dr. westcott's book, and finds how justin interweaves, misnames, and misquotes passages from the old testament. it cannot be said that these are unimportant points." [24:1] now the fact is, that in the first 105 pages of my examination of justin martyr i do not once refer in my text to dr. westcott's work; and when i finally do so it is for the purposes of discussing what seemed to me a singular argument, demanding a moment's attention. [24:2] dr. westcott, whilst maintaining that justin's quotations are derived from our gospels, argues that only in seven passages out of the very numerous citations in his writings "does justin profess to give the exact words recorded in the 'memoirs.'" [24:3] the reason why i do not feel it at all necessary to discuss the other views of dr. westcott here mentioned is practically given in the final sentence of a note quoted by dr. lightfoot, [24:4] which sentence he has thought it right to omit. the note is as follows, and the sentence to which i refer is put in italics: "for the arguments of apologetic criticism, the reader may be referred to canon westcott's work 'on the canon,' pp. 112-139. dr. westcott does not attempt to deny the fact that justin's quotations are different from the text of our gospels, but he accounts for his variations on grounds which are purely imaginary. _it is evident that so long as there are such variations to be explained away, at least no proof of identity is possible_." [24:5] it will be observed that although i do not discuss dr. westcott's views, i pointedly refer those who desire to know what the arguments on the other side are to his work. let me repeat, once for all, that my object in examining the writings of the fathers is not to form theories and conjectures as to what documents they may possibly have used, but to ascertain whether they afford any positive evidence regarding our existing gospels, which can warrant our believing, upon their authority, the miraculous contents of christianity. any argument that, although justin, for instance, never once names any of our gospels, and out of very numerous quotations of sayings of jesus very rarely indeed quotes anything which has an exact parallel in those gospels, yet he may have made use of our gospels, because he also frequently misquotes passages from the old testament, is worthless for the purpose of establishing the reality of divine revelation. from the point of view of such an enquiry, i probably go much further into the examination of justin's "memoirs" than was at all necessary. space, however, forbids my further dwelling on these instances, regarding which dr. lightfoot says: "in every instance which i have selected"--and to which i have replied--"these omitted considerations vitally affect the main question at issue." [25:1] if dr. lightfoot had devoted half the time to mastering what "the main question at issue" really is, which he has wasted in finding minute faults in me, he might have spared himself the trouble of giving these instances at all. if such considerations have vital importance, the position of the question may easily be understood. dr. lightfoot, however, evidently seems to suppose that i can be charged with want of candour and of fulness, because i do not reproduce every shred and tatter of apologetic reasoning which divines continue to flaunt about after others have rejected them as useless. he again accuses me, in connection with the fourth gospel, of systematically ignoring the arguments of "apologetic" writers, and he represents my work as "the very reverse of full and impartial." "once or twice, indeed," he says, "he fastens on passages from such writers, that he may make capital of them; but their main arguments remain wholly unnoticed." [26:1] i confess that i find it somewhat difficult to distinguish between those out of which i am said to "make capital" and those which dr. lightfoot characterises as "their main arguments," if i am to judge by the "samples" of them which he gives me. for instance, [26:2] he asks why, when asserting that the synoptics clearly represent the ministry of jesus as having been limited to a single year, and his preaching as confined to galilee and jerusalem, whilst the fourth gospel distributes the teaching of jesus between galilee, samaria, and jerusalem, makes it extend over three years, and refers to three passovers spent by jesus at jerusalem: "why then," he asks, "does he not add that 'apologetic' writers refer to such passages as matt. xiii. 37 (comp. luke xiii. 34), 'o jerusalem, jerusalem ... _how often_ would i have gathered thy children together'? here the expression 'how often,' it is contended, obliges us to postulate other visits, probably several visits, to jerusalem, which are not recorded in the synoptic gospels themselves. and it may be suggested also that the twice-repeated notice of time in the context of st. luke, 'i do cures _to-day and to-morrow, and the third day_ i shall be perfected,' 'i must walk _to-day and to-morrow and the day following_,' points to the very duration of our lord's ministry, as indicated by the fourth gospel. if so, the coincidence is the more remarkable because it does not appear that st. luke himself, while wording these prophetic words, was aware of their full historical import." [27:1] now it might have struck dr. lightfoot that if anyone making an enquiry into the reality of divine revelation were obliged, in order to escape charges of want of candour, fulness, and impartiality, or insinuations of ignorance, to reproduce and refute all apologetic arguments like this, the duration of modern life would scarcely suffice for the task; and "if they should be written every one, i suppose that even the world itself could not contain all the books that should be written." it is very right that anyone believing it valid should advance this or any other reasoning in reply to objections, or in support of opinions; but is it not somewhat unreasonable vehemently to condemn a writer for not exhausting himself, and his readers, by discussing pleas which are not only unsound in themselves, but irrelevant to the direct purpose of his work? i have only advanced objections against the johannine authorship of the fourth gospel, which seem to me unrefuted by any of the explanations offered. let me now turn to more important instances. dr. lightfoot asks: "why, when he is endeavouring to minimise, if not deny, the hebraic character of the fourth gospel, does he wholly ignore the investigations of luthardt and others, which (as 'apologists' venture to think) show that the whole texture of the language the fourth gospel is hebraic?" [27:2] now my statements with regard to the language of the apocalypse and fourth gospel are as follows. of the apocalypse i say: "the language in which the book is written is the most hebraistic greek of the new testament;" [28:1] and further on: "the barbarous hebraistic greek and abrupt, inelegant diction are natural to the unlettered fisherman of galilee." [28:2] of the gospel i say: "instead of the hebraistic greek and harsh diction which might be expected from the unlettered and ignorant [28:3] fisherman of galilee, we find, in the fourth gospel, the purest and least hebraistic greek of any of the gospels (some parts of the third synoptic, perhaps, alone excepted), and a refinement and beauty of composition whose charm has captivated the world," &c. [28:4] in another place i say: "the language in which the gospel is written, as we have already mentioned, is much less hebraic than that of the other gospels, with the exception, perhaps, of parts of the gospel according to luke, and its hebraisms are not on the whole greater than was almost invariably the case with hellenistic greek; but its composition is distinguished by peculiar smoothness, grace, and beauty, and in this respect it is assigned the first rank amongst the gospels." [28:5] i believe that i do not say another word as to the texture of the language of the fourth gospel, and it will be observed that my remarks are almost wholly limited to the comparative quality of the greek of the fourth gospel, on the one hand, and the apocalypse and synoptics on the other, and that they do not exclude hebraisms. the views expressed might be supported by numberless authorities. as dr. lightfoot accuses me of "wholly ignoring" the results at which luthardt and others have arrived, i will quote what luthardt says of the two works: "the difference of the _language_, as well in regard to grammar and style as to doctrine, is, of course, in a high degree remarkable ... as regards _grammar_, the gospel is written in correct, the apocalypse in incorrect greek." he argues that this is a consequence of sovereign freedom in the latter, and that from the nature of the composition the author of the apocalypse wrote in an artificial style, and could both have spoken and written otherwise. "the errors are not errors of ignorance, but intentional emancipations from the rules of grammar" (!), in imitation of ancient prophetic style. presently he proceeds: "if, then, on the one hand, the apocalypse is written in worse greek and less correctly than its author was able to speak and write, the question, on the hand, is, whether the gospel is not in too good greek to be credited to a born jew and palestinian." luthardt maintains "that the style of the gospel betrays the born jew, and certainly not the greek," but the force which he intends to give to all this reasoning is clearly indicated by the conclusion at which he finally arrives, that "the linguistic gulf between the gospel and the apocalypse is not impassable." [29:1] this result from so staunch an apologist, obviously to minimise the hebraic character of the apocalypse, is not after all so strikingly different from my representation. take again the opinion of so eminent an apologist as bleek: "the language of the apocalypse in its whole character is beyond comparison harsher, rougher, looser, and presents grosser incorrectness than any other book of the new testament, whilst the language of the gospel is certainly not pure greek, but is beyond comparison more grammatically correct." [29:2] i am merely replying, to the statements of dr. lightfoot, and not arguing afresh regarding the language of the fourth gospel, or i might produce very different arguments and authorities, but i may remark that the critical dilemma which i have represented, in reviewing the fourth gospel, is not merely dependent upon linguistic considerations, but arises out of the aggregate and conflicting phenomena presented by the apocalypse on the one hand and the gospel on the other. space only allows of my referring to one other instance. [30:1] dr. lightfoot says- "if by any chance he condescends to discuss a question, he takes care to fasten on the least likely solution of 'apologists' (_e.g._ the identification of sychar and shechem), [30:2] omitting altogether to notice others." in a note dr. lightfoot adds:- "travellers and 'apologists' alike now more commonly identify sychar with the village bearing the arabic name askar. this fact is not mentioned by our author. he says moreover, 'it is admitted that there was no such place (as sychar, [greek: suchár]), and apologetic ingenuity is severely taxed to explain the difficulty.' _this is altogether untrue_. others besides 'apologists' point to passages in the talmud which speak of 'the well of suchar (or sochar or sichar);' see neubauer, 'la géographie du talmud,' p. 169 f. our author refers in his note to an article by delitzsch, ('_zeitschr. j. luth. theol._,' 1856, p. 240 f.) _he cannot have read the article, for these talmudic references are its main purport_." [30:3] i may perhaps be allowed to refer, first, to the two sentences which i have taken the liberty of putting in italics. if it be possible for an apologist to apologise, an apology is surely due to the readers of the "contemporary review," at least, for this style of criticism, to which, i doubt not, they are as little accustomed as i am myself. there is no satisfying dr. lightfoot. i give him references, and he accuses me of "literary browbeating" and "subtle intimidation;" i do not give references, and he gives me the lie. i refer to the article of delitzsch in support of my specific statement that he rejects the identification of sychar with sichem, and apparently because i do not quote the whole study dr. lightfoot courteously asserts that i cannot have read it. [31:1] my statement [31:2] is, that it is admitted that there was no such place as sychar--i ought to have added, "except by apologists who never admit anything"--but i thought that in saying: "and apologetic ingenuity is severely taxed to explain the difficulty," i had sufficiently excepted apologists, and indicated that many assertions and conjectures are advanced by them for that purpose. i mention that the conjecture which identifies sychar and sichem is rejected by some, refer to credner's supposition that the alteration may be due to some error committed by a secretary in writing down the gospel from the dictation of the apostle, and that sichem is meant, and i state the "nickname" hypothesis of hengstenberg and others. it is undeniable that, with the exception of some vague references in the talmud to a somewhat similar, but not identical, name, the locality of which is quite uncertain, no place bearing, or having borne, the designation of sychar is known. the ordinary apologetic theory, as dr. lightfoot may find "in any common source of information,"--dr. smith's "dictionary of the bible," for instance--is the delightfully comprehensive one: "sychar was either a name applied to the town of shechem, or it was an independent place." this authority, however, goes clean against dr. lightfoot's assertion, for it continues: "the first of these alternatives is now almost universally accepted." lightfoot [32:1] considered sychar a mere alteration of the name sichem, both representing the same place. he found a reference in the talmud to "_ain socar_," and with great hesitation he associated the name with sychar. "may we not venture" to render it "the well of sychar"? and after detailed extracts and explanations he says: "and now let the reader give us his judgment as to its name and place, whether it doth not seem to have some relation with our 'well of sychar.' it may be disputed on either side." wieseler, who first, in more recent times, developed the conjectures of lightfoot, argues: "in the first place, there can be no doubt that by [greek: suchar] sichem is meant," and he adds, a few lines after: "regarding this there is no controversy amongst interpreters." he totally rejects the idea of such in alteration of the name occurring in translation, which he says is "unprecedented." he therefore concludes that in [greek: suchar] we have _another_ name for sichem. he merely submits this, however, as "a new hypothesis to the judgment of the reader," [32:2] which alone shows the uncertainty of the suggestion. lightfoot and wieseler are substantially followed by olshausen, [32:3] de wette, [32:4] hug, [32:5] bunsen, [32:6] riggenbach, [32:7] godet, [32:8] and others. bleek, [32:9] in spite of the arguments of delitzsch and ewald, and their talmudic researches, considers that the old town of sichem is meant. delitzsch, [32:10] ewald, [32:11] lange, [32:12] meyer, [32:13] and others think that sychar was near to, but distinct from, sichem. lücke [33:1] is very undecided. he recognises the extraordinary difference in the name sychar. he does not favourably receive lightfoot's arguments regarding an alteration of the name of sichem, nor his conjectures as to the relation of the place mentioned in the talmud to sichem, which he thinks is "very doubtful," and he seems to incline rather to an accidental corruption of sichem into sychar, although he feels the great difficulties in the way of such an explanation. ewald condemns the "talmudische studien" of delitzsch as generally more complicating than clearing up difficulties, and his views as commonly incorrect, and, whilst agreeing with him that sychar cannot be the same place as sichem, he points out that the site of the _valley of the_ well of the talmud is certainly doubtful. [33:2] he explains his own views, however, more clearly in another place:- "that this (sychar) cannot be the large, ancient sikhem, which, at the time when the gospel was written, was probably already generally called _neapolis_ in greek writings, has been already stated; it is the place still called with an altered arabic name _al 'askar_, east of naplûs. it is indeed difficult to prove that sychar could stand for sikhem, either through change of pronunciation, or for any other reason, and the addition [greek: legomenê] does not indicate, here any more than in xi. 54, so large and generally known a town as sikhem. or flavia neapolis." [33:3] mr. sanday, [33:4] of whose able work dr. lightfoot directly speaks, says:- "the name sychar is not the common one, sichem, but is a mock title (='liar' or 'drunkard') that was given to the town by the jews. [33:5] this is a clear reminiscence of the vernacular that the apostle spoke in his youth, and is a strong touch of nature. it is not quite certain that the name sychar has this force, but the hypothesis is in itself more likely than, &c.... it is not, however, by any means improbable that sychar may represent, not sichem, but the modern village askar, which is somewhat nearer to jacob's well." to quote one of the latest "travellers and apologists," dr. farrar says: "from what the name sychar is derived is uncertain. the word [greek: legomenos] in st. john seems to imply a sobriquet. it may be 'a lie,' 'drunken,' or 'a sepulchre.' sychar may possibly have been a village nearer the well than sichem, on the site of the village now called el askar." [34:1] as dr. lightfoot specially mentions neubauer, his opinion may be substantially given in a single sentence: "la mischna mentionne un endroit appelé 'la plaine d'en-sokher,' qui est peut-être le sychar de l'evangile." he had a few lines before said: "il est donc plus logique de ne pas identifier sychar avec sichem." [34:2] now, with regard to all these theories, and especially in so far as they connect sychar with el askar, let me quote a few more words in conclusion, from a "common source of information:"- "on the other hand there is an etymological difficulty in the way of this identification. _'askar_ begins with the letter 'ain, which sychar does not appear to have contained; a letter too stubborn and enduring to be easily either dropped or assumed in a name ... these considerations have been stated not so much with the hope of leading to any conclusion on the identity of sychar, which seems hopeless, as with the desire to show that the ordinary explanation is not nearly so obvious as it is usually assumed to be." [34:3] mr. grove is very right. i have been careful only to quote from writers who are either "apologetic," or far from belonging to heterodox schools. is it not perfectly clear that no place of the name of sychar can be reasonably identified? the case, in fact, simply stands thus:--as the gospel mentions a town called sychar, apologists maintain that there must have been such a place, and attempt by various theories to find a site for it. it is certain, however, that even in the days of st. jerome there was no real trace of such a town, and apologists and travellers have not since been able to discover it, except in their own imaginations. with regard to the insinuation that the references given in my notes constitute a "subtle mode of intimidation" and "literary browbeating," canon lightfoot omits to say that i as fully and candidly refer to those who maintain views wholly different from my own, as to those who support me. it is very possible, considering the number of these references, that i may have committed some errors, and i can only say that i shall very thankfully receive from dr. lightfoot any corrections which he may be good enough to point out. instead of intimidation and browbeating, my sole desire has been to indicate to all who may be anxious further to examine questions in debate, works in which they may find them discussed. it is time that the system of advancing apologetic opinions with perfect assurance, and without a hint that they are disputed by anyone, should come to an end, and that earnest men should be made acquainted with the true state of the case. as dr. mozley rightly and honestly says: "the majority of mankind, perhaps, owe their belief rather to the outward influence of custom and education than to any strong principle of faith within; and it is to be feared that many, if they came to perceive how wonderful what they believed was, would not find their belief so easy and so matter-of-course a thing as they appear to find it." [36:1] i shall not here follow dr. lightfoot into his general remarks regarding my 'conclusions,' nor shall i proceed, in this article, to discuss the dilemma in which he attempts to involve me through his misunderstanding and consequent misstatement, of my views regarding the supreme being. i am almost inclined to think that i can have the pleasure of agreeing with him in one important point, at least, before coming to a close. when i read the curiously modified statement that i have "studiously avoided committing myself to a belief in a universal father, or a moral governor, or even in a personal god," it seems clear to me that the _supernatural religion_ about which dr. lightfoot has been writing cannot be my work, but is simply a work of his own imagination. that work cannot possibly have contained, for instance, the chapter on "anthropomorphic divinity," [36:2] in which, on the contrary, i studiously commit myself to very decided disbelief in such a "personal god" as he means. in no way inconsistent with that chapter are my concluding remarks, contrasting with the spasmodic jewish divinity a supreme being manifested in the operation of invariable laws--whose very invariability is the guarantee of beneficence and security. if dr. lightfoot, however, succeeded in convicting me of inconsistency in those final expressions, there could be no doubt which view must logically be abandoned, and it would be a new sensation to secure the approval of a divine by the unhesitating destruction of the last page of my work. dr. lightfoot, again, refers to mr. mill's "three essays on religion," but he does not appear to have very deeply studied that work. i confess that i do not entirely agree with some views therein expressed, and i hope that, hereafter, i may have an opportunity of explaining what they are; but i am surprised that dr. lightfoot has failed to observe how singularly that great thinker supports the general results of _supernatural religion_, to the point even of a frequent agreement almost in words. if dr. lightfoot had studied mill a little more closely, he would not have committed the serious error of arguing: "obviously, if the author has established his conclusions in the first part, the second and third are altogether superfluous. it is somewhat strange, therefore, that more than three-fourths of the whole work should be devoted to this needless task." [37:1] now my argument in the first part is not that miracles are impossible--a thesis which it is quite unnecessary to maintain--but the much more simple one that miracles are _antecedently_ incredible. having shown that they are so, and appreciated the true nature of the allegation of miracles, and the amount of evidence requisite to establish it, i proceed to examine the evidence which is actually produced in support of the assertion that, although miracles are antecedently incredible, they nevertheless took place. mr. mill clearly supports me in this course. he states the main principle of my argument thus: "a revelation, therefore, cannot be proved divine unless by external evidence; that is, by the exhibition of supernatural facts. and we have to consider, whether it is possible to prove supernatural facts, and if it is, what evidence is required to prove them." [37:2] mr. mill decides that it is possible to prove the occurrence of a supernatural fact, if it actually occurred, and after showing the great preponderance of evidence against miracles, he says: "against this weight of negative evidence we have to set such positive evidence as is produced in attestation of exceptions; in other words, the positive evidences of miracles. and i have already admitted that this evidence might conceivably have been such as to make the exception equally certain with the rule." [38:1] mr. mill's opinion of the evidence actually produced is not flattering, and may be compared with my results: "but the evidence of miracles, at least to protestant christians, is not, in our day, of this cogent description. it is not the evidence of our senses, but of witnesses, and even this not at first hand, but resting on the attestation of books and traditions. and even in the case of the original eye-witnesses, the supernatural facts asserted on their alleged testimony are not of the transcendent character supposed in our example, about the nature of which, or the impossibility of their having had a natural origin, there could be little room for doubt. on the contrary, the recorded miracles are, in the first place, generally such as it would have been extremely difficult to verify as matters of fact, and in the next place, are hardly ever beyond the possibility of having been brought about by human means or by the spontaneous agencies of nature." [38:2] it is to substantiate the statements made here, and, in fact, to confirm the philosophical conclusion by the historical proof, that i enter into an examination of the four gospels, as the chief witnesses for miracles. to those who have already ascertained the frivolous nature of that testimony it may, no doubt, seem useless labour to examine it in detail; but it is scarcely conceivable that an ecclesiastic who professes to base his faith upon those records should represent such a process as useless. in endeavouring to place me on the forks of a dilemma, in fact, dr. lightfoot has betrayed that he altogether fails to appreciate the question at issue, or to comprehend the position of miracles in relation to philosophical and historical enquiry. instead of being "altogether superfluous," my examination of witnesses, in the second and third parts, has more correctly been represented by able critics as incomplete, from the omission of the remaining documents of the new testament. i foresaw, and myself to some degree admitted, the justice of this argument; [39:1] but my work being already bulky enough, i reserved to another volume the completion of the enquiry. i cannot close this article without expressing my regret that so much which is personal and unworthy has been introduced into the discussion of a great and profoundly important subject. dr. lightfoot is too able and too earnest a man not to recognise that no occasional errors or faults in a writer can really affect the validity of his argument, and instead of mere general and desultory efforts to do some damage to me, it would be much more to the purpose were he seriously to endeavour to refute my reasoning. i have no desire to escape hard hitting or to avoid fair fight, and i feel unfeigned respect for many of my critics who, differing _toto coelo_ from my views, have with vigorous ability attacked my arguments without altogether forgetting the courtesy due even to an enemy. dr. lightfoot will not find me inattentive to courteous reasoning, nor indifferent to earnest criticism, and, whatever he may think, i promise him that no one will be more ready respectfully to follow every serious line of argument than the author of _supernatural religion_. ii. _the silence of eusebius--the ignatian epistles._ [endnote 40:1] this work has scarcely yet been twelve months before the public, but both in this country and in america and elsewhere it has been subjected to such wide and searching criticism by writers of all shades of opinion, that i may perhaps be permitted to make a few remarks, and to review some of my reviewers. i must first, however, beg leave to express my gratitude to that large majority of my critics who have bestowed generous commendation upon the work, and liberally encouraged its completion. i have to thank others, who, differing totally from my conclusions, have nevertheless temperately argued against them, for the courtesy with which they have treated an opponent whose views must necessarily have offended them, and i can only say that, whilst such a course has commanded my unfeigned respect, it has certainly not diminished the attention with which i have followed their arguments. there are two serious misapprehensions of the purpose and line of argument of this work which i desire to correct. some critics have objected that, if i had succeeded in establishing the proposition advanced in the first part, the second and third parts need not have been written: in fact, that the historical argument against miracles is only necessary in consequence of the failure of the philosophical. now i contend that the historical is the necessary complement of the philosophical argument, and that both are equally requisite to completeness in dealing with the subject. the preliminary affirmation is not that miracles are impossible, but that they are antecedently incredible. the counter-allegation is that, although miracles may be antecedently incredible, they nevertheless actually took place. it is, therefore, necessary, not only to establish the antecedent incredibility, but to examine the validity of the allegation that certain miracles occurred, and this involves the historical enquiry into the evidence for the gospels which occupies the second and third parts. indeed, many will not acknowledge the case to be complete until other witnesses are questioned in a succeeding volume. ... the second point to which i desire to refer is a statement which has frequently been made that, in the second and third parts, i endeavour to prove that the four canonical gospels were not written until the end of the second century. this error is of course closely connected with that which has just been discussed, but it is difficult to understand how anyone who had taken the slightest trouble to ascertain the nature of the argument, and to state it fairly, could have fallen into it. the fact is that no attempt is made to prove anything with regard to the gospels. the evidence for them is merely examined, and it is found that, so far from their affording sufficient testimony to warrant belief in the actual occurrence of miracles declared to be antecedently incredible, there is not a certain trace even of the existence of the gospels for a century and a half after those miracles are alleged to have occurred, and nothing whatever to attest their authenticity and truth. this is a very different thing from an endeavour to establish some special theory of my own, and it is because this line of argument has not been understood, that some critics have expressed surprise at the decisive rejection of mere conjectures and possibilities as evidence. in a case of such importance, no testimony which is not clear and indubitable could be of any value, but the evidence producible for the canonical gospels falls very far short even of ordinary requirements, and in relation to miracles it is scarcely deserving of serious consideration. it has been argued that, even if there be no evidence for our special gospels, i admit that gospels very similar must early have been in existence, and that these equally represent the same prevailing belief as the canonical gospels: consequently that i merely change, without shaking, the witnesses. those who advance this argument, however, totally overlook the fact that it is not the reality of the superstitious belief which is in question, but the reality of the miracles, and the sufficiency of the witnesses to establish them. what such objectors urge practically amounts to this: that we should believe in the actual occurrence of certain miracles contradictory to all experience, out of a mass of false miracles which are reported but never really took place, because some unknown persons in an ignorant and superstitious age, who give no evidence of personal knowledge, or of careful investigation, have written an account of them, and other persons, equally ignorant and superstitious, have believed them. i venture to say that no one who advances the argument to which i am referring can have realised the nature of the question at issue, and the relation of miracles to the order of nature. the last of these general objections to which i need now refer is the statement, that the difficulty with regard to the gospels commences precisely where my examination ends, and that i am bound to explain how, if no trace of their existence is previously discoverable, the four gospels are suddenly found in general circulation at the end of the second century, and quoted as authoritative documents by such writers as irenaeus. my reply is that it is totally unnecessary for me to account for this. no one acquainted with the history of pseudonymic literature in the second century, and with the rapid circulation and ready acceptance of spurious works tending to edification, could for a moment regard the canonical position of any gospel at the end of that century either as evidence of its authenticity or early origin. that which concerns us chiefly is not evidence regarding the end of the second but the beginning of the first century. even if we took the statements of irenaeus and later fathers, like the alexandrian clement, tertullian and origen, about the gospels, they are absolutely without value except as personal opinion at a late date, for which no sufficient grounds are shown. of the earlier history of those gospels there is not a distinct trace, except of a nature which altogether discredits them as witnesses for miracles. after having carefully weighed the arguments which have been advanced against this work, i venture to express strengthened conviction of the truth of its conclusions. the best and most powerful reasons which able divines and apologists have been able to bring forward against its main argument have, i submit, not only failed to shake it, but have, by inference, shown it to be unassailable. very many of those who have professedly advanced against the citadel itself have practically attacked nothing but some outlying fort, which was scarcely worth defence, whilst others, who have seriously attempted an assault, have shown that the church has no artillery capable of making a practicable breach in the rationalistic stronghold. i say this solely in reference to the argument which i have taken upon myself to represent, and in no sense of my own individual share in its maintenance. i must now address myself more particularly to two of my critics who, with great ability and learning, have subjected this work to the most elaborate and microscopic criticism of which personal earnestness and official zeal are capable. i am sincerely obliged to professor lightfoot and dr. westcott for the minute attention they have bestowed upon my book. i had myself directly attacked the views of dr. westcott, and of course could only expect him to do his best or his worst against me in reply; and i am not surprised at the vigour with which dr. lightfoot has assailed a work so opposed to principles which he himself holds sacred, although i may be permitted to express my regret that he has not done so in a spirit more worthy of the cause which he defends. in spite of hostile criticism of very unusual minuteness and ability, no flaw or error has been pointed out which in the slightest degree affects my main argument, and i consider that every point yet objected to by dr. lightfoot, or indicated by dr. westcott, might be withdrawn without at all weakening my position. these objections, i may say, refer solely to details, and only follow side issues, but the attack, if impotent against the main position, has in many cases been insidiously directed against notes and passing references, and a plentiful sprinkling of such words as "misstatements" and "misrepresentations" along the line may have given it a formidable appearance and malicious effect, which render it worth while once for all to meet it in detail. the first point to which i shall refer is an elaborate argument by dr. lightfoot regarding the "silence of eusebius." [45:1] i had called attention to the importance of considering the silence of the fathers, under certain conditions; [45:2] and i might, omitting his curious limitation, adopt dr. lightfoot's opening comment upon this as singularly descriptive of the state of the case: "in one province more especially, relating to the external evidences for the gospels, silence occupies a prominent place." dr. lightfoot proposes to interrogate this "mysterious oracle," and he considers that "the response elicited will not be at all ambiguous." i might again agree with him, but that unambiguous response can scarcely be pronounced very satisfactory for the gospels. such silence may be very eloquent, but after all it is only the eloquence of--silence. i have not yet met with the argument anywhere that, because none of the early fathers quote our canonical gospels, or say anything with regard to them, the fact is unambiguous evidence that they were well acquainted with them, and considered them apostolic and authoritative. dr. lightfoot's argument from silence is, for the present at least, limited to eusebius. the point on which the argument turns is this: after examining the whole of the extant writings of the early fathers, and finding them a complete blank as regards the canonical gospels, if, by their use of apocryphal works and other indications, they are not evidence against them, i supplement this, in the case of hegesippus, papias, and dionysius of corinth, by the inference that, as eusebius does not state that their lost works contained any evidence for the gospels, they actually did not contain any. but before proceeding to discuss the point, it is necessary that a proper estimate should be formed of its importance to the main argument of my work. the evident labour which professor lightfoot has expended upon the preparation of his attack, the space devoted to it, and his own express words, would naturally lead most readers to suppose that it has almost a vital bearing upon my conclusions. dr. lightfoot says, after quoting the passages in which i appeal to the silence of eusebius:- "this indeed is the fundamental assumption which lies at the basis of his reasoning; and the reader will not need to be reminded how much of the argument falls to pieces if this basis should prove to be unsound. a wise master-builder would therefore have looked to his foundations first, and assured himself of their strength, before he piled up his fabric to this height. this our author has altogether neglected to do." [46:1] towards the close of his article, after triumphantly expressing his belief that his "main conclusions are irrefragable," he further says:- "if they are, then the reader will not fail to see how large a part of the argument in _supernatural religion_ has crumbled to pieces." [46:2] i do not doubt that dr. lightfoot sincerely believes this, but he must allow me to say that he is thoroughly mistaken in his estimate of the importance of the point, and that, as regards this work, the representations made in the above passages are a very strange exaggeration. i am unfortunately too familiar, in connection with criticism on this book, with instances of vast expenditure of time and strength in attacking points to which i attach no importance whatever, and which in themselves have scarcely any value. when writers, after an amount of demonstration which must have conveyed the impression that vital interests were at stake, have, at least in their own opinion, proved that i have omitted to dot an "i," cross a "t," or insert an inverted comma, they have really left the question precisely where it was. now, in the present instance, the whole extent of the argument which is based upon the silence of eusebius is an inference regarding some lost works of three writers only, which might altogether be withdrawn without affecting the case. the object of my investigation is to discover what evidence actually exists in the works of early writers regarding our gospels. in the fragments which remain of the works of three writers, hegesippus, papias, and dionysius of corinth, i do not find any evidence of acquaintance with these gospels,--the works mentioned by papias being, i contend, different from the existing gospels attributed to matthew and mark. whether i am right or not in this does not affect the present discussion. it is an unquestioned fact that eusebius does not mention that the lost works of these writers contained any reference to, or information about, the gospels, nor have we any statement from any other author to that effect. the objection of dr. lightfoot is limited to a denial that the silence of eusebius warrants the inference that, because he does not state that these writers made quotations from or references to undisputed canonical books, the lost works did not contain any; it does not, however, extend to interesting information regarding those books, which he admits it was the purpose of eusebius to record. to give dr. lightfoot's statements, which i am examining, the fullest possible support, however, suppose that i abandon eusebius altogether, and do not draw any inference of any kind from him beyond his positive statements, how would my case stand? simply as complete as it well could be: hegesippus, papias, and dionysius do not furnish any evidence in favour of the gospels. the reader, therefore, will not fail to see how serious a misstatement dr. lightfoot has made, and how little the argument of _supernatural religion_ would be affected even if he established much more than he has asserted. we may now proceed to consider dr. lightfoot's argument itself. he carefully and distinctly defines what he understands to be the declared intention of eusebius in composing his history, as regards the mention or use of the disputed and undisputed canonical books in the writings of the fathers, and in order to do him full justice i will quote his words, merely taking the liberty, for facility of reference, of dividing his statement into three paragraphs. he says: "eusebius therefore proposes to treat these two classes of writings in two different ways. this is the cardinal point of the passage. "(1) of the antilegomena he pledges himself to record when any ancient writer _employs_ any book belonging to their class ([greek: tines hopoiais kechrêntai]); "(2) but as regards the undisputed canonical books, he only professes to mention them when such a writer has something to _tell about them_ ([greek: tina peri tôn endiathêkon eirêtai]). any _anecdote_ of interest respecting them, as also respecting the others ([greek: tôn mê toioutôn]), will be recorded. "(3) but in their case he nowhere leads us to expect that he will allude to mere _quotations_, however numerous and however precise." [48:1] in order to dispose of the only one of these points upon which we can differ, i will first refer to the third. did eusebius intend to point out mere quotations of the books which he considered undisputed? as a matter of fact, he actually did point such out in the case of the 1st epistle of peter and the 1st epistle of john, which he repeatedly and in the most emphatic manner declared to be undisputed. [49:1] this is admitted by dr. lightfoot. that he omitted to mention a reference to the epistle to the corinthians in the epistle of clement of rome, or the reference by theophilus to the gospel of john, and other supposed quotations, might be set down as much to oversight as intention. on the other hand, that he did mention disputed books is evidence only that he not only pledged himself to do so, but actually fulfilled his promise. although much might be said upon this point, therefore, i consider it of so little importance that i do not intend to waste time in minutely discussing it. if my assertions with regard to the silence of eusebius likewise include the supposition that he proposed to mention mere quotations of the "undisputed" books, they are so far from limited to this very subsidiary testimony that i should have no reluctance in waiving it altogether. even if the most distinct quotations of this kind had occurred in the lost works of the three writers in question, they could have proved nothing beyond the mere existence of the book quoted, at the time that work was written, but would have done nothing to establish its authenticity and trustworthiness. in the evidential destitution of the gospels, apologists would thankfully have received even such vague indications; indeed there is scarcely any other evidence, but something much more definite is required to establish the reality of miracles and divine revelation. if this point be, for the sake of argument, set aside, what is the position? we are not entitled to infer that there were no quotations from the gospels in the works of hegesippus, papias, and dionysius of corinth, because eusebius does not record them; but, on the other hand, we are still less entitled to infer that there were any. the only inference which i care to draw from the silence of eusebius is precisely that which dr. lightfoot admits that, both from his promise and practice, i am entitled to deduce: when any ancient writer "has something to _tell about_" the gospels, "any _anecdote_ of interest respecting them," eusebius will record it. this is the only information of the slightest value to this work which could be looked for in these writers. so far, therefore, from producing the destructive effect upon some of the arguments of _supernatural religion_, upon which he somewhat prematurely congratulates himself, dr. lightfoot's elaborate and learned article on the silence of eusebius supports them in the most conclusive manner. before proceeding to speak more directly of the three writers under discussion, it may be well to glance a little at the procedure of eusebius, and note, for those who care to go more closely into the matter, how he fulfils his promise to record what the fathers have to tell about the gospels. i may mention, in the first place, that eusebius states what he himself knows of the composition of the gospels and other canonical works. [50:1] upon two occasions he quotes the account which clement of alexandria gives of the composition of mark's gospel, and also cites his statements regarding the other gospels. [50:2] in like manner he records the information, such as it is, which irenaeus has to impart about the four gospels and other works, [50:3] and what origen has to say concerning them. [50:4] interrogating extant works, we find in fact that eusebius does not neglect to quote anything useful or interesting regarding these books from early writers. dr. lightfoot says that eusebius "restricts himself to the narrowest limits which justice to his subject will allow," and he illustrates this by the case of irenaeus. he says: "though he (eusebius) gives the principal passage in this author relating to the four gospels (irenaeus, _adv. haer._ iii. 1, 1) he omits to mention others which contain interesting statements directly or indirectly affecting the question, _e.g._ that st. john wrote his gospel to counteract the errors of cerinthus and the nicolaitans (irenaeus, _adv. haer._ iii. 11, 1)." [51:1] i must explain, however, that the "interesting statement" omitted, which is not in the context of the part quoted, is not advanced as information derived from any authority, but only in the course of argument, and there is nothing to distinguish it from mere personal opinion, so that on this ground eusebius may well have passed it over. dr. lightfoot further says: "thus too when he quotes a few lines alluding to the unanimous tradition of the asiatic elders who were acquainted with st. john, [51:2] he omits the context, from which we find that this tradition had an important bearing on the authenticity of the fourth gospel, for it declared that christ's ministry extended much beyond a single year, thus confirming the obvious chronology of the fourth gospel against the apparent chronology of the synoptists." [51:3] nothing, however, could be further from the desire or intention of eusebius than to represent any discordance between the gospels, or to support the one at the expense of the others. on the contrary, he enters into an elaborate explanation in order to show that there is no discrepancy between them, affirming, and supporting his view by singular quotations, that it was evidently the intention of the three synoptists only to write the doings of the lord for one year after the imprisonment of john the baptist, and that john, having the other gospels before him, wrote an account of the period not embraced by the other evangelists. [51:4] moreover, the extraordinary assertions of irenaeus not only contradict the synoptics, but also the fourth gospel, and eusebius certainly could not have felt much inclination to quote such opinions, even although irenaeus seemed to base them upon traditions handed down by the presbyters who were acquainted with john. it being, then, admitted that eusebius not only pledges himself to record when any ancient writer has something to "tell about" the undisputed canonical books, but that, judged by the test of extant writings which we can examine, he actually does so, let us see the conclusions which we are entitled to draw in the case of the only three writers with regard to whom i have inferred anything from the "silence of eusebius." i need scarcely repeat that eusebius held hegesippus in very high estimation. he refers to him very frequently, and he clearly shows that he not only valued, but was intimately acquainted with, his writings. eusebius quotes from the work of hegesippus a very long account of the martyrdom of james; [52:1] he refers to hegesippus as his authority for the statement that simeon was a cousin ([greek: anepsios]) of jesus, cleophas his father being, according to that author, the brother of joseph; [52:2] he confirms a passage in the epistle of clement by reference to hegesippus; [52:3] he quotes from hegesippus a story regarding some members of the family of jesus, of the race of david, who were brought before domitian; [52:4] he cites his narrative of the martyrdom of simeon, together with other matters concerning the early church; [52:5] in another place he gives a laudatory account of hegesippus and his writings; [52:6] shortly after he refers to the statement of hegesippus that he was in rome until the episcopate of eleutherus, [52:7] and further speaks in praise of his work, mentions his observation on the epistle of clement, and quotes his remarks about the church in corinth, the succession of roman bishops, the general state of the church, the rise of heresies, and other matters. [52:8] i mention these numerous references to hegesippus as i have noticed them in turning over the pages of eusebius, but others may very probably have escaped me. eusebius fulfils his pledge, and states what disputed works were used by hegesippus and what he said about them, and one of these was the gospel according to the hebrews. he does not, however, record a single remark of any kind regarding our gospels, and the legitimate inference, and it is the only one i care to draw, is, that hegesippus did not say anything about them. i may simply add that, as that, as eusebius quotes the account of matthew and mark from papias, a man of whom he expresses something like contempt, and again refers to him in confirmation of the statement of the alexandrian clement regarding the composition of mark's gospel, [53:1] it would be against all reason, as well as opposed to his pledge and general practice, to suppose that eusebius would have omitted to record any information given by hegesippus, a writer with whom he was so well acquainted and of whom he speaks with so much respect. i have said that eusebius would more particularly have quoted anything with regard to the fourth gospel, and for those who care to go more closely into the point my reasons may be briefly given. no one can read eusebius attentively without noting the peculiar care with which he speaks of john and his writings, and the substantially apologetic tone which he adopts in regard to them. apart from any doubts expressed regarding the gospel itself, the controversy as to the authenticity of the apocalypse and second and third epistles called by his name, with which eusebius was so well acquainted, and the critical dilemma as to the impossibility of the same john having written both the gospel and apocalypse, regarding which he so fully quotes the argument of dionysius of alexandria, [53:2] evidently made him peculiarly interested in the subject, and his attention to the fourth gospel was certainly not diminished by his recognition of the essential difference between that work and the three synoptics. the first occasion on which he speaks of john, he records the tradition that he was banished to patmos during the persecution under domitian, and refers to the apocalypse. he quotes irenaeus in support of this tradition, and the composition of the work at the close of domitian's reign. [54:1] he goes on to speak of the persecution under domitian, and quotes hegesippus as to a command given by that emperor to slay all the posterity of david, [54:2] as also tertullian's account, [54:3] winding up his extracts from the historians of the time by the statement that, after nerva succeeded domitian, and the senate had revoked the cruel decrees of the latter, the apostle john returned from exile in patmos and, according to ecclesiastical tradition, settled at ephesus. [54:4] he states that john, the beloved disciple, apostle and evangelist, governed the churches of asia after the death of domitian and his return from patmos, and that he was still living when trajan succeeded nerva, and for the truth of this he quotes passages from irenaeus and clement of alexandria. [54:5] he then gives an account of the writings of john, and whilst asserting that the gospel must be universally acknowledged as genuine, he says that it is rightly put last in order amongst the four, of the composition of which he gives an elaborate description. it is not necessary to quote his account of the fourth gospel and of the occasion of its composition, which he states to have been john's receiving the other three gospels, and, whilst admitting their truth, perceiving that they did not contain a narrative of the earlier history of christ. for this reason, being entreated to do so, he wrote an account of the doings of jesus before the baptist was cast into prison. after some very extraordinary reasoning, eusebius says that no one who carefully considers the points he mentions can think that the gospels are at variance with each other, and he conjectures that john probably omitted the genealogies because matthew and luke had given them. [54:6] without further anticipating what i have to say when speaking of papias, it is clear, i think, that eusebius, being aware of, and interested in, the peculiar difficulties connected with the writings attributed to john, not to put a still stronger case, and quoting traditions from later and consequently less weighty authorities, would certainly have recorded with more special readiness any information on the subject given by hegesippus, whom he so frequently lays under contribution, had his writings contained any. in regard to papias the case is still clearer. we find that eusebius quotes his account of the composition of gospels by matthew and mark, [55:1] although he had already given a closely similar narrative regarding mark from clement of alexandria, and appealed to papias in confirmation of it. is it either possible or permissible to suppose that, had papias known anything of the other two gospels, he would not have enquired about them from the presbyters and recorded their information? and is it either possible or permissible to suppose that if papias had recorded any similar information regarding the composition of the third and fourth gospels, eusebius would have omitted to quote it? certainly not; and dr. lightfoot's article proves it. eusebius had not only pledged himself to give such information, and does so in every case which we can test, but he fulfil it by actually quoting what papias had to say about the gospels. even if he had been careless, his very reference to the first two gospels must have reminded him of the claims of the rest. there are, however, special reasons which render it still more certain that had papias had anything to tell about the fourth gospel,--and if there was a fourth gospel in his knowledge he must have had something, to tell about it,--eusebius would have recorded it. the first quotation he makes from papias is the passage in which the bishop of hierapolis states the interest with which he had enquired about the words of the presbyters, "what john or matthew or what any other of the disciples of the lord said, and what aristion and the presbyter john, disciples of the lord, say." [55:2] eusebius observes, and particularly points out, that the name of john is twice mentioned in the passage, the former, mentioned with peter, james, and matthew, and other apostles, evidently being, he thinks, the evangelist, and the latter being clearly distinguished by the designation of presbyter. eusebius states that this proves the truth of the assertion that there were two men of the name of john in asia, and that two tombs were still shown at ephesus bearing the name of john. eusebius then proceeds to argue that probably the second of the two johns, if not the first, was the man who saw the revelation. what an occasion for quoting any information bearing at all on the subject from papias, who had questioned those who had been acquainted with both! his attention is so pointedly turned to john at the very moment when he makes his quotations regarding matthew and mark, that i am fully warranted, both by the conclusions of dr. lightfoot and the peculiar circumstances of the case, in affirming that the silence of eusebius proves that papias said nothing about either the third or fourth gospels. i need not go on to discuss dionysius of corinth, for the same reasoning equally applies to his case. i have, therefore, only a few more words to say on the subject of eusebius. not content with what he intended to be destructive criticism, dr. lightfoot valiantly proceeds to the constructive and, "as a sober deduction from facts," makes the following statement, which he prints in italics: "_the silence of eusebius respecting early witnesses to the fourth gospel is an evidence in its favour_." [56:1] now, interpreted even by the rules laid down by dr. lightfoot himself, what does this silence really mean? it means, not that the early writers about whom he is supposed to be silent are witnesses about anything connected with the fourth gospel, but simply that if eusebius noticed and did not record the mere use of that gospel by anyone, he thereby indicates that he himself, in the fourth century, classed it amongst the undisputed books, the mere use of which he does not undertake to mention. the value of his opinion at so late a date is very small. professor lightfoot next makes a vehement attack upon me in connection with "the ignatian epistles," [57:1] which is equally abortive and limited to details. i do not intend to complain of the spirit in which the article is written, nor of its unfairness. on the whole i think that readers may safely he left to judge of the tone in which a controversy is carried on. unfortunately, however, the perpetual accusation of misstatement brought against me in this article, and based upon minute criticism into which few care to follow, is apt to leave the impression that it is well-founded, for there is the very natural feeling in most right minds that no one would recklessly scatter such insinuations. it is this which alone makes such an attack dangerous. now in a work like this, dealing with so many details, it must be obvious that it not possible altogether to escape errors. a critic or opponent is of course entitled to point these out, although, if he be high-minded or even alive to his own interests, i scarcely think that he will do so in a spirit of unfair detraction. but in doing this a writer is bound to be accurate, for if he be liberal of such accusations and it can be shown that his charges are unfounded, they recoil with double force upon himself. i propose, therefore, as it is impossible for me to reply to all such attacks, to follow professor lightfoot and dr. westcott, with some minuteness in their discussion of my treatment of the ignatian epistles, and once for all to show the grave misstatements to which they commit themselves. dr. lightfoot does not ignore the character of the discussion upon which he enters, but it will be seen that his appreciation of its difficulty by no means inspires him with charitable emotions. he says: "the ignatian question is the most perplexing which confronts the student of earlier christian history. the literature is voluminous; the considerations involved are very wide, very varied, and very intricate. a writer, therefore, may well be pardoned if he betrays a want of familiarity with this subject. but in this case the reader naturally expects that the opinions at which he has arrived will be stated with some diffidence." [58:1] my critic objects that i express my opinions with decision. i shall hereafter justify this decision, but i would here point out that the very reasons which render it difficult for dr. lightfoot to form a final and decisive judgment on the question make it easy for me. it requires but little logical perception to recognize that epistles, the authenticity of which it is so difficult to establish, cannot have much influence as testimony for the gospels. the statement just quoted, however, is made the base of the attack, and war is declared in the following terms: "the reader is naturally led to think that a writer would not use such very decided language unless he had obtained a thorough mastery of his subject; and when he finds the notes thronged with references to the most recondite sources of information, he at once credits the author with an 'exhaustive' knowledge of the literature bearing upon it. it becomes important therefore to enquire whether the writer shows that accurate acquaintance with the subject, which justifies us in attaching weight to his dicta as distinguished from his arguments." [59:1] this sentence shows the scope of the discussion. my dicta, however, play a very subordinate part throughout, and even if no weight be attached to them--and i have never desired that any should be--my argument would not be in the least degree affected. the first point attacked, like most of those subsequently assailed, is one of mere critical history. i wrote: "the strongest internal, as well as other evidence, into which space forbids our going in detail, has led (1) the majority of critics to recognize the syriac version as the most genuine form of the letters of ignatius extant, and (2) this is admitted by most of those who nevertheless deny the authenticity of any of the epistles." [59:2] upon this dr. lightfoot remarks:- "no statement could be more erroneous as a summary of the results of the ignatian controversy since the publication of the syriac epistles than this." [59:1] it will be admitted that this is pretty "decided language" for one who is preaching "diffidence." when we come to details, however, dr. lightfoot admits: "those who maintain the genuineness of the ignatian epistles in one or other of the two forms, may be said to be almost evenly divided on this question of priority." he seems to consider that he sufficiently shows this when he mentions five or six critics on either side; but even on this modified interpretation of my statement its correctness may be literally maintained. to the five names quoted as recognising the priority of the syriac epistles may be added those of milman, böhringer, de pressensé, and dr. tregelles, which immediately occur to me. but i must ask upon what ground he limits my remark to those who absolutely admit the genuineness? i certainly do not so limit it, but affirm that a majority prefer the three curetonian epistles, and that this majority is made up partly of those who, denying the authenticity of any of the letters, still consider the syriac the purest and least adulterated form of the epistles. this will be evident to anyone who reads the context. with regard to the latter (2) part of the sentence, i will at once say that "most" is a slip of the pen for "many," which i correct in this edition. [60:1] many of those who deny or do not admit the authenticity prefer the curetonian version. the tübingen school are not unanimous on the point, and there are critics who do not belong to it. bleek, for instance, who does not commit himself to belief, considers the priority of the curetonian "im höchsten grade wahrscheinlich." volkmar, lipsius, and rumpf prefer them. dr. lightfoot says: "the case of lipsius is especially instructive, as illustrating this point. having at one time maintained the priority and genuineness of the curetonian letters, he has lately, if i rightly understand him, retracted his former opinion on both questions alike." [60:2] dr. lightfoot, however, has not, rightly understood him. lipsius has only withdrawn his opinion that the syriac letters are authentic, but, whilst now asserting that in all their forms the ignatian epistles are spurious, he still maintains the priority of the curetonian version. he first announced this change of view emphatically in 1873, when he added: "an dem relativ grössern alter der syrischen textgestalt gegenüber der kürzeren griechischen halte ich übrigens nach wie vor fest." [61:1] in the very paper to which dr. lightfoot refers, lipsius also again says quite distinctly: "ich bin noch jetzt überzeugt, dass der syrer in zahlreichen fällen den relativ ursprünglichsten text bewahrt hat (vgl. meine nachweise in 'niedner's zeitschr.' s. 15ff)." [61:2] with regard to the whole of this (2) point, it must be remembered that the only matter in question is simply a shade of opinion amongst critics who deny the authenticity of the ignatian epistles in all forms. dr. lightfoot, however, goes on "to throw some light upon this point" by analysing my "general statement of the course of opinion on this subject given in an earlier passage." [61:3] the "light" which he throws seems to pass through so peculiar a medium, that i should be much rather tempted to call it darkness. i beg the reader to favour me with his attention to this matter, for here commences a serious attack upon the accuracy of my notes and statements, which is singularly full of error and misrepresentation. the general statement referred to and quoted is as follows:- "these three syriac epistles have been subjected to the severest scrutiny, and many of the ablest critics have pronounced them to be the only authentic epistles of ignatius, whilst others, who do not admit that even these are genuine letters emanating from ignatius, prefer them to the version of seven greek epistles, and consider them the most ancient form of the letters which we possess.(1) as early as the sixteenth century, however, the strongest doubts were expressed regarding the authenticity of any of the epistles ascribed to ignatius. the magdeburg centuriators first attacked them, and calvin declared (p. 260) them to be spurious,[^1] an opinion fully shared by chemnitz, dallaeus, and others; and similar doubts, more or less definite, were expressed throughout the seventeenth century,(2) and onward to comparatively recent times,(3) although the means of forming a judgment were not then so complete as now. that the epistles were interpolated there was no doubt. fuller examination and more comprehensive knowledge of the subject have confirmed earlier doubts, and a large mass of critics recognise that the authenticity of none of these epistles can be established, and that they can only be considered later and spurious compositions.(4)" [62:1] in the first note (1) on p. 259 i referred to bunsen, bleek, böhringer, cureton, ewald, lipsius, milman, ritschl, and weiss, and dr. lightfoot proceeds to analyse my statements as follows: and i at once put his explanation and my text in parallel columns, italicising parts of both to call more immediate attention to the point: the truth. | dr. lightfoot's statement. | _many of the ablest critics have | "these references, it will be pronounced them to be the only | observed, are given to illustrate authentic epistles of ignatius, | _more immediately_, though perhaps whilst others_ who do not admit | not solely, the statement that that even these are genuine letters | writers '_who do not admit that emanating from ignatius, _still | even these_ (the curetonian prefer them_ to the version of | epistles) _are genuine letters seven greek epistles, _and consider | emanating from ignatius, still them the most ancient form of the | prefer them_ to the version of letters_ which we possess. | seven greek epistles, and consider | them the most ancient form of the | letters which we possess.'" [62:2] it must be evident to anyone who reads the context [62:3] that in this sentence i am stating opinions expressed in favour of the curetonian epistles, and that the note, which is naturally put at the end of that sentence, must be intended to represent this favourable opinion, whether of those who absolutely maintain the authenticity or merely the relative priority. dr. lightfoot quietly suppresses, in his comments, the main statement of the text which the note illustrates, and then "throws light" upon the point by the following remarks:- the truth. | dr. lightfoot's statement. | _cureton, bunsen, böhringer, ewald, | "the reader, therefore, will milman, ritschl_, and _weiss_ | hardly be prepared to hear that maintain both the priority and | not one of these nine writers genuineness of the syriac epistles. | condemns the ignatian letters _bleek_ will not commit himself to a | as spurious. bleek alone leaves distinct recognition of the letters | leaves the matter in some in any form. of the vossian | uncertainty while inclining to epistles, he says: "aber auch die | bunsen's view; the other eight echtheit dieser recension ist | distinctly maintain the keineswegs sicher." he considers the | genuineness of the curetonian priority of the curetonian "in the | letters." [63:1] highest degree probable." | | _lipsius_ rejects all the epistles, | as i have already said, but | maintains the priority of the | syriac. | dr. lightfoot's statement, therefore, is a total misrepresentation of the facts, and of that mischievous kind which does most subtle injury. not one reader in twenty would take the trouble to investigate, but would receive from such positive assertions an impression that my note was totally wrong, when in fact it is literally correct. continuing his analysis, dr. lightfoot fights almost every inch of the ground in the very same style. he cannot contradict my statement that so early as the sixteenth century the strongest doubts were expressed regarding the authenticity of any of the epistles ascribed to ignatius, and that the magdeburg centuriators attacked them, and calvin declared them to be spurious, [64:1] but dr. lightfoot says: "the criticisms of calvin more especially refer to those passages which were found in the long recension alone." [64:2] of course only the long recension was at that time known. rivet replies to campianus that calvin's objections were not against ignatius but the jesuits who had corrupted him. [64:3] this is the usual retort theological, but as i have quoted the words of calvin the reader may judge for himself. dr. lightfoot then says: "the clause which follows contains a direct misstatement. chemnitz did not fully share the opinion that they were spurious; on the contrary, he quotes them several times as authoritative; but he says that they 'seem to have been altered in many places to strengthen the position of the papal power, &c.'" [64:4] pearson's statement here quoted must be received with reserve, for chemnitz rather speaks sarcastically of those who quote these epistles as evidence. in treating them as ancient documents or speaking of parts of them with respect, chemnitz does nothing more than the magdeburg centuriators, but this is a very different thing from directly ascribing them to ignatius himself. the epistles in the "long recension were before chemnitz both in the latin and greek forms. he says of them: "... multas habent non contemnendas sententias, praesertim sicut graece leguntur. admixta vero sunt et alia non pauca, quae profecto non referunt gravitatem apostolicam. adulteratas enim jam esse illas epistolas, vel inde colligitur." he then shows that quotations in ancient writers purporting to be taken from the epistles of ignatius are not found in these extant epistles at all, and says: "de epistolis igitur illis ignatii, quae nunc ejus titulo feruntur, merito dubitamus: transformatae enim videntur in multis locis, ad stabiliendum statum regni pontificii." [65:1] even when he speaks in favour of them he "damns them with faint praise." the whole of the discussion turns upon the word "fully," and is an instance of the minute criticism of my critic, who evidently is not directly acquainted with chemnitz. a shade more or less of doubt or certainty in conveying the impression received from the words of a writer is scarcely worth much indignation. dr. lightfoot makes a very detailed attack upon my next two notes, and here again i must closely follow him. my note (2) p. 260 reads as follows: "(2) by bochartus, aubertin, blondel, basnage, casaubon, cocus, humfrey, rivetus, salmasius, socinus (faustus), parker, petau, &c. &c.; cf. jacobson, 'patr. apost.' i. p. xxv; cureton, 'vindiciae ignatianae,' 1846, appendix." upon this dr. lightfoot makes the following preliminary remarks:- "but the most important point of all is the purpose for which they are quoted. 'similar doubts' could only, i think, be interpreted from the context as doubts 'regarding the authenticity of any of the epistles ascribed to ignatius.'" [65:2] as dr. lightfoot, in the first sentence just quoted, recognises what is "the most important point of all," it is a pity that, throughout the whole of the subsequent analysis of the references in question, he persistently ignores my very careful definition of "the purpose for which they are quoted." it is difficult, without entering into minute classifications, accurately to represent in a few words the opinions of a great number of writers, and briefly convey a fair idea of the course of critical judgment. desirous, therefore, of embracing a large class--for both this note and the next, with mere difference of epoch, illustrate the same statement in the text--and not to overstate the case on my own side, i used what seemed to me a very moderate phrase, decreasing the force of the opinion of those who positively rejected the epistles, and not unfairly representing the hesitation of those who did not fully accept them. i said, then, in guarded terms--and i italicise the part which dr. lightfoot chooses to suppress--that "similar _doubts, more or less definite_," were expressed by the writers referred to. dr. lightfoot admits that bochart directly condemns one epistle, and would probably have condemned the rest also; that aubertin, blondel, basnage, r. parker, and saumaise actually rejected all; and that cook pronounces them "either supposititious or shamefully corrupted." so far, therefore, there can be no dispute. i will now take the rest in succession. dr. lightfoot says that humfrey "considers that they have been interpolated and mutilated, but he believes them genuine in the main." dr. lightfoot has so completely warped the statement in the text, that he seems to demand nothing short of a total condemnation of the epistles in the note, but had i intended to say that humfrey and all of these writers definitely rejected the whole of the epistles i should not have limited myself to merely saying that they expressed "_doubts_ more or less definite," which humfrey does. dr. lightfoot says that socinus "denounces corruptions and anachronisms, but so far as i can see does not question a nucleus of genuine matter." his very denunciations, however, are certainly the expression of "doubts, more or less definite." "casaubon, far from rejecting them altogether," dr. lightfoot says, "promises to defend the antiquity of some of the epistles with new arguments." but i have never affirmed that he "rejected them altogether." casaubon died before he fulfilled the promise referred to, so that we cannot determine what arguments he might have used. i must point out, however, that the antiquity does not necessarily involve the authenticity of a document. with regard to rivet the case is different. i had overlooked the fact that in a subsequent edition of the work referred to, after receiving archbishop usher's edition on of the short recension, he had given his adhesion to "that form of the epistles." [67:1] this fact is also mentioned by pearson, and i ought to have observed it. [67:2] petau, the last of the writers referred to, says: "equidem haud abnuerim epistolas illius varie interpolatas et quibusdam additis mutatas, ac depravatas fuisse: tum aliquas esse supposititias: verum nullas omnino ab ignatio epistolas esse scriptas, id vero nimium temere affirmari sentio." he then goes on to mention the recent publication of the vossian epistles and the version of usher, and the learned jesuit father has no more decided opinion to express than: "ut haec prudens, ac justa suspicio sit, illas esse genuinas ignatii epistolas, quas antiquorum consensus illustribus testimoniis commendatas ac approbatas reliquit." [67:3] the next note (3), p. 260, was only separated from the preceding for convenience of reference, and dr. lightfoot quotes and comments upon it as follows:- "the next note (3), p. 260, is as follows:--"'[wotton, _praef. clem. r. epp._ 1718]; j. owen, _enquiry into original nature, &c., evang. church, works_, ed. russel, 1826, vol. xx. p. 147; oudin, _comm. de script. eccles._ &c. 1722, p. 88; lampe, _comm. analyt. ex evang. joan._ 1724, i. p. 184; lardner, _credibility_, &c., _works_, ii. p. 68 f.; beausobre, _hist. crit. de manichée_, &c. 1734, i. p. 378, note 3; ernesti, _n. theol. biblioth._ 1761, ii. p. 489; [mosheim, _de rebus christ._ p. 159 f.]; weismann, _introd. in memorab. eccles._ 1745, i. p. 137; heumann, _conspect. reipub. lit._ 1763, p. 492; schroeckh, _chr. kirchengesch._ 1775, ii. p. 341; griesbach, _opuscula academ._ 1824, i. p. 26; rosenmüller, _hist. interpr. libr. sacr. in eccles._ 1795, i. p. 116; semler, _paraphr. in epist ii. petri._ 1784, _praef._; kestner, _comm. de eusebii h.e. condit._ 1816, p. 63; henke, _allg. gesch. chr. kirche_, 1818, i. p. 96; neander, _k.g._ 1843, ii. p. 1140 [cf. i. p. 327, anm. 11; baumgarten-crusius, _lehrb. chr. dogmengesch._ 1832, p. 83; cf. _comp. chr. dogmengesch._ 1840, p. 79; [niedner, _gesch. chr. k._ p. 196; thiersch, _die k. im ap. zeit._ p. 322; hagenbach, _k.g._ i. p. 115 f.]; cf. _cureton, vind. ign. append._; ziegler, _versuch eine prag. gesch. d. kirchl. verfassungsformen, u.s.w._ 1798, p. 16; j.e.c. schmidt, _versuch üb. d. gedopp. recens. d. br. s. ignat._, in henke's _mag. f. rel. phil. u.s.w._ [1795; cf. _biblioth. f. krit. u.s.w., n.t._ i. p 463 ff. _urspr. kath. kirche_, ii. i. p. 1 f.]; _handbuch chr. k.g._ i. p. 200.' "the brackets are not the author's, but my own. "this is doubtless one of those exhibitions of learning which have made such a deep impression on the reviewers. certainly, as it stands, this note suggests a thorough acquaintance with all the by-paths of the ignatian literature, and seems to represent the gleanings of many years' reading. it is important to observe, however, that every one of these references, except those which i have included in brackets, is given in the appendix to cureton's 'vindiciae ignatianae,' where the passages are quoted in full. thus two-thirds of this elaborate note might have been compiled in ten minutes. our author has here and there transposed the order of the quotations, and confused it by so doing, for it is chronological in cureton. but what purpose was served by thus importing into his notes a mass of borrowed and unsorted references? and, if he thought fit to do so, why was the key-reference to cureton buried among the rest, so that it stands in immediate connection with some additional references on which it has no bearing?" [68:1] i do not see any special virtue in the amount of time which might suffice, under some circumstances, to compile a note, although it is here advanced as an important point to observe, but i call attention to the unfair spirit in which dr. lightfoot's criticisms are made. i ask every just-minded reader to consider what right any critic has to insinuate, if not directly to say, that, because some of the references in a note are also given by cureton, i simply took them from him, and thus "imported into my notes a mass of borrowed and unsorted references," and further to insinuate that i "here and there transposed the order" apparently to conceal the source? this is a kind of criticism which i very gladly relinquish entirely to my high-minded and reverend opponent. now, as full quotations are given in cureton's appendix, i should have been perfectly entitled to take references from it, had i pleased, and for the convenience of many readers i distinctly indicate cureton's work, in the note, as a source to be compared. the fact is, however, that i did not take the references from cureton, but in every case derived them from the works themselves, and if the note "seems to represent the gleanings of many years' reading," it certainly does not misrepresent the fact, for i took the trouble to make myself acquainted with the "by-paths of ignatian literature." now in analysing the references in this note it must be borne in mind that they illustrate the statement that "_doubts, more or less definite_," continued to be expressed regarding the ignatian epistles. i am much obliged to dr. lightfoot for drawing my attention to wotton. his name is the first in the note, and it unfortunately was the last in a list on another point in my note-book, immediately preceding this one, and was by mistake included in it. i also frankly give up weismann, whose doubts i find i had exaggerated, and proceed to examine dr. lightfoot's further statements. he says that thiersch uses the curetonian as genuine, and that his only doubt is whether he ought not to accept the vossian. thiersch, however, admits that he cannot quote either the seven or the three epistles as genuine. he says distinctly: "these three syriac epistles lie under the suspicion that they are not an older text, but merely an epitome of the seven, for the other notes found in the same ms. seem to be excerpts. but on the other hand, the doubts regarding the genuineness of the seven epistles, in the form in which they are known since usher's time, are not yet entirely removed. for no ms. has yet been found which contains _only_ the seven epistles attested by eusebius, a ms. such as lay before eusebius." [70:1] thiersch, therefore, does express "doubts, more or less definite." dr. lightfoot then continues: "of the rest a considerable number, as, for instance, lardner, beausobre, schroeckh, griesbach, kestner, neander, and baumgarten-crusius, _with different degrees of certainty or uncertainty_, pronounce themselves in favour of a genuine nucleus." [70:2] the words which i have italicised are a mere paraphrase of my words descriptive of the doubts entertained. i must point out that a leaning towards belief in a genuine "nucleus" on the part of some of these writers, by no means excludes the expression of "_doubts, more or less definite_," which is all i quote them for. i will take each name in order. _lardner_ says: "but whether the smaller (vossian epistles) themselves are the genuine writings of ignatius, bishop of antioch, is a question that has been much disputed, and has employed the pens of the ablest critics. and whatever positiveness some may have shown on either side, i must own i have found it a very difficult question." the opinion which he expresses finally is merely: "it appears to me _probable_, that they are _for the main part_ the genuine epistles of ignatius." _beausobre_ says: "je ne veux, ni défendre, ni combattre l'authenticité des _lettres de st. ignace_. si elles ne sont pas véritables, elles ne laissent pas d'être fort anciennes; et l'opinion, qui me paroit la plus raisonnable, est que les plus pures ont été interpolées." _schroeckh_ says that along with the favourable considerations for the shorter (vossian) epistles, "many doubts arise which make them suspicious." he proceeds to point out many grave difficulties, and anachronisms which cast doubt both on individual epistles and upon the whole, and he remarks that a very common way of evading these and other difficulties is to affirm that all the passages which cannot be reconciled with the mode of thought of ignatius are interpolations of a later time. he concludes with the pertinent observation: "however probable this is, it nevertheless remains as difficult to prove which are the interpolated passages." in fact it would be difficult to point out any writer who more thoroughly doubts, without definitely rejecting, all the epistles. _griesbach_ and _kestner_ both express "doubts more or less definite," but to make sufficient extracts to illustrate this would occupy too much space. _neander._--dr. lightfoot has been misled by the short extract from the english translation of the first edition of neander's history given by cureton in his appendix, has not attended to the brief german quotation from the second edition, and has not examined the original at all, or he would have seen that, so far from pronouncing "in favour of a genuine nucleus," neander might well have been classed by me amongst those who distinctly reject the ignatian epistles, instead of being moderately quoted amongst those who merely express doubt. neander says: "as the account of the martyrdom of ignatius is very suspicious, so also the epistles which suppose the correctness of this suspicious legend do not bear throughout the impress of a distinct individuality, and of a man of that time who is addressing his last words to the communities. a hierarchical purpose is not to be mistaken." in an earlier part of the work he still more emphatically says that, "in the so-called ignatian epistles," he recognises a decided "design" (_absichtlichkeit_), and then he continues: "as the tradition regarding the journey of ignatius to rome, there to be cast to the wild beasts, seems to me for the above-mentioned reasons very suspicious, his epistles, which presuppose the truth of this tradition, can no longer inspire me with faith in their authenticity." [72:1] he goes on to state additional grounds for disbelief. _baumgarten-crusius_ stated in one place, in regard to the seven epistles, that it is no longer possible to ascertain how much of the extant may have formed part of the original epistles, and in a note he excepts only the passages quoted by the fathers. he seems to agree with semler and others that the two recensions are probably the result of manipulations of the original, the shorter form being more in ecclesiastical, the longer in dogmatic, interest. some years later he remarked that enquiries into the epistles, although not yet concluded, had rather tended towards the earlier view that the shorter recension was more original than the long, but that even the shorter may have suffered, if not from manipulations (_ueberarbeitungen_), from interpolations. this very cautious statement, it will be observed, is wholly relative, and does not in the least modify the previous conclusion that the original material of the letters cannot be ascertained. dr. lightfoot's objections regarding these seven writers are thoroughly unfounded, and in most cases glaringly erroneous. he proceeds to the next "note (4)" with the same unhesitating vigour, and characterises it as "equally unfortunate." wherever it has been possible, dr. lightfoot has succeeded in misrepresenting the "purpose" of my notes, although he has recognised how important it is to ascertain this correctly, and in this instance he has done so again. i will put my text and his explanation, upon the basis of which he analyses the note, in juxtaposition, italicising part of my own statement which he altogether disregards:- | dr. lightfoot. | "further examination and more | "references to twenty authorities comprehensive knowledge of the | are then given, as belonging to subject have confirmed earlier | the 'large mass of critics' who doubts, and a large mass of critics | recognise that the ignatian recognise _that the authenticity of | epistles 'can only be considered none_ of these epistles _can be | later and spurious compositions.'" established_, and that they can | [73:1] only be considered later and | spurious compositions." | there are here, in order to embrace a number of references, two approximate states of opinion represented: the first, which leaves the epistles in permanent doubt, as sufficient evidence is not forthcoming to establish their authenticity; and the second, which positively pronounces them to be spurious. out of the twenty authorities referred to, dr. lightfoot objects to six as contradictory or not confirming what he states to be the purpose of the note. he seems to consider that a reservation for the possibility of a genuine substratum which cannot be defined invalidates my reference. i maintain, however, that it does not. it is quite possible to consider that the authenticity of the extant letters cannot be established without denying that there may have been some original nucleus upon which these actual documents may have been based. i will analyse the six references. _bleek._--dr. lightfoot says: "of these bleek (already cited in a previous note) expresses no definite opinion." dr. lightfoot omits to mention that i do not refer to bleek directly, but by "cf." merely request consideration of his opinions. i have already partly stated bleek's view. after pointing out some difficulties, he says generally: "it comes to this, that the origin of the ignatian epistles themselves is still very doubtful." he refuses to make use of a passage because it is only found in the long recension, and another which occurs in the shorter recension he does not consider evidence, because, first, he says, "the authenticity of this recension also is by no means certain," and, next, the cureton epistles discredit the others. "whether this recension (the curetonian) is more original than the shorter greek is certainly not altogether certain, but ... in the highest degree probable." in another place he refuses to make use of reminiscences in the "ignatian epistles," "because it is still very doubtful how the case stands as regards the authenticity and integrity of these ignatian epistles themselves, in the different recensions in which we possess them." [75:1] in fact he did not consider that their authenticity could be established. i do not, however, include him here at all. _gfrörer._--dr. lightfoot, again, omits to state that i do not cite this writer like the others, but by a "cf." merely suggest a reference to his remarks. _harless_, according to dr. lightfoot, "avows that he must 'decidedly reject with the most considerable critics of older and more recent times' the opinion maintained by certain persons that the epistles are 'altogether spurious,' and proceeds to treat a passage as genuine because it stands in the vossian letters as well as in the long recension." this is a mistake. harless quotes a passage in connection with paul's epistle to the ephesians with the distinct remark: "in this case the disadvantage of the uncertainty regarding the recensions is _in part_ removed through the circumstance that both recensions have the passage." he recognises that the completeness of the proof that ecclesiastical tradition goes back beyond the time of marcion is somewhat wanting from the uncertainty regarding the text of ignatius. he did not, in fact, venture to consider the ignatian epistles evidence even for the first half of the second century. _schliemann_, dr. lightfoot states, "says that 'the external testimonies oblige him to recognise a genuine substratum,' though he is not satisfied with either existing recension." now what schliemann says is this: "certainly neither the shorter and still less the longer recension in which we possess these epistles can lay claim to authenticity. only if we must, nevertheless, without doubt suppose a genuine substratum," &c. in a note he adds: "the external testimonies oblige me to recognise a genuine substratum--polycarp already speaks of the same in ch. xiii. of his epistle. but that in their present form they do not proceed from ignatius the contents sufficiently show." _hase_, according to dr. lightfoot, "commits himself to no opinion." if he does not deliberately and directly do so, he indicates what that opinion is with sufficient clearness. the long recension, he says, bears the marks of later manipulation, and excites suspicion of an invention in favour of episcopacy, and the shorter text is not fully attested either. the curetonian epistles with the shortest and least hierarchical text give the impression of an epitome. "but even if no authentic kernel lay at the basis of these epistles, yet they would be a significant document at latest out of the middle of the second century." these last words are a clear admission of his opinion that the authenticity cannot be established. _lechler_ candidly confesses that he commenced with a prejudice in favour of the authenticity of the epistles in the shorter recension, but on reading them through, he says that an impression unfavourable to their authenticity was produced upon him which he had not been able to shake off. he proceeds to point out their internal improbability, and other difficulties connected with the supposed journey, which make it "still more improbable that ignatius himself can really have written these epistles in this situation." lechler does not consider that the curetonian epistles strengthen the case; and although he admits that he cannot congratulate himself on the possession of "certainty and cheerfulness of conviction" of the inauthenticity of the ignatian epistles, he at least very clearly justifies the affirmation that the authenticity cannot be established. now what has been the result of this minute and prejudiced attack upon my notes? out of nearly seventy critics and writers in connection with what is admitted to be one of the most intricate questions of christian literature, it appears that--much to my regret--i have inserted one name totally by accident, overlooked that the doubts of another had been removed by the subsequent publication of the short recension and consequently erroneously classed him, and i withdraw a third whose doubts i consider that i have overrated. mistakes to this extent in dealing with such a mass of references, or a difference of a shade more or less in the representation of critical opinions, not always clearly expressed, may, i hope, be excusable, and i can truly say that i am only too glad to correct such errors. on the other hand, a critic who attacks such references, in such a tone, and with such wholesale accusations of "misstatement" and "misrepresentation," was bound to be accurate, and i have shown that dr. lightfoot is not only inaccurate in matters of fact, but unfair in his statements of my purpose. i am happy, however, to be able to make use of his own words and say: "i may perhaps have fallen into some errors of detail, though i have endeavoured to avoid them, but the main conclusions are, i believe, irrefragable." [78:1] there are further misstatements made by dr. lightfoot to which i must briefly refer before turning to other matters. he says, with unhesitating boldness: "one highly important omission is significant. there is no mention, from first to last, of the armenian version. now it happens that this version (so far as regards the documentary evidence) _has been felt to be the key to the position, and around it the battle has raged fiercely since its publication_. one who (like our author) maintains the priority of the curetonian letters, was especially bound to give it some consideration, for it furnishes the most formidable argument to his opponents. this version was given to the world by petermann in 1849, the same year in which cureton's later work, the _corpus ignatianum_, appeared, and therefore was unknown to him. its _bearing occupies a more or less prominent place in all, or nearly all, the writers who have specially discussed the ignatian question during the last quarter of a century. this is true of lipsius and weiss and hilgenfeld and uhlhorn, whom he cites, not less than of merx and denzinger and zahn, whom he neglects to cite_." [78:2] now first as regards the facts. i do not maintain the priority of the curetonian epistles in this book myself; indeed i express no personal opinion whatever regarding them which is not contained in that general declaration of belief, the decision of which excites the wrath of my diffident critic, that the epistles in no form have "any value as evidence for an earlier period than the end of the second or beginning of the third century, even if they have any value at all." i merely represent the opinion of others regarding those epistles. dr. lightfoot very greatly exaggerates the importance attached to the armenian version, and i call special attention to the passages in the above quotation which i have taken the liberty of italicising. i venture to say emphatically that, so far from being considered the "key of the position," this version has, with some exceptions, played a most subordinate and insignificant part in the controversy, and as dr. lightfoot has expressly mentioned certain writers, i will state how the case stands with regard to them. weiss, lipsius, uhlhorn, merx, and zahn certainly "more or less prominently" deal with them. denzinger, however, only refers to petermann's publication, which appeared while his own _brochure_ was passing through the press, in a short note at the end, and in again writing on the ignatian question, two years after, [79:1] he does not even allude to the armenian version. beyond the barest historical reference to petermann's work, hilgenfeld does not discuss the armenian version at all. so much for the writers actually mentioned by dr. lightfoot. as for "the writers who have specially discussed the ignatian question during the last quarter of a century:" cureton apparently did not think it worth while to add anything regarding the armenian version of petermann after its appearance; bunsen refutes petermann's arguments in a few pages of his "hippolytus;" [79:2] baur, who wrote against bunsen and the curetonian letters, and, according to dr. lightfoot's representation, should have found this "the most formidable argument" against them, does not anywhere, subsequent to their publication, even allude to the armenian epistles; ewald, in a note of a couple of lines, [79:3] refers to petermann's epistles as identical with a post-eusebian manipulated form of the epistles which he mentions in a sentence in his text; dressel devotes a few unfavourable lines to them; [80:1] hefele [80:2] supports them at somewhat greater length; but bleek, volkmar, tischendorf, böhringer, scholten, and others have not thought them worthy of special notice; at any rate none of these nor any other writers of any weight have, so far as i am aware, introduced them into the controversy at all. the argument itself did not seem to me of sufficient importance to drag into a discussion already too long and complicated, and i refer the reader to bunsen's reply to it, from which, however, i may quote the following lines: "but it appears to me scarcely serious to say: there are the seven letters in armenian, and i maintain, they prove that cureton's text is an incomplete extract, because, i think, i have found some syriac idioms in the armenian text! well, if that is not a joke, it simply proves, according to ordinary logic, that the seven letters must have once been translated into syriac. but how can it prove that the greek original of this supposed syriac version is the genuine text, and not an interpolated and partially forged one?" [80:3] dr. lightfoot blames me for omitting to mention this argument, on the ground that "a discussion which, while assuming the priority of the curetonian letters, ignores this version altogether, has omitted a vital problem of which it was bound to give an account." now all this is sheer misrepresentation. i do not assume the priority of the curetonian epistles, and i examine all the passages contained in the seven greek epistles which have any bearing upon our gospels. passing on to another point, i say: "seven epistles have been selected out of fifteen extant, all equally purporting to be by ignatius, simply because only that number were mentioned by eusebius." [81:1] another passage is also quoted by dr. lightfoot, which will be found a little further on, where it is taken for facility of reference. upon this he writes as follows:- "this attempt to confound the seven epistles mentioned by eusebius with the other confessedly spurious epistles, as if they presented themselves to us with the same credentials, ignores all the important facts bearing on the question. (1) theodoret, a century after eusebius, betrays no knowledge of any other epistles, and there is no distinct trace of the use of the confessedly spurious epistles till late in the sixth century at the earliest. (2) the confessedly spurious epistles differ widely in style from the seven epistles, and betray the same hand which interpolated the seven epistles. in other words, they clearly formed part of the long recension in the first instance. (3) they abound in anachronisms which point to an age later than eusebius, as the date of their composition." [81:2] although i do not really say in the above that no other pleas are advanced in favour of the seven epistles, i contend that, reduced to its simplest form, the argument for that special number rests mainly, if not altogether, upon their mention by eusebius. the very first reason (1) advanced by dr. lightfoot to refute me is a practical admission of the correctness of my statement, for the eight epistles are put out of court because even theodoret, a century after eusebius, does not betray any knowledge of them, but the "silence of eusebius," the earlier witness, is infinitely more important, and it merely receives some increase of significance from the silence of theodoret. suppose, however, that eusebius had referred to any of them, how changed their position would have been! the epistles referred to would have attained the exceptional distinction which his mention has conferred upon the rest.. the fact is, moreover, that, throughout the controversy, the two divisions of epistles are commonly designated the "prae-" and "post-eusebian," making him the turning-point of the controversy. indeed, further on, dr. lightfoot himself admits: "the testimony of eusebius first differentiates them." [82:1] the argument (2 and 3) that the eight rejected epistles betray anachronisms and interpolations, is no refutation of my statement, for the same accusation is brought by the majority of critics against the vossian epistles. the fourth and last argument seems more directly addressed to a second paragraph quoted by dr. lightfoot, to which i refer above, and which i have reserved till now, as it requires more detailed notice. it is this:- "it is a total mistake to suppose that the seven epistles mentioned by eusebius have been transmitted to us in any special way. these epistles are mixed up in the medicean and corresponding ancient latin mss. with the other eight epistles, universally pronounced to be spurious, without distinction of any kind, and all have equal honour." [82:2] i will at once give dr. lightfoot's comment on this, in contrast with the statement of a writer equally distinguished for learning and orthodoxy--dr. tregelles:- dr. lightfoot. | dr. tregelles. | (4) "it is not strictly true that | "it is a mistake to think of _seven_ the seven epistles are mixed up | ignatian epistles in greek having with the confessedly spurious | been _transmitted_ to us, for no epistles. in the greek and latin | such seven exist, except through mss., as also in the armenian | their having been selected by version, the spurious epistles | _editors_ from the medicean ms. come after the others; and the | which contains so much that circumstance, combined with the | is confessedly spurious;--a fact facts already mentioned, plainly | which some who imagine a shows that they were a later | diplomatic transmission of addition, borrowed from the long | _seven_ have overlooked." [83:2] recension to complete the body | of ignatian letters." [83:1] | i will further quote the words of cureton, for, as dr. lightfoot advances nothing but assertions, it is well to meet him with the testimony of others rather than the mere reiteration of my own statement. cureton says: "again, there is another circumstance which will naturally lead us to look with some suspicion upon the recension of the epistles of st. ignatius, as exhibited in the medicean ms., and in the ancient latin version corresponding with it, which is, that the epistles presumed to be the genuine production of that holy martyr are mixed up with others, which are almost universally allowed to be spurious. both in the greek and latin mss. all these are placed upon the same footing, and no distinction is drawn between them; and the only ground which has hitherto been assumed for their separation has been the specification of some of them by eusebius and his omission of any mention of the others." [83:3] "the external evidence from the testimony of manuscripts in favour of the rejected greek epistles, with the exception of that to the philippians, is certainly greater than that in favour of those which have been received. they are found in all the manuscripts, both greek and latin, in the same form; while the others exhibit two distinct and very different recensions, if we except the epistle to polycarp, in which the variations are very few. of these two recensions the shorter has been most generally received: the circumstance of its being shorter seems much to have influenced its reception; and the text of the medicean codex and of the two copies of the corresponding latin version belonging to caius college, cambridge, and corpus christi college, oxford, has been adopted ... in all these there is no distinction whatever drawn between the former and latter epistles: all are placed upon the same basis; and there is no ground whatever to conclude either that the arranger of the greek recension or the translator of the latin version esteemed one to be better or more genuine than another. nor can any prejudice result to the epistles to the tarsians, to the antiochians, and to hero, from the circumstance of their being placed after the others in the collection; for they are evidently arranged in chronological order, and rank after the rest as having been written from philippi, at which place ignatius is said to have arrived after he had despatched the previous letters. so far, therefore, as the evidence of all the existing copies, latin as well as greek, of both the recensions is to be considered, it is certainly in favour of the rejected epistles, rather than of those which have been retained." [84:1] proceeding from counter-statements to actual facts, i will very briefly show the order in which these epistles have been found in some of the principal mss. one of the earliest published was the ancient latin version of eleven epistles edited by j. faber stapulensis in 1498, which was at least quoted in the ninth century, and which in the subjoined table i shall mark a, [84:2] and which also exhibits the order of cod. vat. 859, assigned to the eleventh century. [84:3] the next (b) is a greek ms. edited by valentinus pacaeus in 1557, [84:4] and the order at the same time represents that of the cod. pal. 150. [84:5] the third (c) is the ancient latin translation, referred to above, published by archbishop usher. [84:6] the fourth (d) is the celebrated medicean ms. assigned to the eleventh century, and published by vossius in 1646. [84:7] this also represents the order of the cod. casanatensis g.v. 14. [84:8] i italicise the rejected epistles: a. | b. | c. | d. | faber stap. | val. pacaeus. | usher | vossius. | | | | | 1. trallians | _mar. cass._ | smyrn. | smyrn. | 2. magn. | trallians | polycarp | polycarp | 3. _tarsians_ | magnes. | ephes. | ephes. | 4. _philip._ | _tarsians_ | magnes. | magnes. | 5. philad. | _philip. | philad. | philad. | 6. smyrn. | philad. | trallians | trallians | 7. polycarp | smyrn. | _mar. ad. ign._ | _mar. ad. ign._ | 8. _antioch._ | polycarp | _ign. ad. mar._ | _ign. ad. mar._ | 9. _hero_ | _antioch. | _tarsians_ | _tarsians_ | 10. ephes. | _hero_ | _antioch._ | | 11. romans | ephes. | _hero_ | | 12. | romans | _mart. ign._ | | 13. | | romans | | i have given the order in mss. containing the "long recension" as well as the vossian, because, however much some may desire to exclude them, the variety of arrangement is notable, and presents features which have an undeniable bearing upon this question. taking the vossian ms., it is obvious that, without any distinction whatever between the genuine and the spurious, it contains three of the false epistles, and _does not contain the so-called genuine epistle to the romans at all_. the epistle to the romans, in fact, is, to use dr. lightfoot's own expression, "embedded in the martyrology," which is as spurious as any of the epistles. this circumstance alone would justify the assertion which dr. lightfoot contradicts. i must now, in order finally to dispose of this matter of notes, turn for a short time to consider objections raised by dr. westcott. whilst i have to thank him for greater courtesy, i regret that i must point out serious errors into which he has fallen in his statements regarding my references, which, as matters of fact, admit of practical test. before proceeding to them i may make one or two general observations. dr. westcott says:- "i may perhaps express my surprise that a writer who is quite capable of thinking for himself should have considered it worth his while to burden his pages with lists of names and writings, arranged, for the most part, alphabetically, which have in very many cases no value whatever for a scholar, while they can only oppress the general reader with a vague feeling that all 'profound' critics are on one side. the questions to be discussed must be decided by evidence and by argument and not by authority." [86:1] now the fact is that hitherto, in england, argument and evidence have almost been ignored in connection with the great question discussed in this work, and it has practically been decided by the authority of the church, rendered doubly potent by force of habit and transmitted reverence. the orthodox works usually written on the subject have, to a very great extent, suppressed the objections raised by a mass of learned and independent critics, or treated them as insignificant, and worthy of little more than a passing word of pious indignation. at the same time, therefore, that i endeavour, to the best of my ability, to decide these questions by evidence and argument, in opposition to mere ecclesiastical authority, i refer readers desirous of further pursuing the subject to works where they may find them discussed. i must be permitted to add, that i do not consider i uselessly burden my pages by references to critics who confirm the views in the text or discuss them, for it is right that earnest thinkers should be told the state of opinion, and recognise that belief is not so easy and matter-of-course a thing as they have been led to suppose, or the unanimity quite so complete as english divines have often seemed to represent it. dr. westcott, however, omits to state that i as persistently refer to writers who oppose, as to those who favour, my own conclusions. dr. westcott proceeds to make the accusation which i now desire to investigate. he says: "writers are quoted as holding on independent grounds an opinion which is involved in their characteristic assumptions. and more than this, the references are not unfrequently actually misleading. one example will show that i do not speak too strongly." [87:1] dr. westcott has scrutinised this work with great minuteness, and, as i shall presently explain, he has selected his example with evident care. the idea of illustrating the vast mass of references in these volumes by a single instance is somewhat startling but to insinuate that a supposed contradiction pointed out in one note runs through the whole work, as he does, if i rightly understand his subsequent expressions, is scarcely worthy of dr. westcott, although i am sure he does not mean to be unfair. the example selected is as follows: "'it has been demonstrated that ignatius was not sent to rome at all, but suffered martyrdom in antioch itself on the 20th december, a.d. 115,(3) when he was condemned to be cast to wild beasts in the amphitheatre, in consequence of the fanatical excitement produced by the earthquake which took place on the 13th of that month.(4)" [87:2] "'the references in support of these statements are the following:- "'(3) baur, _urspr. d. episc., tüb. zeitschr. f. theol._ 1838, h.3, p. 155, anm.; bretschneider, _probabilia_, &c. p. 185; bleek, _einl. n.t._ p. 144; guericke, _handbuch, k.g._ i. p. 148; hagenbach, _k.g._ i. p. 113 f.; davidson, _introd. n.t._ i. p. 19; mayerhoff, _einl. petr. schr._ p. 79; scholten, _die ält. zeugnisse_, pp. 40, 50 f.; volkmar, _der ursprung_, p. 52; _handbuch einl. apocr._ i. pp. 121 f., 136. "'(4) volkmar, _handbuch einl. apocr._ i. pp. 121 ff., 136 f.; _der ursprung_, p. 52 ff.; baur, _ursp. d. episc. tüb. zeitschr. f. theol._ 1838, h. 3, p. 149 f.; _gesch. chr. kirche,_ 1863, i. p. 440, amn. 1; davidson, _introd. n.t._ i, p. 19; scholten, _die ält. zeugnisse_, p. 51 f.; cf. francke, _zur gesch. trajans u.s.w._ 1840, p. 253 f.; hilgenfeld, _die ap. väter_, p, 214.'" upon this dr. westcott remarks: such an array of authorities, drawn from different schools, cannot but appear overwhelming; and the fact that about half of them are quoted twice over emphasises the implied precision of their testimony as to the two points affirmed." [88:1] dr. westcott however, has either overlooked or omitted to state the fact that, although some of the writers are quoted twice, the two notes differ in almost every particular, many of the names in note 3 being absent from note 4, other names being inserted in the latter which do not appear in the former, an alteration being in most cases made in the place referred to, and the order in which the authorities are placed being significantly varied. for instance, in note 3, the reference to volkmar is the last, but it is the first in note 4; whilst a similar transposition of order takes place in his works, and alterations are made in the pages. the references in note 3, in fact, are given for the date occurring in the course of the sentence, whilst those in note 4, placed at the end, are intended to support the whole statement which is made. i must, however, explain an omission, which is pretty obvious, but which i regret may have misled dr. westcott in regard to note 3, although it does not affect note 4. readers are probably aware that there has been, amongst other points, a difference of opinion not only as to the place, but also the date of the martyrdom of ignatius. i have in every other case carefully stated the question of date, and my omission in this instance is, i think, the only exception in the book. the fact is, that i had originally in the text the words which i now add to the note: "the martyrdom has been variously dated about a.d. 107, or 115-116. but whether assigning the event to rome or to antioch a majority of critics of all shades of opinion have adopted the later date." thinking it unnecessary, under the circumstances, to burden the text with this, i removed it with the design of putting the statement at the head of note 3, with reference to "a.d. 115" in the text, but unfortunately an interruption at the time prevented the completion of this intention, as well as the addition of some fuller references to the writers quoted, which had been omitted, and the point, to my infinite regret, was overlooked. the whole of the authorities in note 3, therefore, do not support the apparent statement of martyrdom in antioch, although they all confirm the date, for which i really referred to them. with this explanation, and marking the omitted references [89:1] by placing them within brackets, i proceed to analyse the two notes in contrast with dr. westcott's statements. note 3, for the date a.d. 115-116. dr. westcott's statements. | the truth. | | baur, _urspr. d. episc., tüb. | zeitschr._ 1838, h.3 (p. 149, | anm.) baur states as the date of | the parthian war, and of trajan's | visit to rome, "during which the | above order" (the sentence against | ignatius) is said to have been | given, a.d. 115 and not 107. | "1. baur, _urspr. d. episc., tüb. | _ibid._ p. 155, anm. zeitschr._ 1838, ii. 3. p. 155, | anm. in this note, which is too | after showing the extreme long to quote, _there is nothing_, | improbability of the circumstances so far as i see, _in any way | under which the letters to the bearing_ upon the history [90:1] | smyrnaeans and to polycarp are said except a passing supposition 'wenn | to have been written, baur points ... ignatius im j. 116 an ihn | out the additional difficulty in [polycarp] ... schrieb ...' | regard to the latter that, if | [polycarp] died in a.d. 167 in his | 86th year, and ignatius wrote to him | as already bishop of smyrna in a.d. | 116, he must have become bishop at | least in his 35th year, and | continued so for upwards of half | a century. the inference is clear | that if ignatius died so much | earlier as a.d. 107 it involves | the still greater improbability | that polycarp must have become | bishop of smyrna at latest in his | 26th year, which is scarcely to be | maintained, and the later date is | thus obviously supported. | | (ibid. _gesch. christl. kirche_, | i. p. 440, anm. 1.) | | baur supports the assertion that | ignatius suffered martyrdom in | antioch, a.d. 115. | "2. bretschneider, _probabilia_, x. | the same. p. 185. 'pergamus ad ignatium '_qui | circa annum cxvi obiisse dicitur_.' | | "3. bleek, _einl. n.t._ p. 144 | bleek, _einl. n.t._ p. 144. [p. 142 ed. 1862] '... in den | briefen des ignatius bischofes von | ignatius suffered martyrdom at rome antiochien, der unter trajan gegen | under trajan, a.d. 115. 115 _zu rom_ als märtyrer starb.' | | "4. guericke, _handb. k.g._ i. | guericke, _handbuch k.g._ i. p. 148. p. 148 [p. 177 ed. 3, 1838, the | edition which i have used]. | ignatius was sent to rome, under 'ignatius, bischoff von antiochien | trajan, a.d. 115, and was destroyed (euseb. "h.e." iii. 36), _welcher_ | by lions in the coliseum, a.d. 116. wegen seines standhaften | bekenntnisses christi _unter trajan | 115 _nach rom geführt, und hier 116 | im colosseum von löwen zerrissen | wurde_ (vgl. § 23, i.)' [where the | same statement is repeated]. | | "5. hagenbach, k.g. i. 113 f. [i | hagenbach, _k.g._ 1869, p. 113. f. have not been able to see the book | referred to, but in his lectures | "he (ignatius) may have filled his 'die christliche kirche der drei | office about 40 years when the ersten jahrhunderte," [91:1] 1853 | emperor, in the year 115 (according (pp. 122 ff.), hagenbach mentions | to others still earlier), came to the difficulty which has been felt | antioch. it was during his war as to the execution at rome, while | against the parthians." [hagenbach an execution at antioch might have | states some of the arguments for and been simpler and more impressive, | against the martyrdom in antioch, and then quotes gieseler's solution,| and the journey to rome, the former and passes on with 'wie dem such | of which he seems to consider more sei.'] | probable.] | "6. davidson, _introd. n.t._ i. | davidson, _introd. n.t._ i. p. 19. p. 19. 'all [the epistles of | ignatius] are posterior to ignatius | the same as opposite. himself, who was not thrown to the | wild beasts in the amphitheatre at | these "peremptory statements" are rome by command of trajan, but at | of course based upon what is antioch on december 20, a.d. 115. | considered satisfactory evidence, the epistles were written after | though it may not be adduced here. 150 a.d.' [for these peremptory | statements no authority whatever is | adduced]. | | "7. mayerhoff, _einl. petr. schr._ | mayerhoff, _einl. petr. schr._ p. 79. '... ignatius, _der | p. 79. spätestens 117 zu rom den | märtyrertod litt ..._' | ignatius suffered martyrdom in rome | at latest a.d. 117. | "8. scholten, _die ält. zeugnisse_, | scholten, _die ält. zeugnisse_, p. 40, mentions 115 as the year of | p. 40, states a.d. 115 as the date ignatius' death: p. 50 f. the | of ignatius' death. at p. 50 he ignatian letters are rejected | repeats this statement, and gives partly 'weil sie eine märtyrerreise | his support to the view that his des ignatius nach rom melden, deren | martyrdom took place in antioch on schon früher erkanntes | the 20th december, a.d. 115. ungeschichtliches wesen durch | volkmar's nicht ungegründete | vermuthung um so wahrscheinlicher | wird. darnach scheint nämlich | ignatius nicht zu rom auf befehl | des sanftmüthigen trajans, sondern | zu antiochia selbst, in folge eines | am dreizehnten december 115 | eingetretenen erdbebens, als opfer | eines abergläubischen volkswahns am | zwanzigsten december dieses jahres | im amphitheater den wilden thieren | zur beute überliefert worden zu | sein.' | | "9. volkmar, _der ursprung_, p. 52 | volkmar, _der ursprung_, p. 52, [p. 52 ff.] [92:1] [this book i | affirms the martyrdom at antioch, have not been able to consult, but | 20th december, 115. from secondary references i gather | that it repeats the arguments given | under the next reference.] | | "10. volkmar, haindb. _einl. apocr._| ibid. _handbuch einl. apocr._ pp. 121 f., 136. 'ein haupt der | p. 121 f., affirms the martyrdom gemeinde zu antiochia, ignatius, | at antioch, 20th december, 115. wurde, während trajan dortselbst | überwinterte, am 20. december den | thieren vorgeworfen, in folge der | durch das erdbeben vom 13. december | 115 gegen die [greek: atheoi] | erweckten volkswuth, ein opfer | zugleich der siegesfeste des | parthicus, welche die judith | erzählung (i. 16) andeutet, dio | (c. 24 f.; vgl. c. 10) voraussetzt | ...' | | "p. 136. the same statement is | ibid. p. 136. the same repeated briefly." [93:1] | statement, with fuller | chronological evidence. it will thus be seen that the whole of these authorities confirm the later date assigned to the martyrdom, and that baur, in the note in which dr. westcott finds "nothing in any way bearing upon the history except a passing supposition," really advances a weighty argument for it and against the earlier date, and as dr. westcott considers, rightly, that argument should decide everything, i am surprised that he has not perceived the propriety of my referring to arguments as well as statements of evidence. to sum up the opinions expressed, i may state that whilst all the nine writers support the later date, for which purpose they were quoted, three of them (bleek, guericke, and mayerhoff) ascribe the martyrdom to rome, one (bretschneider) mentions no place, one (hagenbach) is doubtful, but leans to antioch, and the other four declare for the martyrdom in antioch. nothing, however, could show more conclusively the purpose of note 3, which i have explained, than this very contradiction, and the fact that i claim for the general statement in the text, regarding the martyrdom in antioch itself in opposition to the legend of the journey to and death in rome, only the authorities in note 4, which i shall now proceed to analyse in contrast with dr. westcott's statements, and here i beg the favour of the reader's attention. note 4. dr. westcott's statements. | the truth. | 1. volkmar: see above. | volkmar, _handbuch einl. apocr._ | i. pp. 121 ff., 136 f. | | it will be observed on turning to | the passage "above" (10), to which | dr. westcott refers, that he quotes | a single sentence containing merely | a concise statement of facts, and | that no indication is given to the | reader that there is anything beyond | it. at p. 136 "the same statement | is repeated briefly." now either | dr. westcott, whilst bringing a most | serious charge against my work, based | upon this "one example," has actually | not taken the trouble to examine my | reference to "pp. 121 ff., 136 f.," | and p. 50 ff., to which he would | have found himself there directed, | or he has acted towards me with a | want of fairness which i venture to | say he will be the first to regret, | when he considers the facts. | | would it be divined from the words | opposite, and the sentence "above," | that volkmar enters into an elaborate | argument, extending over a dozen | closely printed pages, to prove that | ignatius was not sent to rome at all, | but suffered martyrdom in antioch | itself on the 20th december, a.d. 115, | probably as a sacrifice to the | superstitious fury of the people | against the [greek: atheoi], excited | by the earthquake which occurred on | the thirteenth of that month? i shall | not here attempt to give even an | epitome of the reasoning, as i shall | presently reproduce some of the | arguments of volkmar and others in a | more condensed and consecutive form. | | ibid. _der ursprung_, p. 52 ff. | | volkmar repeats the affirmations which | he had fully argued in the above | work and elsewhere. | 2. "baur, _ursprung d. episc., | baur, _urspr. d. episc., tüb. tüb. zeitschr._ 1838, ii. h. 3, | zeitschr._ 1838, h. 3, p. 149 f. p. 149 f. | | "in this passage baur discusses | baur enters into a long and minute generally the historical | examination of the historical character of the martyrdom, which | character of the martyrdom of he considers, as a whole, to be | ignatius, and of the ignatian 'doubtful and incredible.' to | epistles, and pronounces the whole establish this result he notices | to be fabulous, and more especially the relation of christianity to | the representation of his sentence the empire in the time of trajan, | and martyr-journey to rome. he which he regards as inconsistent | shows that, while isolated cases of with the condemnation of ignatius;| condemnation to death, under and the improbable circumstances | occurred during trajan's reign may of the journey. the personal | justify the mere tradition that he characteristics, the letters, the | suffered martyrdom, there is no history of ignatius, are, in his | instance recorded in which a opinion, all a mere creation of | christian was condemned to be sent the imagination. the utmost he | to rome to be cast to the beasts; allows is that he may have | that such a sentence is opposed to suffered martyrdom." (p. 169.) | all historical data of the reign of | trajan, and to all that is known of | his character and principles; and | that the whole of the statements | regarding the supposed journey | directly discredit the story. the | argument is much too long and | elaborate to reproduce here, but i | shall presently make use of some | parts of it. | "3. baur, _gesch. chr. kirche_, | "ibid., _gesch. chr. kirche_, 1863, 1863, i. p. 440, anm. 1. | i. p. 440, anm. 1. | "'die verurtheilung _ad bestias_ | "the reality is 'wohl nur' that in und die abführung dazu nach rom | the year 115, when trajan wintered ... mag auch unter trajan nichts | in antioch, ignatius suffered zu ungewöhnliches gewesen sein, | martyrdom in antioch itself, as a aber ... bleibt ie geschichte | sacrifice to popular fury seines märtyrerthums auch nach | consequent on the earthquake of der vertheidigung derselben von | that year. the rest was developed lipsius ... höchst | out of the reference to trajan for unwahrscheinlich. das factische | the glorification of martyrdom." ist wohl nur dass ignatius im j. | 115, als trajan in antiochien | überwinterte, in folge des | erdbebens in diesem jahr, in | antiochien selbst als ein opfer | der volkswuth zum märtyrer | wurde.' | | 4. davidson: see above. | davidson, _introd. n.t._, p. 19. | | "all (the epistles) are posterior | to ignatius himself, who was not | thrown to the wild beasts in the | amphitheatre at rome by command of | trajan, but at antioch, on december | 20th, a.d. 115." | 5. scholten: see above. | scholten, _die ält. zeugnisse_, | p. 51 f. the ignatian epistles are | declared to be spurious for various | reasons, but partly "because they | mention a martyr-journey of ignatius | to rome, the unhistorical character | of which, already earlier recognised | (see baur, _urspr. des episc._ 1838, | p. 147 ff., _die ign. briefe_, 1848; | schwegler, _nachap. zeitalt._ ii. | p. 159 ff.; hilgenfeld, _apost. | väter_, p. 210 ff.; réville, | _le lien_, 1856, nos. 18-22), is | made all the more probable by | volkmar's not groundless conjecture. | according to it ignatius is reported | to have become the prey of wild beasts | on the 20th december, 115, not in the | amphitheatre in rome by the order of | the mild trajan, but in antioch | itself, as the victim of superstitious | popular fury consequent on an | earthquake which occurred on the | 13th december of that year." | 6. "francke, _zur gesch. | "cf. francke, _zur gesch. trajan's_, trajan's_, 1840 [1837], p. 253 f. | 1840. this is a mere comparative [a discussion of the date of the | reference to establish the important beginning of trajan's parthian | point of the date of the parthian war, which he fixes in a.d. 115, | war and trajan's visit to antioch. but he decides nothing directly | dr. westcott omits the "cf." as to the time of ignatius' | martyrdom.] | | 7. "hilgenfeld, _die ap. väter_, | hilgenfeld, _die ap. väter_, p. 214 ff. p. 214 [pp. 210 ff.] hilgenfeld | hilgenfeld strongly supports baur's points out the objections to the | argument which is referred to narrative in the acts of the | above, and while declaring the martyrdom, the origin of which he | whole story of ignatius, and more refers to the period between | especially the journey to rome, eusebius and jerome: setting | incredible, he considers the mere aside this detailed narrative he | fact that ignatius suffered considers the historical character| martyrdom the only point regarding of the general statements in the | which the possibility has been made letters. the mode of punishment | out. he shows [97:1] that the by a provincial governor causes | martyrology states the 20th some difficulty: 'bedenklicher,' | december as the day of ignatius' he continues, 'ist jedenfalls der | death, and that his remains were andre punct, die versendung nach | buried at antioch, where they still rom.' why was the punishment not | were in the days of chrysostom and carried out at antioch? would it | jerome. he argues from all that is be likely that under an emperor | known of the reign and character of like trajan a prisoner like | trajan, that such a sentence from ignatius would be sent to rome to | the emperor himself is quite fight in the amphitheatre? the | unsupported and inconceivable. a circumstances of the journey as | provincial governor might have described are most improbable. | condemned him ad bestias, but in the account of the persecution | any case the transmission to rome itself is beset by difficulties. | is more doubtful. he shows, having set out these objections | however, that the whole story is he leaves the question, casting | inconsistent with historical facts, doubt (like baur) upon the whole | and the circumstances of the history, and gives no support to | journey incredible. it is the bold affirmation of a | impossible to give even a sketch of martyrdom 'at antioch on the 20th | this argument, which extends over december, a.d. 115.'" | five long pages, but although | hilgenfeld does not directly refer | to the theory of the martyrdom in | antioch itself, his reasoning | forcibly points to that conclusion, | and forms part of the converging | trains of reasoning which result in | that "demonstration" which i | assert. i will presently make use | of some of his arguments. at the close of this analysis dr. westcott sums up the result as follows: "in this case, therefore, again, volkmar alone offers any arguments in support of the statement in the text; and the final result of the references is, that the alleged 'demonstration' is, at the most, what scholten calls 'a not groundless conjecture.'" [98:1] it is scarcely possible to imagine a more complete misrepresentation of the fact than the assertion that "volkmar alone offers any arguments in support of the statement in the text," and it is incomprehensible upon any ordinary theory. my mere sketch cannot possibly convey an adequate idea of the elaborate arguments of volkmar, baur, and hilgenfeld, but i hope to state their main features, a few pages on. with regard to dr. westcott's remark on the "alleged 'demonstration,'" it must be evident that when a writer states anything to be "demonstrated" he expresses his own belief. it is impossible to secure absolute unanimity of opinion, and the only question in such a case is whether i refer to writers, in connection with the circumstances which i affirm to be demonstrated, who advance arguments and evidence bearing upon it. a critic is quite at liberty to say that the arguments are insufficient, but he is not at liberty to deny that there are any arguments at all when the elaborate reasoning of men like volkmar, baur, and hilgenfeld is referred to. therefore, when he goes on to say: "it seems quite needless to multiply comments on these results. anyone who will candidly consider this analysis will, i believe, agree with me in thinking that such a style of annotation, which runs through the whole work, is justly characterised as frivolous and misleading"--[99:1] dr. westcott must excuse my retorting that, not my annotation, but his own criticism of it, endorsed by professor lightfoot, is "frivolous and misleading," and i venture to hope that this analysis, tedious as it has been, may once for all establish the propriety and substantial accuracy of my references. as dr. westcott does not advance any further arguments of his own in regard to the ignatian controversy, i may now return to dr. lightfoot, and complete my reply to his objections; but i must do so with extreme brevity, as i have already devoted too much space to this subject, and must now come to a close. to the argument that it is impossible to suppose that soldiers such as the "ten leopards" described in the epistles would allow a prisoner, condemned to wild beasts for professing christianity, deliberately to write long epistles at every stage of his journey, promulgating the very doctrines for which he was condemned, as well as to hold the freest intercourse with deputations from the various churches, dr. lightfoot advances arguments, derived from zahn, regarding the roman procedure in cases that are said to be "known." these cases, however, are neither analogous, nor have they the force which is assumed. that christians imprisoned for their religious belief should receive their nourishment, while in prison, from friends, is anything but extraordinary, and that bribes should secure access to them in many cases, and some mitigation of suffering, is possible. the case of ignatius, however, is very different. if the meaning of [greek: oi kai euergetoumenoi cheirous ginontai] be that, although receiving bribes, the "ten leopards" only became more cruel, the very reverse of the leniency and mild treatment ascribed to the roman procedure is described by the writer himself as actually taking place, and certainly nothing approaching a parallel to the correspondence of pseudo-ignatius can be pointed out in any known instance. the case of saturus and perpetua, even if true, is no confirmation, the circumstances being very different; [100:1] but in fact there is no evidence whatever that the extant history was written by either of them, [100:2] but on the contrary, i maintain, every reason to believe that it was not. dr. lightfoot advances the instance of paul as a case in point of a christian prisoner treated with great consideration, and who "writes letters freely, receives visits from his friends, communicates with churches and individuals as he desires." [101:1] it is scarcely possible to imagine two cases more dissimilar than those of pseudo-ignatius and paul, as narrated in the "acts of the apostles," although doubtless the story of the former has been framed upon some of the lines of the latter. whilst ignatius is condemned to be cast to the wild beasts as a christian, paul is not condemned at all, but stands in the position of a roman citizen, rescued from infuriated jews (xxiii. 27), repeatedly declared by his judges to have done nothing worthy of death or of bonds (xxv. 25, xxvi. 31), and who might have been set at liberty but that he had appealed to caesar (xxv. 11 f., xxvi. 32). his position was one which secured the sympathy of the roman soldiers. ignatius "fights with beasts from syria even unto rome," and is cruelly treated by his "ten leopards," but paul is represented as receiving very different treatment. felix commands that his own people should be allowed to come and minister to him (xxiv. 23), and when the voyage is commenced it is said that julius, who had charge of paul, treated him courteously, and, gave him liberty to go to see his friends at sidon (xxvii. 3). at rome he was allowed to live by himself with a single soldier to guard him (xxviii. 16), and he continued for two years in his own hired house (xxviii. 28). these circumstances are totally different from those under which the epistles of ignatius are said to have been written. "but the most powerful testimony," dr. lightfoot goes on to say, "is derived from the representations of a heathen writer." [101:2] the case of peregrinus, to which he refers, seems to me even more unfortunate than that of paul. of peregrinus himself, historically, we really know little or nothing, for the account of lucian is scarcely received as serious by anyone. [102:1] lucian narrates that this peregrinus proteus, a cynic philosopher, having been guilty of parricide and other crimes, found it convenient to leave his own country. in the course of his travels he fell in with christians and learnt their doctrines, and, according to lucian, the christians soon were mere children in his hands, so that he became in his own person "prophet, high-priest, and ruler of a synagogue," and further "they spoke of him as a god, used him as a lawgiver, and elected him their chief man." [102:2] after a time he was put in prison for his new faith, which lucian says was a real service to him afterwards in his impostures. during the time he was in prison he is said to have received those services from christians which dr. lightfoot quotes. peregrinus was afterwards set at liberty by the governor of syria, who loved philosophy, [102:3] and travelled about, living in great comfort at the expense of the christians, until at last they quarrelled in consequence, lucian thinks, of his eating some forbidden food. finally, peregrinus ended his career by throwing himself into the flames of a funeral pile during the olympian games. an earthquake is said to have taken place at the time; a vulture flew out from the pile crying out with a human voice; and, shortly after, peregrinus rose again and appeared clothed in white raiment, unhurt by the fire. now this writing, of which i have given the barest sketch, is a direct satire upon christians, or even, as baur affirms, "a parody of the history of jesus." [102:4] there are no means of ascertaining that any of the events of the christian career of peregrinus were true, but it is obvious that lucian's policy was to exaggerate the facility of access to prisoners, as well as the assiduity and attention of the christians to peregrinus, the ease with which they were duped being the chief point of the satire. there is another circumstance which must be mentioned. lucian's account of peregrinus is claimed by supporters of the ignatian epistles as evidence for them. [103:1] "the singular correspondence in this narrative with the account of ignatius, combined with some striking coincidences of expression," they argue, show "that lucian was acquainted with the ignatian history, if not with the ignatian letters." these are the words of dr. lightfoot, although he guards himself, in referring to this argument, by the words "if it be true," and does not express his own opinion; but he goes on to say: "at all events it is conclusive for the matter in hand, as showing that christian prisoners were treated in the very way described in these epistles." [103:2] on the contrary, it is in no case conclusive of anything. if it were true that lucian employed, as the basis of his satire, the ignatian epistles and martyrology, it is clear that his narrative cannot be used as independent testimony for the truth of the statements regarding the treatment of christian prisoners. on the other hand, as this cannot be shown, his story remains a mere satire with very little historical value. apart from all this, however, the case of peregrinus, a man confined in prison for a short time, under a favourable governor, and not pursued with any severity, is no parallel to that of ignatius condemned _ad bestias_ and, according to his own express statement, cruelly treated by the "ten leopards;" and further the liberty of pseudo-ignatius must greatly have exceeded all that is said of peregrinus, if he was able to write such epistles, and hold such free intercourse as they represent. i will now, in the briefest manner possible, indicate the arguments of the writers referred to in the note [104:1] attacked by dr. westcott, in which he cannot find any relevancy, but which, in my opinion, demonstrate that ignatius was not sent to rome at all, but suffered martyrdom in antioch itself. the reader who wishes to go minutely into the matter must be good enough to consult the writers there cited, and i will only sketch the case here, without specifically indicating the source of each argument. where i add any particulars i will, when necessary, give my authorities. the ignatian epistles and martyrologies set forth that, during a general persecution of christians, in syria at least, ignatius was condemned by trajan, when he wintered in antioch during the parthian war, to be taken to rome and cast to wild beasts in the amphitheatre. instead of being sent to rome by the short sea voyage, he is represented as taken thither by the long and incomparably more difficult land route. the ten soldiers who guard him are described by himself as only rendered more cruel by the presents made to them to secure kind treatment for him, so that not in the amphitheatre only, but all the way from syria to rome, by night and day, by sea and land, he "fights with beasts." notwithstanding this severity, the martyr freely receives deputations from the various churches, who, far from being molested, are able to have constant intercourse with him, and even to accompany him on his journey. he not only converses with these freely, but he is represented as writing long epistles to the various churches, which, instead of containing the last exhortations and farewell words which might be considered natural from the expectant martyr, are filled with advanced views of church government, and the dignity of the episcopate. these circumstances, at the outset, excite grave suspicions of the truth of the documents and of the story which they set forth. when we enquire whether the alleged facts of the case are supported by historical data, the reply is emphatically adverse. all that is known of the treatment of christians during the reign of trajan, as well as of the character of the emperor, is opposed to the supposition that ignatius could have been condemned by trajan himself, or even by a provincial governor, to be taken to rome and there cast to the beasts. it is well known that under trajan there was no general persecution of christians, although there may have been instances in which prominent members of the body were either punished or fell victims to popular fury and superstition. [105:1] an instance of this kind was the martyrdom of simeon, bishop of jerusalem, reported by hegesippus. he was not condemned _ad bestias_, however, and much less deported to rome for the purpose. why should ignatius have been so exceptionally treated? in fact, even during the persecutions under marcus aurelius, although christians in syria were frequently enough cast to the beasts, there is no instance recorded in which anyone condemned to this fate was sent to rome. such a sentence is quite at variance with the clement character of trajan and his principles of government. neander, in a passage quoted by baur, says: "as he (trajan), like pliny, considered christianity mere fanaticism, he also probably thought that if severity were combined with clemency, if too much noise were not made about it, the open demonstration not left unpunished but also minds not stirred up by persecution, the fanatical enthusiasm would most easily cool down, and the matter by degrees come to an end." [106:1] this was certainly the policy which mainly characterised his reign. now not only would this severe sentence have been contrary to such principles, but the agitation excited would have been enormously increased by sending the martyr a long journey by land through asia, and allowing him to pass through some of the principal cities, hold constant intercourse with the various christian communities, and address long epistles to them. with the fervid desire for martyrdom then prevalent, such a journey would have been a triumphal progress, spreading everywhere excitement and enthusiasm. it may not be out of place, as an indication of the results of impartial examination, to point out that neander's inability to accept the ignatian epistles largely rests on his disbelief of the whole tradition of this sentence and martyr-journey. "we do not recognise the emperor trajan in this narrative" (the martyrology), he says, "therefore cannot but doubt everything which is related by this document, as well as that, during this reign, christians can have been cast to the wild beasts." [106:2] if, for a moment, we suppose that, instead of being condemned by trajan himself, ignatius received his sentence from a provincial governor, the story does not gain greater probability. it is not credible that such an official would have ventured to act so much in opposition to the spirit of the emperor's government. besides, if such a governor did pronounce so severe a sentence, why did he not execute it in antioch? why send the prisoner to rome? by doing so he made all the more conspicuous a severity which was not likely to be pleasing to the clement trajan. the cruelty which dictated a condemnation _ad bestias_ would have been more gratified by execution on the spot, and there is besides no instance known, even during the following general persecution, of christians being sent for execution in rome. the transport to rome is in no case credible, and the utmost that can be admitted is, that ignatius, like simeon of jerusalem, may have been condemned to death during this reign, more especially if the event be associated with some sudden outbreak of superstitious fury against the christians, to which the martyr may at once have fallen a victim. we are not without indications of such a cause operating in the case of ignatius. it is generally admitted that the date of trajan's visit to antioch is a.d. 115, when he wintered there during the parthian war. an earthquake occurred on the 13th december of that year, which was well calculated to excite popular superstition. it may not be out of place to quote here the account of the earthquake given by dean milman, who, although he mentions a different date, and adheres to the martyrdom in rome, still associates the condemnation of ignatius with the earthquake. he says: "nevertheless, at that time there were circumstances which account with singular likelihood for that sudden outburst of persecution in antioch ... at this very time an earthquake, more than usually terrible and destructive, shook the cities of the east. antioch suffered its most appalling ravages--antioch, crowded with the legionaries prepared for the emperor's invasion of the east, with ambassadors and tributary kings from all parts of the east. the city shook through all its streets; houses, palaces, theatres, temples fell crashing down. many were killed: the consul pedo died of his hurts. the emperor himself hardly escaped through a window, and took refuge in the circus, where he passed some days in the open air. whence this terrible blow but from the wrath of the gods, who must be appeased by unusual sacrifices? this was towards the end of january; early in february the christian bishop, ignatius, was arrested. we know how, during this century, at every period of public calamity, whatever that calamity might be, the cry of the panic-stricken heathens was, 'the christians to the lions!' it maybe that, in trajan's humanity, in order to prevent a general massacre by the infuriated populace, or to give greater solemnity to the sacrifice, the execution was ordered to take place, not in antioch, but in rome." [108:1] i contend that these reasons, on the contrary, render execution in antioch infinitely more probable. to continue, however: the earthquake occurred on the 13th, and the martyrdom of ignatius took place on the 20th december, just a week after the earthquake. his remains, as we know from chrysostom and others, were, as an actual fact, interred at antioch. the natural inference is that the martyrdom, the only part of the ignatian story which is credible, occurred not in rome but in antioch itself, in consequence of the superstitious fury against the [greek: atheoi] aroused by the earthquake. i will now go more into the details of the brief statements i have just made, and here we come for the first time to john malalas. in the first place he mentions the occurrence of the earthquake on the 13th december. i will quote dr. lightfoot's own rendering of his further important statement. he says:- "the words of john malalas are: the same king trajan was residing in the same city (antioch) when the visitation of god (_i.e._ the earthquake) occurred. and at that time the holy ignatius, the bishop of the city of antioch, was martyred (or bore testimony, [greek: emarturêse]) before him ([greek: epi autou]); for he was exasperated against him, because he reviled him.'" [109:1] dr. lightfoot endeavours in every way to discredit this statement. he argues that malalas tells foolish stories about other matters, and, therefore, is not to be believed here; but so simple a piece of information may well be correctly conveyed by a writer who elsewhere may record stupid traditions. [109:2] if the narrative of foolish stories and fabulous traditions is to exclude belief in everything else stated by those who relate them, the whole of the fathers are disposed of at one fell swoop, for they all do so. dr. lightfoot also assert that the theory of the cause of the martyrdom advanced by volkmar "receives no countenance from the story of malalas, who gives a wholly different reason--the irritating language used to the emperor." [109:3] on the other hand, it in no way contradicts it, for ignatius can only have "reviled" trajan when brought before him, and his being taken before him may well have been caused by the fury excited by the earthquake, even if the language of the bishop influenced his condemnation; the whole statement of malalas is in perfect harmony with the theory in its details, and in the main, of course, directly supports it. then dr. lightfoot actually makes use of the following extraordinary argument:- "but it may be worth while adding that the error of malalas is capable of easy explanation. he has probably misinterpreted some earlier authority, whose language lent itself to misinterpretation. the words [greek: marturein, marturia], which were afterwards used especially of martyrdom, had in the earlier ages a wider sense, including other modes of witnessing to the faith: the expression [greek: epi traianou] again is ambiguous and might denote either 'during the reign of trajan,' or 'in the presence of trajan.' a blundering writer like malalas might have stumbled over either expression." [110:1] this is a favourite device. in case his abuse of poor malalas should not sufficiently discredit him, dr. lightfoot attempts to explain away his language. it would be difficult indeed to show that the words [greek: marturein, marturia], already used in that sense in the new testament, were not, at the date at which any record of the martyrdom of ignatius which malalas could have had before him was written, employed to express martyrdom, when applied to such a case, as dr. lightfoot indeed has in the first instance rendered the phrase. even zahn, whom dr. lightfoot so implicitly follows, emphatically decides against him on both points. "the [greek: epi autou] together with [greek: tote] can only signify 'coram trajano' ('in the presence of trajan'), and [greek: emarturaese] only the execution." [110:2] let anyone simply read over dr. lightfoot's own rendering, which i have quoted above, and he will see that such quibbles are excluded, and that, on the contrary, malalas seems excellently well and directly to have interpreted his earlier authority. that the statement of malalas does not agree with the reports of the fathers is no real objection, for we have good reason to believe that none of them had information from any other source than the ignatian epistles themselves, or tradition. eusebius evidently had not. irenaeus, origen, and some later fathers tell us nothing about him. jerome and chrysostom clearly take their accounts from these sources. malalas is the first who, by his variation, proves that he had another and different authority before him, and in abandoning the martyr-journey to rome, his account has infinitely greater apparent probability. malalas lived at antioch, which adds some weight to his statement. it is objected that so also did chrysostom, and at an earlier period, and yet he repeats the roman story. this, however, is no valid argument against malalas. chrysostom was too good a churchman to doubt the story of epistles so much tending to edification, which were in wide circulation, and had been quoted by earlier fathers. it is in no way surprising that, some two centuries and a half after the martyrdom, he should quietly have accepted the representations of the epistles purporting to have been written by the martyr himself, and that their story should have shaped the prevailing tradition. the remains of ignatius, as we are informed by chrysostom and jerome, long remained interred in the cemetery of antioch, but finally--in the time of theodosius, it is said--were translated with great pomp and ceremony to a building which--such is the irony of events--had previously been a temple of fortune. the story told, of course, is that the relics of the martyr had been carefully collected in the coliseum and carried from rome to antioch. after reposing there for some centuries, the relics, which are said to have been transported from rome to antioch, were, about the seventh century, carried back from antioch to rome. [111:1] the natural and more simple conclusion is that, instead of this double translation, the bones of ignatius had always remained in antioch, where he had suffered martyrdom, and the tradition that they had been brought back from rome was merely the explanation which reconciled the fact of their actually being in antioch with the legend of the ignatian epistles. the 20th of december is the date assigned to the death of ignatius in the martyrology, [112:1] and zahn admits that this interpretation is undeniable [112:2] moreover, the anniversary of his death was celebrated on that day in the greek churches and throughout the east. in the latin church it is kept on the 1st of february. there can be little doubt that this was the day of the translation of the relics to rome, and this was evidently the view of ruinart, who, although he could not positively contradict the views of his own church, says: "ignatii festum graeci vigesima die mensis decembris celebrant, quo ipsum passum, fuisse acta testantur; latini vero die prima februarii, an ob aliquam sacrarum ejus reliquiarum translationem? plures enim fuisse constat." [112:3] zahn [112:4] states that the feast of the translation in later calendars was celebrated on the 29th january, and he points out the evident ignorance which prevailed in the west regarding ignatius. [112:5] on the one hand, therefore, all the historical data which we possess regarding the reign and character of trajan discredit the story that ignatius was sent to rome to be exposed to beasts in the coliseum; and all the positive evidence which exists, independent of the epistles themselves, tends to establish the fact that he suffered martyrdom in antioch. on the other hand, all the evidence which is offered for the statement that ignatius was sent to rome is more or less directly based upon the representations of the letters, the authenticity of which is in discussion, and it is surrounded with improbabilities of every kind. and what is the value of any evidence emanating from the ignatian epistles and martyrologies? there are three martyrologies which, as ewald says, are "the one more fabulous than the other." there are fifteen epistles all equally purporting to be by ignatius, and most of them handed down together in mss., without any distinction. three of these, in latin only, are universally rejected, as are also other five epistles, of which there are greek, latin, and other versions. of the remaining seven there are two forms, one called the long recension and another shorter, known as the vossian epistles. the former is almost unanimously rejected as shamefully interpolated and falsified; and a majority of critics assert that the text of the vossian epistles is likewise very impure. besides these there is a still shorter version of three epistles only, the curetonian, which many able critics declare to be the only genuine letters of ignatius, whilst a still greater number, both from internal and external reasons, deny the authenticity of the epistles in any form. the second and third centuries teem with pseudonymic literature, but i venture to say that pious fraud has never been more busy and conspicuous than in dealing with the martyr of antioch. the mere statement of the simple and acknowledged facts regarding the ignatian epistles is ample justification of the assertion, which so mightily offends dr. lightfoot, that "the whole of the ignatian literature is a mass of falsification and fraud." even my indignant critic himself has not ventured to use as genuine more than the three short syriac letters [114:1] out of this mass of forgery, which he rebukes me for holding so cheap. documents which lie under such grave and permanent suspicion cannot prove anything. as i have shown, however, the vossian epistles, whatever the value of their testimony, so far from supporting the claims advanced in favour of our gospels, rather discredit them. i have now minutely followed dr. lightfoot and dr. westcott in their attacks upon me in connection with eusebius and the ignatian epistles, and i trust that i have shown once for all that the charges of "misrepresentation" and "misstatement," so lightly and liberally advanced, far from being well-founded, recoil upon themselves. it is impossible in a work like this, dealing with such voluminous materials, to escape errors of detail, as both of these gentlemen bear witness, but i have at least conscientiously endeavoured to be fair, and i venture to think that few writers have ever more fully laid before readers the actual means of judging of the accuracy of every statement which has been made. iii. _polycarp of smyrna._ in my chapter on polycarp i state the various opinions expressed by critics regarding the authenticity of the epistle ascribed to him, and i more particularly point out the reasons which have led many to decide that it is either spurious or interpolated. that an epistle of polycarp did really exist at one time no one doubts, but the proof that the epistle which is now extant was the actual epistle written by polycarp is not proven. dr. lightfoot's essay of course assumes the authenticity, and seeks to establish it. a large part of it is directed to the date which must be assigned to it on that supposition, and recent researches seem to establish that the martyrdom of polycarp must be set some two years earlier than was formerly believed. the _chronicon_ of eusebius dates his death a.d. 166 or 167, and he is said to have been martyred during the proconsulship of statius quadratus. m. waddington, in examining the proconsular annals of asia minor, with the assistance of newly-discovered inscriptions, has decided that statius quadratus was proconsul in a.d. 154-155, and if polycarp was martyred during his proconsulship it would follow that his death must have taken place in one of those years. having said so much in support of the authenticity of the epistle of polycarp, and the earlier date to be assigned to it, it might have been expected that dr. lightfoot would have proceeded to show what bearing the epistle has upon the evidence for the existence of the gospels and their sufficiency as testimony for the miracles which those gospels record. he has not done so, however, for he is in such haste to find small faults with my statements, and disparage my work, that, having arrived at this point, he at once rushes off upon this side issue, and does not say one word that i can discover regarding any supposed use of gospels in the epistle. for a complete discussion of analogies which other apologists have pointed out i must refer to _supernatural religion_ itself; [116:1] but i may here state the case in the strongest form for them. it is asserted that polycarp in this epistle uses expressions which correspond more or less closely with some of those in our gospels. it is not in the least pretended that the gospels are referred to by name, or that any information is given regarding their authorship or composition. if, therefore, the use of the gospels could be established, and the absolute authenticity of the epistle, what could this do towards proving the actual performance of miracles or the reality of divine revelation? the mere existence of anonymous gospels would be indicated, and though this might be considered a good deal in the actual evidential destitution, it would leave the chief difficulty quite untouched. iv. _papias of hierapolis._ dr. lightfoot has devoted two long chapters to the evidence of papias, although with a good deal of divergence to other topics in the second. i need not follow him minutely here, for i have treated the subject fully in _supernatural religion_, [117:1] to which i beg leave to refer any reader who is interested in the discussion; and this is merely dr. lightfoot's reply. i will confine myself here to a few words on the fundamental question at issue. papias, in the absence of other testimony, is an important witness of whom theologians are naturally very tenacious, inasmuch as he is the first writer who mentions the name of anyone who was believed to have written a gospel. it is true that what he says is of very little weight, but, since no one else had said anything at all on the point, his remarks merit attention which they would not otherwise receive. eusebius states that, in his last work, [117:2] "exposition of the lord's oracles" ([greek: logiôn kuriakôn exêgêsis]), papias wrote as follows: "and the elder said this also: 'mark, having become the interpreter of peter, wrote down accurately everything that he remembered, without, however, recording in order what was either said or done by christ. for neither did he hear the lord, nor did he follow him; but afterwards, as i said, [attended] peter, who adapted his instructions to the needs [of his hearers], but had no design of giving a connected account of the lord's oracles [or discourses] ([greek: all' ouch hôsper suntaxin tôn kuriakôn poioumenos logiôn] or [greek: logôn).' so, then, mark made no mistake while he thus wrote down some things as he remembered them; for he made it his one care not to omit anything that he heard, or to set down any false statement therein." [118:1] the first question which suggests itself is: does the description here given correspond with the gospel "according to mark" which we now possess? can our second gospel be considered a work composed "without recording in order what was either said or done by christ"? a negative answer has been given by many eminent critics to these and similar enquiries, and the application of the presbyter's words to it has consequently been denied by them. it does not follow from this that there has been any refusal to accept the words of papias as referring to a work which may have been the basis of the second gospel as we have it. however, i propose to waive all this objection, for the sake of argument, on the present occasion, and to consider what might be the value of the evidence before us, if it be taken as referring to our second gospel. in the first place, the tradition distinctly states that mark, who is said to have been its author, was neither an eye-witness of the circumstances recorded, nor a hearer of the words of jesus, but that he merely recorded what he remembered of the casual teaching of peter. it is true that an assurance is added as to the general care and accuracy of mark in recording all that he heard and not making any false statement, but this does not add much value to his record. no one supposes that the writer of the second gospel deliberately invented what he has embodied in his work, and the certificate of character can be received for nothing more than a general estimate of the speaker. the testimony of the second gospel is, according to this tradition, confessedly at second hand, and consequently utterly inadequate to attest miraculous pretensions. the tradition that mark derived his information from the preaching of peter is not supported by internal evidence, and has nothing extraneous to strengthen its probability. because some person, whose very identity is far from established, says so, is not strong evidence of the fact. it was the earnest desire of the early christians to connect apostles with the authorship of the gospels, and as mark is represented as the interpreter of peter, so luke, or the third evangelist, is connected more or less closely with paul, in forgetfulness of the circumstance that we have no reason whatever for believing that paul ever saw jesus. comparison of the contents of the first three gospels, moreover, not only does not render more probable this account of the composition of the second synoptic as it lies before us, but is really opposed to it. into this i shall not here go. setting aside, therefore, all the reasons for doubting the applicability of the tradition recorded by papias regarding the gospel said to have been written by mark, i simply appeal to those who have rightly appreciated the nature of the allegations for which evidence is required as to the value of such a work, compiled by one who had neither himself seen nor heard jesus. it is quite unnecessary to proceed to the closer examination of the supposed evidence. "but concerning matthew the following statement is made [by papias]: 'so then matthew ([greek: matthaios men oun]) composed the oracles in the hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as he could.'" [119:1] dr. lightfoot points out that there is no absolute reason for supposing that this statement, like the former, was made on the authority of the presbyter, and, although i think it probable that it was, i agree with him in this. the doubt, however, is specially advanced because, the statement of papias being particularly inconvenient to apologists, dr. lightfoot is evidently anxious to invalidate it. he accepts it in so far as it seems to permit of his drawing certain inferences from it, but for the rest he proceeds to weaken the testimony. "but it does not follow that his account of the origin was correct. it may be; it may not have been. this is just what we cannot decide, because we do not know what he said." [120:1] what a pity it is that dr. lightfoot does not always exercise this rigorous logic. if he did he would infallibly agree with the conclusions of _supernatural religion_. i shall presently state what inference dr. lightfoot wishes to draw from a statement the general correctness of which he does not consider as at all certain. if this doubt exist, however, of what value can the passage from papias be as evidence? i cannot perceive that, if we do not reject it altogether on the ground of possible or probable incorrectness, there can be any reasonable doubt as to what the actual statement was. "matthew composed the oracles in the hebrew language," and not in greek, "and each one interpreted them as he could." the original work of matthew was written in hebrew: our first synoptic is a greek work: therefore it cannot possibly be the original composition of matthew, whoever matthew may have been, but at the best can only be a free translation. a free translation, i say, because it does not bear any of the traces of close translation. our synoptic, indeed, does not purport to be a translation at all, but if it be a version of the work referred to by papias, or the presbyter, a translation it must be. as it is not in its original form, however, and no one can affirm what its precise relation to the work of matthew may be, the whole value of the statement of papias is lost. the inference which dr. lightfoot considers himself entitled to draw from the testimony of papias is in most curious contrast with his severe handling of that part of the testimony which does not suit him. papias, or the presbyter, states regarding the hebrew oracles of matthew that "each one interpreted them as he could." the use of the verb "interpreted" in the past tense, instead of "interprets" in the present, he considers, clearly indicates that the time which papias contemplates is not the time when he writes his book. each one interpreted as he could when the oracles were written, but the necessity of which he speaks had passed away; and dr. lightfoot arrives at the conclusion: "in other words, it implies the existence of a recognised greek translation _when papias wrote_ ... but if a greek st. matthew existed in the time of papias we are forbidden by all considerations of historical probability to suppose that it was any other than our st. matthew." [121:1] it is very probable that, at the time when papias wrote, there may have been several translations of the "oracles" and not merely one, but from this to the assertion that the words imply a "recognised" version which was necessarily "our st. matthew" is a remarkable jump at conclusions. it is really not worth while again to discuss the point. when imagination is allowed to interpret the hidden meaning of such a statement the consequence cannot well be predicated. this hypothesis still leaves us to account for the substitution of a greek gospel for the hebrew original of matthew, and dr. lightfoot does not assist us much. he demurs to my statement that our first gospel bears all the marks of an original, and cannot have been translated from the hebrew at all: "if he had said that it is not a homogeneous greek version of a homogeneous hebrew original this would have been nearer the truth." [122:1] that hebrew original is a sad stumbling-block, and it must be got rid of at all costs. dr. lightfoot is full of resources. we have seen that he has suggested that the account of papias of the origin may not have been correct. regarding the translation or the greek gospel we do not know exactly what papias said. "he may have expressed himself in language quite consistent with the phenomena." how unlimited a field for conjecture is thus opened out. we do not know more of what papias said than eusebius has recorded, and may therefore suppose that he may have said something more, which may have been consistent with any theory we may advance. "or, on the other hand," dr. lightfoot continues, "he may, as hilgenfeld supposes, have made the mistake which some later fathers made of thinking that the gospel according to the hebrews was the original of our st. matthew." [122:2] who would think that this is the critic who vents so much righteous indignation upon me for pointing out possible or probable alternative interpretations of vague evidence extracted from the fathers? it is true that dr. lightfoot continues: "in the absence of adequate data, it is quite vain to conjecture. but meanwhile we are not warranted in drawing any conclusion unfavourable either to the accuracy of papias or to the identity of the document itself." [122:3] he thus seeks to reserve for himself any support he thinks he can derive from the tradition of papias, and set aside exactly as much as he does not like. in fact, he clearly demonstrates how exceedingly loose is all this evidence from the fathers, and with what ease one may either base magnificent conclusions upon it, or drive a coach and four through the whole mass. in admitting for a moment that papias may have mistaken the gospel of the hebrews "for the original of our st. matthew," dr. lightfoot, in his attempt to get rid of that unfortunate hebrew work of matthew, has perhaps gone further than is safe for himself. apart from the general flavour of inaccuracy which he imparts to the testimony of papias, the obvious inference is suggested that, if he made this mistake, papias is far from being a witness for the accuracy of the translation which dr. lightfoot supposes to have then been "recognised," and which he declares to have been our first gospel. it is well known at least that, although the gospel of the hebrews bore more analogy to our present gospel "according to matthew" than to any of the other three, it very distinctly differed from it. if, therefore, papias could quietly accept our greek matthew as an equivalent for the gospel of the hebrews, from which it presented considerable variation, we are entitled to reject such a translation as evidence of the contents of the original. that papias was actually acquainted with the gospel according to the hebrews may be inferred from the statement of eusebius that he relates "a story about a woman accused of many sins before the lord" (doubtless the same which is found in our copies of st. john's gospel, vii. 53-viii. 11), "which the gospel according to the hebrews contains." [123:1] if he exercised any critical power at all, he could not confound the greek matthew with it, and if he did not, what becomes of dr. lightfoot's argument? dr. lightfoot argues at considerable length against the interpretation, accepted by many eminent critics, that the work ascribed to matthew and called the "oracles" ([greek: logia]) could not be the first synoptic as we now possess it, but must have consisted mainly or entirely of discourses. the argument will be found in _supernatural religion_, [124:1] and need not here be repeated. i will confine myself to some points of dr. lightfoot's reply. he seems not to reject the suggestion with so much vigour as might have been expected. "the theory is not without its attractions," he says; "it promises a solution of some difficulties; but hitherto it has not yielded any results which would justify its acceptance." [124:2] indeed, he proceeds to say that it "is encumbered with the most serious difficulties." dr. lightfoot does not think that only [greek: logoi] ("discourses" or "sayings") could be called [greek: logia] ("oracles"), and says that usage does not warrant the restriction. [124:3] i had contended that "however much the signification (of the expression 'the oracles,' [greek: ta logia]) became afterwards extended, it was not then at all applied to doings as well as sayings," and that "there is no linguistic precedent for straining the expression, used at that period, to mean anything beyond a collection of sayings of jesus, which were oracular or divine." [124:4] to this dr. lightfoot replies that if the objection has any force it involves one or both of the two assumptions: "_first_, that books which were regarded as scripture could not at this early date be called 'oracles,' unless they were occupied entirely with divine sayings; _secondly_, that the gospel of st. matthew, in particular, could not at this time be regarded as scripture. both assumptions alike are contradicted by facts." [125:1] the second point he considers proved by the well-known passage in the epistle of barnabas. for the discussion regarding it i beg leave to refer the reader to my volumes. [125:2] i venture to say that it is impossible to prove that matthew's gospel was, at that time, considered "scripture," but, on the contrary, that there are excellent reasons for affirming that it was not. regarding the first point dr. lightfoot asserts: "the first is refuted by a large number of examples. st. paul, for instance, describes it as the special privilege of the jews that they had the keeping of 'the oracles of god' (rom. iii. 2). can we suppose that he meant anything else but the old testament scriptures by this expression? is it possible that he would exclude the books of genesis, of joshua, of samuel and kings, or only include such fragments of them as professed to give the direct sayings of god? would he, or would he not, comprise under the term the account of the creation and fall (1 cor. xi. 8 _sq._), of the wanderings in the wilderness (1 cor. x. 1 _sq._), of sarah and hagar (gal. iv. 21 _sq._)? does not the main part of his argument in the very next chapter (rom. iv.) depend more on the narrative of god's dealings than his words? again, when the author of the epistle to the hebrews refers to 'the first principles of the oracles of god' (v. 12), his meaning is explained by his practice; for he elicits the divine teaching quite as much from the history as from the direct precepts of the old testament. but if the language of the new testament writers leaves any loophole for doubt, this is not the case with their contemporary philo. in one place, he speaks of the words in deut. x. 9, 'the lord is his inheritance,' as an 'oracle' ([greek: logion]); in another he quotes as an 'oracle' ([greek: logion]) the _narrative_ in gen. iv. 15: 'the lord god set a mark upon cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him.' [125:3] from this and other passages it is clear that with philo an 'oracle' is a synonyme for a scripture. similarly clement of rome writes: 'ye know well the sacred scriptures, and have studied the oracles of god;' [125:4] and immediately he recalls to their mind the account in deut. ix. 12 _sq._, exod. xxxii. 7 _sq._, of which the point is not any divine precept or prediction, but _the example of moses_. a few years later polycarp speaks in condemnation of those who 'pervert the oracles of the lord." [126:1] he then goes on to refer to irenaeus, clement of alexandria, origen, and basil, but i need not follow him to these later writers, but confine myself to that which i have quoted. "when paul writes in the epistle to the romans iii. 2, 'they were entrusted with the oracles of god,' can he mean anything else but the old testament scriptures, including the historical books?" argues dr. lightfoot. i maintain, on the contrary, that he certainly does not refer to a collection of writings at all, but to the communications or revelations of god, and, as the context shows, probably more immediately to the messianic prophecies. the advantage of the jews, in fact, according to paul here, was that to them were first communicated the divine oracles: that they were made the medium of god's utterances to mankind. there seems almost an echo of the expression in acts vii. 38, where stephen is represented as saying to the jews of their fathers on mount sinai, "who received living oracles ([greek: logia zônta]) to give unto us." of this nature were the "oracles of god" which were entrusted to the jews. further, the phrase: "the first principles of the oracles of god" (heb. v. 12), is no application of the term to narrative, as dr. lightfoot affirms, however much the author may illustrate his own teaching by old testament history; but the writer of the epistle clearly explains his meaning in the first and second verses of his letter, when he says: "god having spoken to the fathers in time past in the prophets, at the end of these days spake unto us in his son." dr. lightfoot also urges that philo applies the term "oracle" ([greek: logion]) to the _narrative_ in gen. iv. 15, &c. the fact is, however, that philo considered almost every part of the old testament as allegorical, and held that narrative or descriptive phrases veiled divine oracles. when he applies the term "oracle" to any of these it is not to the narrative, but to the divine utterance which he believes to be mystically contained in it, and which he extracts and expounds in the usual extravagant manner of alexandrian typologists. dr. lightfoot does not refer to the expression of 1 pet. iv. 11, "let him speak as the oracles of god" ([greek: hôs logia theou]), which shows the use of the word in the new testament. he does point out the passage in the "epistle of clement of rome," than which, in my opinion, nothing could more directly tell against him. "ye know well the sacred scriptures and have studied the oracles of god." the "oracles of god" are pointedly distinguished from the sacred scriptures, of which they form a part. these oracles are contained in the "sacred scriptures," but are not synonymous with the whole of them. dr. lightfoot admits that we cannot say how much "polycarp" included in the expression: "pervert the oracles of the lord," but i maintain that it must be referred to the teaching of jesus regarding "a resurrection and a judgment," and not to historical books. in replying to dr. lightfoot's chapter on the silence of eusebius, i have said all that is necessary regarding the other gospels in connection with papias. papias is the most interesting witness we have concerning the composition of the gospels. he has not told us much, but he has told us more than any previous writer. dr. lightfoot has not scrupled to discredit his own witness, however, and he is quite right in suggesting that no great reliance can be placed upon his testimony. it comes to this: we cannot rely upon the correctness of the meagre account of the gospels supposed to have been written by mark and matthew, and we have no other upon which to fall back. regarding the other two gospels, we have no information whatever from papias, whether correct or incorrect, and altogether this father does little or nothing towards establishing the credibility of miracles and the reality of divine revelation. v. _melito of sardis--claudius apollinaris--polycrates._ throughout the whole of these essays, dr. lightfoot has shown the most complete misapprehension of the purpose for which the examination of the evidence regarding the gospels in early writings was undertaken in _supernatural religion_, and consequently he naturally misunderstands and misrepresents its argument from first to last. this becomes increasingly evident when we come to writers, whom he fancifully denominates: "the later school of st. john." he evidently considers that he is producing a very destructive effect, when he demonstrates from the writings, genuine or spurious, of such men as melito of sardis, claudius apollinaris and polycrates of ephesus, or from much more than suspected documents like the martyrdom of polycarp, that towards the last quarter of the second century they were acquainted with the doctrines of christianity and, as he infers, derived them from our four gospels. he really seems incapable of discriminating between a denial that there is clear and palpable evidence of the existence and authorship of these particular gospels, and denial that they actually existed at all. i do not suppose that there is any critic, past or present, who doubts that our four gospels had been composed and were in wide circulation during this period of the second century. it is a very different matter to examine what absolute testimony there is regarding the origin, authenticity, and trustworthiness of these documents, as records of miracles and witnesses for the reality of divine revelation. i cannot accuse myself of having misled dr. lightfoot on this point by any obscurity in the statement of my object, but, as he and other apologists have carefully ignored it, and systematically warped my argument, either by accident or design, i venture to quote a few sentences from _supernatural religion_, both to justify myself and to restore the discussion to its proper lines. in winding up the first part of the work, which was principally concerned with the antecedent credibility of miracles, i said:- "now it is apparent that the evidence for miracles requires to embrace two distinct points: the reality of the alleged facts, and the accuracy of the inference that the phenomena were produced by supernatural agency ... in order, however, to render our conclusion complete, it remains for us to see whether, as affirmed, there be any special evidence regarding the alleged facts entitling the gospel miracles to exceptional attention. if, instead of being clear, direct, the undoubted testimony of known eye-witnesses free from superstition and capable, through adequate knowledge, rightly to estimate the alleged phenomena, we find that the actual accounts have none of these qualifications, the final decision with regard to miracles and the reality of divine revelation will be easy and conclusive." [130:1] before commencing the examination of the evidence for the gospels, i was careful to state the principles upon which i considered it right to proceed. i said: "before commencing our examination of the evidence as to the date, authorship, and character of the gospels, it may be well to make a few preliminary remarks, and clearly state certain canons of criticism. we shall make no attempt to establish any theory as to the date at which any of the gospels was actually written, but simply examine all the testimony which is extant, with the view of ascertaining _what is known of these works and their authors, certainly and distinctly, as distinguished from what is merely conjectured or inferred_ ... we propose, therefore, as exhaustively as possible, to search all the writings of the early church for information regarding the gospels, and to examine even the alleged indications of their use ... it is still more important that we should constantly bear in mind that a great number of gospels existed in the early church which are no longer extant, and of most of which even the names are lost. we need not here do more than refer, in corroboration of this fact, to the preliminary statement of the author of the third gospel: 'forasmuch as many ([greek: polloi]) took in hand to set forth in order a declaration of the things which have been accomplish among us,' &c. it is, therefore, evident that before our third synoptic was written many similar works were already in circulation. looking at the close similarity of large portions of the three synoptics, it is almost certain that many of the writings here mentioned bore a close analogy to each other and to our gospels, and this is known to have been the case, for instance, amongst the various forms of the 'gospel according to the hebrews.' when, therefore, in early writings, we meet with quotations closely resembling, or, we may add, even identical, with passages which are found in our gospels, the source of which, however, is not mentioned, nor is any author's name indicated, _the similarity or even identity cannot by any means be admitted as proof that the quotation is necessarily from our gospels, and not from some other similar work now no longer extant_, and more especially not when, in the same writings, there are other quotations from sources different from our gospels.... but whilst similarity to our gospels in passages quoted by early writers from unnamed sources cannot _prove_ the use of our gospels, variation from them would suggest or prove a different origin, _and at least it is obvious that anonymous quotations which do not agree with our gospels cannot in any case necessarily indicate their existence_ ... it is unnecessary to add that, in proportion as we remove from apostolic times without positive evidence of the existence and authenticity of our gospels, so does the value of their testimony dwindle away. indeed, requiring, as we do, clear, direct and irrefragable evidence of the integrity, authenticity, and historical character of these gospels, doubt or obscurity on these points must inevitably be fatal to them as sufficient testimony--if they could, under any circumstances, be considered sufficient testimony--for miracles and a direct divine revelation like ecclesiastical christianity." [132:1] dr. lightfoot must have been aware of these statements, since he has made the paragraph on the silence of ancient writers the basis of his essay on the silence of eusebius, and has been so particular in calling attention to any alteration i have made in my text; and it might have been better if, instead of cheap sneers on every occasion in which these canons have been applied, he had once for all stated any reasons which he can bring forward against the canons themselves. the course he has adopted, i can well understand, is more convenient for him and, after all, with many it is quite as effective. it may be well that i should here again illustrate the necessity for such canons of criticism as i have indicated above, and which can be done very simply from our own gospels: "not only the language but the order of a quotation must have its due weight, and we have no right to dismember a passage and, discovering fragmentary parallels in various parts of the gospels, to assert that it is compiled from them and not derived, as it stands, from another source. as an illustration, let us for a moment suppose the 'gospel according to luke' to have been lost, like the 'gospel according to the hebrews' and so many others. in the works of one of the fathers we discover the following quotation from an unnamed evangelical work: 'and he said unto them ([greek: elegen de pros autous]): 'the harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the lord of the harvest that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. go your ways ([greek: hupagete]): behold, i send you forth as lambs ([greek: arnas]) in the midst of wolves.' following the system adopted in regard to justin and others, apologetic critics would of course maintain that this was a compilation from memory of passages quoted from our first gospel--that is to say, matt ix, 37: 'then saith he unto his disciples ([greek: tote legei tois mathêtais autou]), the harvest,' &c.; and matt. x. 16: 'behold, i ([greek: egô]) send you forth as sheep' ([greek: probata]) in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore,' &c., which, with the differences which we have indicated, agree. it would probably be in vain to argue that the quotation indicated a continuous order, and the variations combined to confirm the probability of a different source, and still more so to point out that, although parts of the quotation, separated from their context, might, to a certain extent, correspond with scattered verses in the first gospel, such a circumstance was no proof that the quotation was taken from that and from no other gospel. the passage, however, is a literal quotation from luke x. 2-3, which, as we have assumed, had been lost. "again, still supposing the third gospel no longer extant, we might find the following quotation in a work of the fathers: 'take heed to yourselves ([greek: eautois]) of the leaven of the pharisees, which is hypocrisy ([greek: hêtis estin hupocrisis]). for there is nothing covered up ([greek: sunkekalummenon]) which shall not be revealed, and hid, which shall not be known.' it would, of course, be affirmed that this was evidently a combination of two verses of our first gospel quoted almost literally, with merely a few very immaterial slips of memory in the parts we note, and the explanatory words, 'which is hypocrisy,' introduced by the father, and not a part of the quotation at all. the two verses are matt. xvi. 6, 'beware and take heed ([greek: hopate kai]) of the leaven of the pharisees and sadducees ([greek: kai saddoukaiôn]), and matt. x. 26, '... for ([greek: gar]) there is nothing covered ([greek: kekalummenon]) that shall not be revealed, and hid, that shall not be known.' the sentence would, in fact, be divided as in the case of justin, and each part would have its parallel pointed out in separate portions of the gospel. how wrong such a system is--and it is precisely that which is adopted with regard to justin--is clearly established by the fact that the quotation, instead of being such a combination, is simply taken as it stands from the 'gospel according to luke,' xii. 1-2." [133:1] "if we examine further, however, in the same way, quotations which differ merely in language, we arrive at the very same conclusion. supposing the third gospel to be lost, what would be the source assigned to the following quotation from an unnamed gospel in the work of one of the fathers? 'no servant ([greek: oudeis oiketês]) can serve two lords, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. ye cannot serve god and mammon.' of course the passage would be claimed as a quotation from memory of matt. vi. 24, with which it perfectly corresponds, with the exception of the addition of the second word, [greek: oiketês], which, it would no doubt be argued, is an evident and very natural amplification of the simple [greek: oudeis] of the first gospel. yet this passage, only differing by the single word from matthew, is a literal quotation from the gospel according to luke xvi. 13. or, to take another instance, supposing the third gospel to be lost, and the following passage quoted, from an unnamed source, by one of the fathers: 'beware ([greek: prosechete]) of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love ([greek: philountôn]) greetings in the markets, and chief seats in the synagogues, and chief places at feasts; which devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation.' this would, without hesitation, be declared a quotation from memory of mark xii. 38-40, from which it only differs in a couple of words. it is, however, a literal quotation of luke xx. 46-47, yet probably it would be in vain to submit to apologetic critics that possibly, not to say probably, the passage was not derived from mark, but from a lost gospel. to quote one more instance, let us suppose the 'gospel according to mark' no longer extant, and that in some early work there existed the following passage: 'it is easier for a camel to go through the eye ([greek: trumalias]) of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of god.' this of course would be claimed as a quotation from memory of matt. xix. 24, with which it agrees with the exception of the substitution of [greek: trupêmatos] for [greek: trumalias]. it would not the less have been an exact quotation from mark x. 25." [134:1] illustrations of this kind could be indefinitely multiplied, and to anyone who has studied the three synoptics, with their similarities and variations, and considered the probable mode of their compilation, it must be apparent that, with the knowledge that very many other gospels existed (luke i. 1), which can only very slowly have disappeared from circulation, it is impossible for anyone with a due appreciation of the laws of evidence to assert that the use of short passages similar to others in our gospels actually proves that they must have been derived from these alone, and cannot have emanated from any other source. it is not necessary to deny that they may equally have come from the gospels, but the inevitable decision of a judicial mind, seriously measuring evidence, must be that they do not absolutely prove anything. coming now more directly to the essay on "the later school of st. john," it is curious to find dr. lightfoot setting in the very foreground the account of polycarp's martyrdom, without a single word regarding the more than suspicious character of the document, except the remark in a note that "the objections which have been urged against this narrative are not serious." [135:1] they have been considered so by men like keim, schürer, lipsius, and holtzmann. the account has too much need to be propped up itself to be of much use as a prop for the gospels. dr. lightfoot points out that an "idea of literal conformity to the life and passion of christ runs through the document," [135:2] and it is chiefly on the fact that "most of the incidents have their counterparts in the circumstances of the passion, as recorded by the synoptic evangelists alone or in common with st. john," that he relies, in referring to the martyrdom. i need scarcely reply that not only, on account of the very doubtful character of the document, is it useless to us as evidence, but because it does not name a single gospel, much less add anything to our knowledge of their authorship and trustworthiness. i shall have more to say regarding dr. lightfoot in connection with this document further on. the same remark applies to melito of sardis. i have fully discussed [135:3] the evidence which he is supposed to contribute, and it is unnecessary for me to enter into it at any length here, more especially as dr. lightfoot does not advance any new argument. he has said nothing which materially alters the doubtful position of many of the fragments attributed to this father. in any case the use which dr. lightfoot chiefly makes of him as a witness is to show that melito exhibits full knowledge of the details of evangelical history as contained in the four canonical gospels. waiving all discussion of the authenticity of the fragments, and accepting, for the sake of argument, the asserted acquaintance with evangelical history which they display, i simply enquire what this proves? does anyone doubt that melito of sardis, in the last third of the second century, must have been thoroughly versed in gospel history, or deny that he might have possessed our four gospels? the only thing which is lacking is actual proof of the fact. melito does not refer to a single gospel by name. he does not add one word or one fact to our knowledge of the gospels or their composers. he does not, indeed, mention any writing of the new testament. if his words regarding the "books of the old testament" imply "a corresponding christian literature which he regarded as the books of the new testament," [136:1] which i deny, what is gained? even in that case "we cannot," as dr. lardner frankly states, "infer the names or the exact number of those books." as for adding anything to the credibility of miracles, such an idea is not even broached by dr. lightfoot, and yet if he cannot do this the only purpose for which his testimony is examined is gone. the elaborate display of vehemence in discussing the authenticity of fragments of his writings merely distracts the attention of the reader from the true issue if, when to his own satisfaction, dr. lightfoot cannot turn the evidence of melito to greater account. [136:2] nor is he much more fortunate in the case of claudius apollinaris, [137:1] whose "apology" may be dated about a.d. 177-180. in an extract preserved in the _paschal chronicle_, regarding the genuineness of which all discussion may, for the sake of argument, be waived here, the writer in connection with the paschal festival says that "they affirm that matthew represents" one thing "and, on their showing, the gospels seem to be at variance with one another." [137:2] if, therefore, the passage be genuine, the writer seems to refer to the first synoptic, and by inference to the fourth gospel. he says nothing of the composition of these works, and he does nothing more than merely show that they were accepted in his time. this may seem a good deal when we consider how very few of his contemporaries do as much, but it really contributes nothing to our knowledge of the authors, and does not add a jot to their credibility as witnesses for miracles and the reality of divine revelation. with regard to polycrates of ephesus i need say very little. eusebius preserves a passage from a letter which he wrote "in the closing years of the second century," [137:3] when victor of rome attempted to force the western usage with respect to easter on the asiatic christians. in this he uses the expression "he that leaned on the bosom of the lord," which occurs in the fourth gospel. nothing could more forcibly show the meagreness of our information regarding the gospels than that such a phrase is considered of value as evidence for one of them. in fact the slightness of our knowledge of these works is perfectly astounding when the importance which is attached to them is taken into account. vi. _the churches of gaul._ a severe persecution broke out in the year a.d. 177, under marcus aurelius, in the cities of vienne and lyons, on the rhone, and an account of the martyrdoms which then took place was given in a letter from the persecuted communities, addressed "to the brethren that are in asia and phrygia." this epistle is in great part preserved to us by eusebius (_h.e._ v. 1), and it is to a consideration of its contents that dr. lightfoot devotes his essay on the churches of gaul. but for the sake of ascertaining clearly what evidence actually exists of the gospels, it would have been of little utility to extend the enquiry in _supernatural religion_ to this document, written nearly a century and a half after the death of jesus, but it is instructive to show how exceedingly slight is the information we possess regarding those documents. i may at once say that no writing of the new testament is directly referred to by name in this epistle, and consequently any supposed quotations are merely inferred to be such by their similarity to passages found in these writings. with the complete unconsciousness which i have pointed out that dr. lightfoot affects regarding the object and requirements of my argument, dr. lightfoot is, of course, indignant that i will not accept as conclusive evidence the imperfect coincidences which alone he is able to bring forward. i have elsewhere fully discussed these, [140:1] and i need only refer to some portions of his essay here. "of vettius epagathus, one of the sufferers, we are told that, though young; he 'rivalled the testimony borne to the elder zacharias ([greek: sunexisousthai tê tou presbuterou zacharious marturia]), for verily ([greek: goun]) he had _walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the lord blameless_.' here we have the same words, and in the same order, which are used of zacharias and elizabeth in st. luke (i. 6): 'and zacharias, his father, was filled with the holy ghost.'" [140:2] dr. lightfoot very properly dwells on the meaning of the expression "the testimony of zacharias" ([greek: tê zachariou marturia]), which he points out "might signify either 'the testimony borne to zacharias,' _i.e._ his recorded character, or 'the testimony borne by zacharias,' _i.e._ his martyrdom." by a vexatious mistake in reprinting, "to" was accidentally substituted for "by" in my translation of this passage in a very few of the earlier copies of my sixth edition, but the error was almost immediately observed and corrected in the rest of the edition. dr. lightfoot seizes upon the "to" in the early copy which i had sent to him, and argues upon it as a deliberate adoption of the interpretation, whilst he takes me to task for actually arguing upon the rendering "by" in my text. very naturally a printer's error could not extend to my argument. the following is what i say regarding the passage in my complete edition: "the epistle is an account of the persecution of the christian community of vienne and lyons, and vettius epagathus is the first of the martyrs who is named in it: [greek: marturia] was at that time the term used to express the supreme testimony of christians- martyrdom--and the epistle seems here simply to refer to the martyrdom, the honour of which he shared with zacharias. it is, we think, highly improbable that, under such circumstances, the word [greek: marturia] would have been used to express a mere description of the character of zacharias given by some other writer." this is the interpretation which is adopted by tischendorf, hilgenfeld, and many eminent critics. it will be observed that the saying that he had "walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the lord blameless," which is supposed to be taken from luke i. 6, is there applied to zacharias and elizabeth, the father and mother of john the baptist, but the gospel does not say anything of this zacharias having suffered martyrdom. the allusion in luke xi. 51 (matt. xxiii. 35) is almost universally admitted to be to another zacharias, whose martyrdom is related in 2 chron. xxiv. 21. "since the epistle, therefore, refers to the martyrdom of zacharias, the father of john the baptist, when using the expressions which are supposed to be taken from our third synoptic, is it not reasonable to suppose that those expressions were derived from some work which likewise contained an account of his death, which is not found in the synoptic? when we examine the matter more closely we find that, although none of the canonical gospels except the third gives any narrative of the birth of john the baptist, that portion of the gospel in which are the words we are discussing cannot be considered an original production by the third synoptist, but, like the rest of his work, is merely a composition based upon earlier written narratives. ewald, for instance, assigns the whole of the first chapters of luke (i. 5-ii. 40) to what he terms 'the eighth recognisable book.'" [141:1] no apologetic critic pretends that the author of the third gospel can have written this account from his own knowledge or observation. where, then, did he get his information? surely not from oral tradition limited to himself. the whole character of the narrative, even apart from the prologue to the gospel, and the composition of the rest of the work, would lead us to infer a written source. "the fact that other works existed at an earlier period in which the history of zacharias, the father of the baptist, was given, and in which not only the words used in the epistle were found, but also the martyrdom, is in the highest degree probable, and, so far as the history is concerned, this is placed almost beyond doubt by the 'protevangelium jacobi,' which contains it. tischendorf, who does not make use of this epistle at all as evidence for the scriptures of the new testament, does refer to it, and to this very allusion in it to the martyrdom of zacharias, as testimony to the existence and use of the 'protevangelium jacobi,' a work whose origin he dates so far back as the first three decades of the second century, and which he considers was also used by justin, as hilgenfeld had already observed. tischendorf and hilgenfeld, therefore, agree in affirming that the reference to zacharias which we have quoted indicates acquaintance with a gospel different from our third synoptic." [142:1] such being the state of the case, i would ask any impartial reader whether there is any evidence here that these few words, introduced without the slightest indication of the source from which they were derived, must have been quoted from our third gospel, and cannot have been taken from some one of the numerous evangelical works in circulation before that gospel was written. the reply of everyone accustomed to weigh evidence must be that the words cannot even prove the existence of our synoptic at the time the letter was written. "but, if our author disposes of the coincidences with the third gospel in this way" (proceeds dr. lightfoot), "what will he say to those with the acts? in this same letter of the gallican churches we are told that the sufferers prayed for their persecutors 'like stephen, the perfect martyr, "lord, lay not this sin to their charge.'" will he boldly maintain that the writers had before them another acts, containing words identical with our acts, just as he supposes them to have had another gospel, containing words identical with our third gospel? or, will he allow this account to have been taken from acts vii. 60, with which it coincides? but in this latter case, if they had the second treatise, which bears the name of st. luke, in their hands, why should they not have had the first also?" [143:1] my reply to this is: "there is no mention of the acts of the apostles in the epistle, and the source from which the writers obtained their information about stephen, is, of course, not stated. if there really was a martyr of the name of stephen, and if these words were actually spoken by him, the tradition of the fact, and the memory of his noble saying, may well have remained in the church, or have been recorded in writings then current, from one of which, indeed, eminent critics (as bleek, ewald, meyer, neander, de wette) conjecture that the author of acts derived his materials, and in this case the passage obviously does not prove the use of the acts. if, on the other hand, there never was such a martyr by whom the words were spoken, and the whole story must be considered an original invention by the author of acts, then, in that case, and in that case only, the passage does show the use of the acts. supposing that the use of acts be held to be thus indicated, what does this prove? merely that the 'acts of the apostles' were in existence in the year 177-178, when the epistle of vienne and lyons was written. no light whatever would thus be thrown upon the question of its authorship; and neither its credibility nor its sufficiency to prove the reality of a cycle of miracles would be in the slightest degree established." [143:2] apart from the question of the sufficiency of evidence actually under examination, however, i have never suggested, much less asserted, that the "acts of the apostles" was not in existence at this date. the only interest attachable to the question is, as i have before said, the paucity of the testimony regarding the book, to demonstrate which it has been necessary to discuss all such supposed allusions. but the apologetic argument characteristically ignores the fact that "many took in hand" at an early date to set forth the christian story, and that the books of our new testament did not constitute the whole of christian literature in circulation in the early days of the church. i need not go with any minuteness into the alleged quotation from the fourth gospel. "there shall come a time in which whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth god service." the gospel has: "there cometh an hour when," &c., and, as no source is named, it is useless to maintain that the use of this gospel, and the impossibility of the use of any other, is proved. if even this were conceded, the passage does not add one iota to our knowledge of the authorship and credibility of the gospel. dr. lightfoot says "the author of _supernatural religion_ maintains, on the other hand, that only twelve years before, at the outside, the very church to which irenaeus belonged, in a public document with which he was acquainted, betrays no knowledge of our canonical gospels, but quotes from one or more apocryphal gospels instead. he maintains this though the quotations in question are actually found in our canonical gospels." [144:1] really, dr. lightfoot betrays that he has not understood the argument, which merely turns upon the insufficiency of the evidence to prove the use of particular documents, whilst others existed which possibly, or probably, did contain similar passages to those in debate. vii. _tatian's 'diatessaron.'_ i need not reply at any length to dr. lightfoot's essay on the _diatessaron_ of tatian, and i must refer those who wish to see what i had to say on the subject to _supernatural religion_. [145:1] i may here confine myself to remarks connected with fresh matter which has appeared since the publication of my work. an armenian translation of what is alleged to be the commentary of ephraem syrus on tatian's _diatessaron_ was published as long ago as 1836, but failed to attract critical attention. in 1876, however, a latin translation of this work by aucher and moesinger was issued, and this has now, naturally introduced new elements into the argument regarding tatian's use of gospels. only last year, a still more important addition to critical materials was made by the publication in rome of an alleged arabic version of tatian's _diatessaron_ itself, with a latin translation by ciasca. these works were not before dr. lightfoot when he wrote his essay on tatian in 1877, and he only refers to them in a note in his present volume. he entertains no doubt as to the genuineness of these works, and he triumphantly claims that they establish the truth of the "ecclesiastical theory" regarding the _diatessaron_ of tatian. in order to understand the exact position of the case, however, it will be well to state again what is known regarding tatian's work. eusebius is the first writer who mentions it. he says--and to avoid all dispute i give dr. lightfoot's rendering:- "tatian composed a sort of connection and compilation, i know not how ([greek: ouk oid' hopôs]), of the gospels, and called it _diatessaron_. this work is current in some quarters (with some persons) even to the present day." [146:1] i argued that this statement indicates that eusebius was not personally acquainted with the work in question, but speaks of it from mere hearsay. dr. lightfoot replies- "his inference, however, from the expression 'i know not how' is altogether unwarranted. so far from implying that eusebius had no personal knowledge of the work, it is constantly used by writers in speaking of books where they are perfectly acquainted with the contents, but do not understand the principles, or do not approve the method. in idiomatic english it signifies 'i cannot think what he was about,' and is equivalent to 'unaccountably,' 'absurdly,' so that, if anything, it implies knowledge rather than ignorance of the contents. i have noticed at least twenty-six examples of its use in the treatise of origen against celsus alone, [146:2] where it commonly refers to celsus' work which he had before him, and very often to passages which he himself quotes in the context." [146:3] if this signification be also attached to the expression, it is equally certain that [greek: ouk oid' hopôs] is used to express ignorance, although dr. lightfoot chooses, for the sake of his argument, to forget the fact. in any case some of the best critics draw the same inference from the phrase here that i do, more especially as eusebius does not speak further or more definitely of the _diatessaron_, amongst whom i may name credner, hilgenfeld, holtzmann, reuss and scholten; and should these not have weight with him i may refer dr. lightfoot to zahn, [147:1] and even to dr. westcott [147:2] and professor hemphill. [147:3] eusebius says nothing more of the _diatessaron_ of tatian and gives us no further help towards a recognition of the work. dr. lightfoot supposes that i had overlooked the testimony of the _doctrine of addai_, an apocryphal syriac work, published in 1876 by dr. phillips after _supernatural religion_ was written. i did not overlook it, but i considered it of too little critical value to require much notice in later editions of the work. the _doctrine of addai_ is conjecturally dated by dr. lightfoot about the middle of the third century, [147:4] and it might with greater certainty be placed much later. the passage to which he points is one in which it is said that the new converts meet together to hear, along with the old testament, "the new of the _diatessaron_." this is assumed to be tatian's "harmony of the gospels," and i shall not further argue the point; but does it bring us any nearer to a certain understanding of its character and contents? the next witness, taking them in the order in which dr. lightfoot cites them, is dionysius bar-salibi, who flourished in the last years of the twelfth century. in his commentary on the gospels he writes:- "tatian, the disciple of justin, the philosopher and martyr, selected and patched together from the four gospels and constructed a gospel, which he called _diatessaron_--that is, _miscellanies_. on this work mar ephraem wrote an exposition; and its commencement was--_in the beginning was the word_. elias of salamia, who is also called aphthonius, constructed a gospel after the likeness of the _diatessaron_ of ammonius, mentioned by eusebius in his prologue to the canons which he made for the gospel. elias sought for that _diatessaron_ and could not find it, and in consequence constructed this after its likeness. and the said elias finds fault with several things in the canons of eusebius, and points out errors in them, and rightly. but this copy (work) which elias composed is not often met with." [148:1] this information regarding ephraem--who died about a.d. 373--be it remembered, is given by a writer of the twelfth century, and but for this we should not have known from any ancient independent source that ephraem had composed a commentary at all, supposing that he did so. it is important to note, however, that a second _diatessaron_, prepared by ammonius, is here mentioned, and that it was also described by eusebius in his epistle to carpianus, and further that bar-salibi speaks of a third, composed on the same lines by elias. dr. lightfoot disposes of the _diatessaron_ of ammonius in a very decided way. he says: "it was quite different in its character from the _diatessaron_ of tatian. the _diatessaron_ of tatian was a patchwork of the four gospels, commencing with the preface of st. john. the work of ammonius took the gospel of st. matthew as its standard, preserving its continuity, and placed side by side with it parallel passages from the other gospels. the principle of the one was _amalgamation_; of the other, _comparison_. no one who had seen the two works could confuse them, though they bore the same name, _diatessaron_. eusebius keeps them quite distinct. so does bar-salibi. later on in his commentary, we are told, he quotes both works in the same place." [148:2] doubtless, no one comparing the two works here described could confuse them, but it is far from being so clear that anyone who had not seen more than one of these works could with equal certainty distinguish it. the statement of dr. lightfoot quoted above, that the _diatessaron_ of ammonius "took the gospel of st. matthew as its standard, preserving its continuity," certainly does not tend to show that it was "quite different in its character from the _diatessaron_ of tatian," on the supposition that the arabic translation lately published represents the work of tatian. i will quote what professor hemphill says regarding it, in preference to making any statement of my own:- "on examining the _diatessaron_ as translated into latin from this arabic, we find in by far the greater portion of it, from the sermon on the mount to the last supper (§§ 30-134) that tatian, like his brother harmonist ammonius, took st. matthew as the basis of his work ... st. mark, as might be expected, runs parallel with st. matthew in the _diatessaron_, and is in a few cases the source out of which incidents have been incorporated. st. luke, on the other hand, is employed by tatian, as also in a lesser degree is st. john, in complete defiance of chronological order." [149:1] this is not quite so different from the description of the _diatessaron_ of ammonius, which dr. lightfoot quotes:- "he placed side by side with the gospel according to matthew the corresponding passages of the other evangelists, so that as a necessary result the connection of sequence in the three was destroyed so far as regards the order (texture) of reading." [149:2] the next witness cited is theodoret, bishop of cyrus, writing about a.d. 453, and i need not quote the well-known passage in which he describes the suppression of some 200 copies of tatian's work in his diocese, which were in use "not only among persons belonging to his sect, but also among those who follow the apostolic doctrine," who did not perceive the heretical purpose of a book in which the genealogies and other passages showing the lord to have been born of the seed of david after the flesh were suppressed. it is a fact, however, which even zahn points out, that, in the alleged _diatessaron_ of ephraem, these passages are not all excised, but still remain part of the text, [150:1] as they also do in the arabic translation. this is the only definite information which we possess of the contents of the _diatessaron_ beyond the opening words, and it does not tally with the recently discovered works. i need not further discuss here the statement of epiphanius that some called tatian's _diatessaron_ the gospel according to the hebrews. epiphanius had not seen the work himself, and he leaves us in the same ignorance as to its character. it is clear from all this that we have no detailed information regarding the _diatessaron_ of tatian. as dr. donaldson said long ago: "we should not be able to identify it, even if it did come down to us, unless it told us something reliable about itself." [150:2] we may now come to the documents recently published. the ms. of the armenian version of the commentary ascribed to ephraem is dated a.d. 1195, and moesinger declares that it is translated from the syriac, of which it is said to retain many traces. [150:3] he states that in the judgment of the mechitarist fathers the translation dates from about the fifth century, [150:4] but an opinion on such a point can only be received with great caution. the name of tatian is not mentioned as the author of the "harmony," and the question is open as to whether the authorship of the commentary is rightly ascribed to ephraem syrus. in any case there can be no doubt that the armenian work is a translation. the arabic work published by ciasca, and supposed to be a version of tatian's _diatessaron_ itself, is derived from two manuscripts, one belonging to the vatican library and the other forwarded to rome from egypt by the vicar apostolic of the catholic copts. the latter ms. states, in notes at the beginning and end, that it is an arabic translation of the _diatessaron_ of tatian, made from the syriac by the presbyter abû-l-pharag abdullah ben-at-tib, who is believed to have flourished in the first half of the eleventh century, and in one of these notes the name of the scribe who wrote the syriac copy is given, which leads to the conjecture that it may have been dated about the end of the ninth century. a note in the vatican ms. also ascribes the original work to tatian. these notes constitute the principal or only ground for connecting tatian's name with the "harmony." so little is known regarding the _diatessaron_ of tatian that even the language in which it was written is matter of vehement debate. the name would, of course, lead to the conclusion that it was a greek composition, and many other circumstances support this, but the mere fact that it does not seem to have been known to greek fathers, and that it is very doubtful whether any of them, with the exception of theodoret, had ever seen it, has led many critics to maintain that it was written in syriac. nothing but circumstantial evidence of this can be produced. this alone shows how little we really know of the original. the recently discovered works, being in arabic and armenian, even supposing them to be translations from the syriac and that the _diatessaron_ was composed in syriac, can only indirectly represent the original, and they obviously labour under fatal disability in regard to a restoration of the text of the documents at the basis of the work. between doubtful accuracy of rendering and evident work of revision, the original matter cannot but be seriously disfigured. it is certain that the name of tatian did not appear as the author of the _diatessaron_. [152:1] this is obvious from the very nature of the composition and its object. we have met with three works of this description and it is impossible to say how many more may not have existed. as the most celebrated, by name at least, it is almost certain that, as time went on and the identity of such works was lost, the first idea of anyone meeting with such a harmony must have been that it was the _diatessaron_ of tatian. what means could there be of correcting it and positively ascertaining the truth? it is not as if such a work were a personal composition, showing individuality of style and invention; but supposing it to be a harmony of gospels already current, and consequently varying from similar harmonies merely in details of compilation and arrangement, how is it possible its authorship could remain in the least degree certain, in the absence of an arranger's name? an illustration of all this is aptly supplied in the case of victor of capua, and i will allow dr. lightfoot himself to tell the story. "victor, who flourished about a.d. 545, happened to stumble upon an anonymous harmony or digest of the gospels, and began in consequence to investigate the authorship. he found two notices in eusebius of such harmonies; one in the _epistle to carpianus_ prefixed to the canons, relating to the work of ammonius; another in the _ecclesiastical history_, relating to that of tatian. assuming that the work which he had discovered must be one or other, he decides in favour of the latter, because it does not give st. matthew continuously and append the passages of the other evangelists, as eusebius states ammonius to have done. all this victor tells us in the preface to this anonymous harmony, which he publishes in a latin dress. "there can be no doubt that victor was mistaken about the authorship; for though the work is constructed on the same general plan as tatian's, it does not begin with john i. 1, but with luke i. 1, and it does contain the genealogies. it belongs, therefore, at least in its present form, neither to tatian nor to ammonius." [153:1] how this reasoning would have fallen to the ground had the harmonist, as he might well have done in imitation of tatian, commenced with the words, "in the beginning was the word"! the most instructive part is still to come, however, for although in may 1887 dr. lightfoot says: "there can be no doubt that victor was mistaken about the authorship," &c., in a note now inserted at the end of the essay, after referring to the newly-discovered works, he adds: "on the relation of victor's _diatessaron, which seems to be shown after all not to be independent of tatian_ ... see hemphill's _diatessaron_." [153:2] on turning to professor hemphill's work, the following passage on the point is discovered:- "it will be remembered that victor, bishop of capua, in the year 543, found a latin harmony or compilation of the four gospels without any name or title, and being a man of enquiring mind he at once set about the task of discovering its unknown author. i have already mentioned the way in which, from the passage of eusebius, he was led to ascribe his discovery to tatian. this conclusion was generally traversed by church writers, and victor was supposed to have made a mistake. he is now, however, proved to have been a better judge than his critics, for, as dr. wace was the first to point out, a comparison of this latin harmony with the ephraem fragments demonstrates their substantial identity, as they preserve to a wonderful degree the same order, and generally proceed _pari passu_." [153:3] but how about luke i. 1 as the beginning? and the genealogies? nothing could more clearly show the uncertainty which must always prevail about such works. shall we one day discover that victor was equally right about the reading _diapente_? i have thought it worth while to go into all this with a view of showing how little we know of the _diatessaron_ of tatian and, i may add, of the commentary of ephraem syrus and the work on which it is based. it is not at present necessary to examine more closely the text of either of the recently published works, but, whilst leaving them to be tried by time, i may clearly state what the effect on my argument would be on the assumption made by dr. lightfoot that we have actually recovered the _diatessaron_ of tatian, and that it is composed upon a text more or less corresponding with our four gospels. neither in the "harmony" itself nor in the supposed commentary of ephraem syrus is the name of any of the evangelists mentioned, and much less is there any information given as to their personality, character, or trustworthiness. if these works were, therefore, the veritable _diatessaron_ of tatian and the commentary of ephraem upon it, the gospels would not be rendered more credible as the record of miracles nor as witnesses for the reality of divine revelation. * * * * * it may not be uninstructive if i take the liberty of quoting here some arguments of dr. lightfoot regarding the authenticity of the "letter of the smyrnaens," giving an account of the martyrdom of polycarp. [154:1] "the miraculous element has also been urged in some quarters as an objection to the genuineness of the document. yet, considering all the circumstances of the case, we have more occasion to be surprised at the comparative absence than at the special prominence of the supernatural in the narrative. compared with records of early christian martyrs, or with biographies of mediaeval saints, or with notices of religious heroes at any great crisis, even in the more recent history of the church--as, for instance, the rise of jesuitism or of wesleyanism--this document contains nothing which ought to excite a suspicion as to its authenticity. "the one miraculous incident, which creates a real difficulty, is the dove issuing from the wounded side of the martyr. yet even this might be accounted for by an illusion, and under any circumstances it would be quite inadequate to condemn the document as a forgery. but it will be shown hereafter (p. 627) that there are excellent reasons for regarding the incident as a later interpolation, which had no place in the original document. beyond this we have the voice from heaven calling to polycarp in the stadium to play the man (§ 9). but the very simplicity of the narrative here disarms criticism. the brethren present heard the voice, but no one saw the speaker. this was the sole ground for the belief that it was not a human utterance. again, there is the arching of the fire round the martyr like a sail swelled by the wind (§ 15). but this may be explained as a strictly natural occurrence, and similar phenomena have been witnessed more than once on like occasions, notably at the martyrdoms of savonarola and of hooper. again, there is the sweet scent, as of incense, issuing from the burning pyre (§ 15); but this phenomenon also, however we may explain it, whether from the fragrance of the wood or in some other way, meets us constantly. in another early record of martyrdoms, the history of the persecutions at vienne and lyons, a little more than twenty years later, we are told (euseb. _h.e._ v. 1, § 35) that the heroic martyrs, as they stepped forward to meet their fate, were 'fragrant with the sweet odour of christ, so that some persons even supposed that they had been anointed with material ointment' ([greek: hôste enious doxai kai murô kosmikô kechristhai autous]). yet there was no pyre and no burning wood here, so that the imagination of the bystanders must have supplied the incident. indeed, this account of the gallican martyrs, indisputably written by eye-witnesses, contains many more startling occurrences than the record of polycarp's fate. "more or less closely connected with the miraculous element is the _prophetic insight_ attributed to polycarp. but what does this amount to? it is stated indeed that 'every word which he uttered was accomplished and will be accomplished' (§ 16). but the future tense, 'will be accomplished,' is itself the expression of a belief, not the statement of a fact. we may, indeed, accept this qualification as clear testimony that, when the narrative was written, many of his forebodings and predictions had not been fulfilled. the only example of a prediction actually given in the narrative is the dream of his burning pillow, which suggested to him that he would undergo martyrdom by fire. but what more natural than this presentiment, when persecution was raging around him and fire was a common instrument of death? i need not stop here to discuss how far a prescience may be vouchsafed to god's saints. even 'old experience' is found to be gifted with 'something like prophetic strain.' it is sufficient to say here again that it would be difficult to point to a single authentic biography of any christian hero--certainly of any christian hero of the early centuries--of whom some incident at least as remarkable as this prophecy, if prophecy it can be called, is not recorded. pontius, the disciple and biographer of cyprian, relates a similar intimation which preceded the martyrdom of his master, and adds: 'quid hac revelatione manifestius? quid hac dignatione felicius? ante illi praedicta sunt omnia quaecunque postmodum subsecuta sunt.' (_vit. et pass. cypr._ 12, 13)" [156:1] i am the more anxious to quote this extract from a work, written long after the essays on _supernatural religion_, as it presents dr. lightfoot in a very different light, and gives me an opportunity of congratulating him on the apparent progress of his thought towards freedom which it exhibits. i quite agree with him that the presence of supernatural or superstitious elements is no evidence against the authenticity of an early christian writing, but the promptitude with which he sets these aside as interpolations, or explains them away into naturalism, is worthy of professor huxley. he now understands, without doubt, the reason why i demand such clear and conclusive evidence of miracles, and why i refuse to accept such narratives upon anonymous and insufficient testimony. in fact, he cannot complain that i feel bound to explain all alleged miraculous occurrences precisely in the way of which he has set me so good an example, and that, whilst feeling nothing but very sympathetic appreciation of the emotion which stimulated the imagination and devout reverence of early christians to such mistakes, i resolutely refuse to believe their pious aberrations. viii. conclusions. we have seen that divine revelation could only be necessary or conceivable for the purpose of communicating to us something which we could not otherwise discover, and that the truth of communications which are essentially beyond and undiscoverable by reason cannot be attested in any other way than by miraculous signs distinguishing them as divine. it is admitted that no other testimony could justify our believing the specific revelation which we are considering, the very substance of which is supernatural and beyond the criticism of reason, and that its doctrines, if not proved to be miraculous truths, must inevitably be pronounced "the wildest delusions." "by no rational being could a just and benevolent life be accepted as proof of such astonishing announcements." on examining the alleged miraculous evidence for christianity as divine revelation, however, we find that, even if the actual occurrence of the supposed miracles could be substantiated, their value as evidence would be destroyed by the necessary admission that miracles are not limited to one source and are not exclusively associated with truth, but are performed by various spiritual beings, satanic as well as divine, and are not always evidential, but are sometimes to be regarded as delusive and for the trial of faith. as the doctrines supposed to be revealed are beyond reason, and cannot in any sense be intelligently approved by the human intellect, no evidence which is of so doubtful and inconclusive a nature could sufficiently attest them. this alone would disqualify the christian miracles for the duty which miracles alone are capable of performing. the supposed miraculous evidence for the divine revelation, moreover, is not only without any special divine character, being avowedly common also to satanic agency, but it is not original either in conception or details. similar miracles are reported long antecedently to the first promulgation of christianity, and continued to be performed for centuries after it. a stream of miraculous pretension, in fact, has flowed through all human history, deep and broad as it has passed through the darker ages, but dwindling down to a thread as it has entered days of enlightenment. the evidence was too hackneyed and commonplace to make any impression upon those before whom the christian miracles are said to have been performed, and it altogether failed to convince the people to whom the revelation was primarily addressed. the selection of such evidence for such a purpose is much more characteristic of human weakness than of divine power. the true character of miracles is at once betrayed by the fact that their supposed occurrence has thus been confined to ages of ignorance and superstition, and that they are absolutely unknown in any time or place where science has provided witnesses fitted to appreciate and ascertain the nature of such exhibitions of supernatural power. there is not the slightest evidence that any attempt was made to investigate the supposed miraculous occurrences, or to justify the inferences so freely drawn from them, nor is there any reason to believe that the witnesses possessed, in any considerable degree, the fulness of knowledge and sobriety of judgment requisite for the purpose. no miracle has yet established its claim to the rank even of apparent reality, and all such phenomena must remain in the dim region of imagination. the test applied to the largest class of miracles, connected with demoniacal possession, discloses the falsity of all miraculous pretension. there is no uncertainty as to the origin of belief in supernatural interference with nature. the assertion that spurious miracles have sprung up round a few instances of genuine miraculous power has not a single valid argument to support it. history clearly demonstrates that, wherever ignorance and superstition have prevailed, every obscure occurrence has been attributed to supernatural agency, and it is freely acknowledged that, under their influence, 'inexplicable' and 'miraculous' are convertible terms. on the other hand, in proportion as knowledge of natural laws has increased, the theory of supernatural interference with the order of nature has been dispelled and miracles have ceased. the effect of science, however, is not limited to the present and future, but its action is equally retrospective, and phenomena which were once ignorantly isolated from the sequence of natural cause and effect are now restored to their place in the unbroken order. ignorance and superstition created miracles; knowledge has for ever annihilated them. to justify miracles, two assumptions are made: first, an infinite personal god; and second, a divine design of revelation, the execution of which necessarily involves supernatural action. miracles, it is argued, are not contrary to nature, or effects produced without adequate causes, but on the contrary are caused by the intervention of this infinite personal god for the purpose of attesting and carrying out the divine design. neither of the assumptions, however, can be reasonably maintained. the assumption of an infinite personal god: a being at once limited and unlimited, is a use of language to which no mode of human thought can possibly attach itself. moreover, the assumption of a god working miracles is emphatically excluded by universal experience of the order of nature. the allegation of a specific divine cause of miracles is further inadequate from the fact that the power of working miracles is avowedly not limited to a personal god, but is also ascribed to other spiritual beings, and it must, consequently, always be impossible to prove that the supposed miraculous phenomena originate with one and not with the other. on the other hand, the assumption of a divine design of revelation is not suggested by antecedent probability, but is derived from the very revelation which it is intended to justify, as is likewise the assumption of a personal god, and both are equally vicious as arguments. the circumstances which are supposed to require this divine design, and the details of the scheme, are absolutely incredible and opposed to all the results of science. nature does not countenance any theory of the original perfection and subsequent degradation of the human race, and the supposition of a frustrated original plan of creation, and of later impotent endeavours to correct it, is as inconsistent with divine omnipotence and wisdom as the proposed punishment of the human race and the mode devised to save some of them are opposed to justice and morality. such assumptions are essentially inadmissible, and totally fail to explain and justify miracles. whatever definition be given of miracles, such exceptional phenomena must at least be antecedently incredible. in the absence of absolute knowledge, human belief must be guided by the balance of evidence, and it is obvious that the evidence for the uniformity of the order of nature, which is derived from universal experience, must be enormously greater than can be the testimony for any alleged exception to it. on the other hand, universal experience prepares us to consider mistakes of the senses, imperfect observation and erroneous inference as not only possible, but eminently probable on the part of the witnesses of phenomena, even when they are perfectly honest and truthful, and more especially so when such disturbing causes as religious excitement and superstition are present. when the report of the original witnesses only reaches us indirectly and through the medium of tradition, the probability of error is further increased. thus the allegation of miracles is discredited, both positively by the invariability of the order of nature, and negatively by the fallibility of human observation and testimony. the history of miraculous pretension in the world and the circumstances attending the special exhibition of it which we are examining suggest natural explanations of the reported facts which wholly remove them from the region of the supernatural. when we proceed to examine the direct witnesses for the christian miracles, we do not discover any exceptional circumstances neutralising the preceding considerations. on the contrary, we find that the case turns not upon miracles substantially before us, but upon the mere narratives of miracles said to have occurred over eighteen hundred years ago. it is obvious that, for such narratives to possess any real force and validity, it is essential that their character and authorship should be placed beyond all doubt. they must proceed from eye-witnesses capable of estimating aright the nature of the phenomena. our four gospels, however, are strictly anonymous works. the superscriptions which now distinguish them are undeniably of later origin than the works themselves and do not proceed from the composers of the gospels. of the writers to whom these narratives are traditionally ascribed only two are even said to have been apostles, the alleged authors of the second and third synoptics neither having been personal followers of jesus nor eye-witnesses of the events they describe. under these circumstances, we are wholly dependent upon external evidence for information regarding the authorship and trustworthiness of the four canonical gospels. in examining this evidence, we proceeded upon clear and definite principles. without forming or adopting any theory whatever as to the date or origin of our gospels, we simply searched the writings of the fathers, during a century and a half after the events in question, for information regarding the composition and character of these works and even for any certain traces of their use, although, if discovered, these could prove little beyond the mere existence of the gospels used at the date of the writer. in the latter and minor investigation, we were guided by canons of criticism, previously laid down, which are based upon the simplest laws of evidence. we found that the writings of the fathers, during a century and a half after the death of jesus, are a complete blank so far as any evidence regarding the composition and character of our gospels is concerned, unless we except the tradition preserved by papias, after the middle of the second century, the details of which fully justify the conclusion that our first and second synoptics, in their present form, cannot be the works said to have been composed by matthew and mark. there is thus no evidence whatever directly connecting any of the canonical gospels with the writers to whom they are popularly attributed, and later tradition, of little or no value in itself, is separated by a long interval of profound silence from the epoch at which they are supposed to have been composed. with one exception, moreover, we found that, during the same century and a half, there is no certain and unmistakable trace even of the anonymous use of any of our gospels in the early church. this fact, of course, does not justify the conclusion that none of these gospels was actually in existence during any part of that time, nor have we anywhere suggested such an inference, but strict examination of the evidence shows that there is no positive proof that they were. the exception to which we refer is marcion's gospel, which was, we think, based upon our third synoptic, and consequently must be accepted as evidence of the existence of that work. marcion, however, does not give the slightest information as to the authorship of the gospel, and his charges against it of adulteration cannot be considered very favourable testimony as to its infallible character. the canonical gospels continue to the end anonymous documents of no evidential value for miracles. they do not themselves pretend to be inspired histories, and they cannot escape from the ordinary rules of criticism. internal evidence does not modify the inferences from external testimony. apart from continual minor contradictions throughout the first three gospels, it is impossible to reconcile the representations of the synoptics with those of the fourth gospel. they mutually destroy each other as evidence. they must be pronounced mere narratives compiled long after the events recorded, by unknown persons who were neither eye-witnesses of the alleged miraculous occurrences nor hearers of the statements they profess to report. they cannot be accepted as adequate testimony for miracles and the reality of divine revelation. applying similar tests to the acts of the apostles we arrived at similar results. acknowledged to be composed by the same author who produced the third synoptic, that author's identity is not thereby made more clear. there is no evidence of the slightest value regarding its character, but, on the other hand, the work itself teems to such an extent with miraculous incidents and supernatural agency that the credibility of the narrative requires an extraordinary amount of attestation to secure for it any serious consideration. when the statements of the author are compared with the emphatic declarations of the apostle paul and with authentic accounts of the development of the early christian church, it becomes evident that the acts of the apostles, as might have been supposed, is a legendary composition of a later day, which cannot be regarded as sober and credible history, and rather discredits than tends to establish the reality of the miracles with which its pages so suspiciously abound. the remaining books of the new testament canon required no separate examination, because, even if genuine, they contain no additional testimony to the reality of divine revelation, beyond the implied belief in such doctrines as the incarnation and resurrection. it is unquestionable, we suppose, that in some form or other the apostles believed in these miracles, and the assumption that they did so supersedes the necessity for examining the authenticity of the catholic epistles and apocalypse. in like manner, the recognition as genuine of four epistles of paul, which contain his testimony to miracles, renders it superfluous to discuss the authenticity of the other letters attributed to him. the general belief in miraculous power and its possession by the church is brought to a practical test in the case of the apostle paul. after elaborate consideration of his letters, we came to the unhesitating conclusion that, instead of establishing the reality of miracles, the unconscious testimony of paul clearly demonstrates the facility with which erroneous inferences convert the most natural phenomena into supernatural occurrences. as a final test, we carefully examined the whole of the evidence for the cardinal dogmas of christianity, the resurrection and ascension of jesus. first taking the four gospels, we found that their accounts of these events are not only full of legendary matter, but even contradict and exclude each other and, so far from establishing the reality of such stupendous miracles, they show that no reliance is to be placed on the statements of the unknown authors. taking next the testimony of paul, which is more important as at least authentic and proceeding from an apostle of whom we know more than of any other of the early missionaries of christianity, we saw that it was indefinite and utterly insufficient. his so-called "circumstantial account of the testimony upon which the belief in the resurrection rested" consists merely of vague and undetailed hearsay, differing, so far as it can be compared, from the statements in the gospels, and without other attestation than the bare fact that it is repeated by paul, who doubtless believed it, although he had not himself been a witness of any of the supposed appearances of the risen jesus which he so briefly catalogues. paul's own personal testimony to the resurrection is limited to a vision of jesus, of which we have no authentic details, seen many years after the alleged miracle. considering the peculiar and highly nervous temperament of paul, of which he himself supplies abundant evidence, there can be no hesitation in deciding that this vision was purely subjective, as were likewise, in all probability, the appearances to the excited disciples of jesus. the testimony of paul himself, before his imagination was stimulated to ecstatic fervour by the beauty of a spiritualised religion, was an earnest denial of the great christian dogma, emphasised by the active persecution of those who affirmed it; and a vision, especially in the case of one so constituted, supposed to be seen many years after the fact of the resurrection had ceased to be capable of verification, is not an argument of convincing force. we were compelled to pronounce the evidence for the resurrection and ascension absolutely and hopelessly inadequate to prove the reality of such stupendous miracles, which must consequently be unhesitatingly rejected. there is no reason given, or even conceivable, why allegations such as these, and dogmas affecting the religion and even the salvation of the human race, should be accepted upon evidence which would be declared totally insufficient in the case of any common question of property or title before a legal tribunal. on the contrary, the more momentous the point to be established, the more complete must be the proof required. if we test the results at which we have arrived by general considerations, we find them everywhere confirmed and established. there is nothing original in the claim of christianity to be regarded as divine revelation, and nothing new either in the doctrines said to have been revealed, or in the miracles by which it is alleged to have been distinguished. there has not been a single historical religion largely held amongst men which has not pretended to be divinely revealed, and the written books of which have not been represented as directly inspired. there is not a doctrine, sacrament, or rite of christianity which has not substantially formed part of earlier religions; and not a single phase of the supernatural history of the christ, from his miraculous conception, birth and incarnation to his death, resurrection, and ascension, which has not had its counterpart in earlier mythologies. heaven and hell, with characteristic variation of details, have held an important place in the eschatology of many creeds and races. the same may be said even of the moral teaching of christianity, the elevated precepts of which, although in a less perfect and connected form, had already suggested themselves to many noble minds and been promulgated by ancient sages and philosophers. that this enquiry into the reality of divine revelation has been limited to the claim of christianity has arisen solely from a desire to condense it within reasonable bounds, and confine it to the only religion in connection with which it could practically interest us now. there is nothing in the history and achievements of christianity which can be considered characteristic of a religion divinely revealed for the salvation of mankind. originally said to have been communicated to a single nation, specially selected as the peculiar people of god, for whom distinguished privileges were said to be reserved, it was almost unanimously rejected by that nation at the time and it has continued to be repudiated by its descendants, with singular unanimity, to the present day. after more than eighteen centuries, this divine scheme of salvation has not obtained even the nominal adhesion of more than a third of the human race, and if, in a census of christendom, distinction could now be made of those who no longer seriously believe in it as supernatural religion, christianity would take a much lower numerical position. sâkya muni, a teacher only second in nobility of character to jesus, who, like him, proclaimed a system of elevated morality, has even now almost twice the number of followers, although his missionaries never sought converts in the west. [168:1] considered as a scheme divinely devised as the best, if not only, mode of redeeming the human race and saving them from eternal damnation, promulgated by god himself incarnate in human form, and completed by his own actual death upon the cross for the sins of the world, such results as these can only be regarded as practical failure, although they may not be disproportionate for a system of elevated morality. we shall probably never be able to determine how far the great teacher may through his own speculations or misunderstood spiritual utterances have suggested the supernatural doctrines subsequently attributed to him, and by which his whole history and system soon became transformed; but no one who attentively studies the subject can fail to be struck by the absence of such dogmas from the earlier records of his teaching. it is to the excited veneration of the followers of jesus, however, that we owe most of the supernatural elements so characteristic of the age and people. we may look in vain even in the synoptic gospels for the doctrines elaborated in the pauline epistles and the gospel of ephesus. the great transformation of christianity was effected by men who had never seen jesus, and who were only acquainted with his teaching after it had become transmuted by tradition. the fervid imagination of the east constructed christian theology. it is not difficult to follow the development of the creeds of the church, and it is certainly most instructive to observe the progressive boldness with which its dogmas were expanded by pious enthusiasm. the new testament alone represents several stages of dogmatic evolution. before his first followers had passed away the process of transformation had commenced. the disciples, who had so often misunderstood the teaching of jesus during his life, piously distorted it after his death. his simple lessons of meekness and humility were soon forgotten. with lamentable rapidity, the elaborate structure of ecclesiastical christianity, following stereotyped lines of human superstition and deeply coloured by alexandrian philosophy, displaced the sublime morality of jesus. doctrinal controversy, which commenced amongst the very apostles, has ever since divided the unity of the christian body. the perverted ingenuity of successive generations of churchmen has filled the world with theological quibbles, which have naturally enough culminated of late in doctrines of immaculate conception and papal infallibility. it is sometimes affirmed, however, that those who proclaim such conclusions not only wantonly destroy the dearest hopes of humanity, but remove the only solid basis of morality; and it is alleged that, before existing belief is disturbed, the iconoclast is bound to provide a substitute for the shattered idol. to this we may reply that speech or silence does not alter the reality of things. the recognition of truth cannot be made dependent on consequences, or be trammelled by considerations of spurious expediency. its declaration in a serious and suitable manner to those who are capable of judging can never be premature. its suppression cannot be effectual, and is only a humiliating compromise with conscious imposture. in so far as morality is concerned, belief in a system of future rewards and punishments, although of an intensely degraded character, may, to a certain extent, have promoted observance of the letter of the law in darker ages and even in our own; but it may, we think, be shown that education and civilisation have done infinitely more to enforce its spirit. how far christianity has promoted education and civilisation, we shall not here venture adequately to discuss. we may emphatically assert, however, that whatever beneficial effect christianity has produced has been due, not to its supernatural dogmas, but to its simple morality. dogmatic theology, on the contrary, has retarded education and impeded science. wherever it has been dominant, civilisation has stood still. science has been judged and suppressed by the light of a text or a chapter of genesis. almost every great advance which has been made towards enlightenment has been achieved in spite of the protest or the anathema of the church. submissive ignorance, absolute or comparative, has been tacitly fostered as the most desirable condition of the popular mind. "except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven," has been the favourite text of doctors of divinity with a stock of incredible dogmas difficult of assimilation by the virile mind. even now, the friction of theological resistance is a constant waste of intellectual power. the early enunciation of so pure a system of morality, and one so intelligible to the simple as well as profound to the wise, was of great value to the world; but, experience being once systematised and codified, if higher principles do not constrain us, society may safely be left to see morals sufficiently observed. it is true that, notwithstanding its fluctuating rules, morality has hitherto assumed the character of a divine institution, but its sway has not, in consequence, been more real than it must be as the simple result of human wisdom and the outcome of social experience. the choice of a noble life is no longer a theological question, and ecclesiastical patents of truth and uprightness have finally expired. morality, which has ever changed its complexion and modified its injunctions according to social requirements, will necessarily be enforced as part of human evolution, and is not dependent on religious terrorism or superstitious persuasion. if we are disposed to say: _cui bono?_ and only practise morality, or be ruled by right principles, to gain a heaven or escape a hell, there is nothing lost, for such grudging and calculated morality is merely a spurious imitation which can as well be produced by social compulsion. but if we have ever been really penetrated by the pure spirit of morality, if we have in any degree attained that elevation of mind which instinctively turns to the true and noble and shrinks from the baser level of thought and action, we shall feel no need of the stimulus of a system of rewards and punishments in a future state which has for so long been represented as essential to christianity. as to the other reproach, let us ask what has actually been destroyed by such an enquiry pressed to its logical conclusion. can truth by any means be made less true? can reality be melted into thin air? the revelation not being a reality, that which has been destroyed is only an illusion, and that which is left is the truth. losing belief in it and its contents, we have lost absolutely nothing but that which the traveller loses when the mirage, which has displayed cool waters and green shades before him, melts swiftly away. there were no cool fountains really there to allay his thirst, no flowery meadows for his wearied limbs; his pleasure was delusion, and the wilderness is blank. rather the mirage with its pleasant illusion, is the human cry, than the desert with its barrenness. not so, is the friendly warning; seek not vainly in the desert that which is not there, but turn rather to other horizons and to surer hopes. do not waste life clinging to ecclesiastical dogmas which represent no eternal verities, but search elsewhere for truth which may haply be found. what should we think of the man who persistently repulsed the persuasion that two and two make four from the ardent desire to believe that two and two make five? whose fault is it that two and two do make four and not five? whose folly is it that it should be more agreeable to think that two and two make five than to know that they only make four? this folly is theirs who represent the value of life as dependent on the reality of special illusions, which they have religiously adopted. to discover that a former belief is unfounded is to change nothing of the realities of existence. the sun will descend as it passes the meridian whether we believe it to be noon or not. it is idle and foolish, if human, to repine because the truth is not precisely what we thought it, and at least we shall not change reality by childishly clinging to a dream. the argument so often employed by theologians that divine revelation is necessary for man, and that certain views contained in that revelation are required by our moral consciousness, is purely imaginary and derived from the revelation which it seeks to maintain. the only thing absolutely necessary for man is truth; and to that, and that alone, must our moral consciousness adapt itself. reason and experience forbid the expectation that we can acquire any knowledge otherwise than through natural channels. we might as well expect to be supernaturally nourished as supernaturally informed. to complain that we do not know all that we desire to know is foolish and unreasonable. it is tantamount to complaining that the mind of man is not differently constituted. to attain the full altitude of the knowable, whatever that may be, should be our earnest aim, and more than this is not for humanity. we may be certain that information which is beyond the ultimate reach of reason is as unnecessary as it is inaccessible. man may know all that man requires to know. we gain more than we lose by awaking to find that our theology is human invention and our eschatology an unhealthy dream. we are freed from the incubus of base hebrew mythology, and from doctrines of divine government which outrage morality and set cruelty and injustice in the place of holiness. if we have to abandon cherished anthropomorphic visions of future blessedness, the details of which are either of unseizable dimness or of questionable joy, we are at least delivered from quibbling discussions of the meaning of [greek: aiônios], and our eternal hope is unclouded by the doubt whether mankind is to be tortured in hell for ever and a day, or for a day without the ever. at the end of life there may be no definite vista of a heaven glowing with the light of apocalyptic imagination, but neither will there be the unutterable horror of a purgatory or a hell lurid with flames for the helpless victims of an unjust but omnipotent creator. to entertain such libellous representations at all as part of the contents of "divine revelation," it was necessary to assert that man was incompetent to judge of the ways of the god of revelation, and must not suppose him endowed with the perfection of human conceptions of justice and mercy, but submit to call wrong right and right wrong at the foot of an almighty despot. but now the reproach of such reasoning is shaken from our shoulders, and returns to the jewish superstition from which it sprang. as myths lose their might and their influence when discovered to be baseless, the power of supernatural christianity will doubtless pass away, but the effect of the revolution must not be exaggerated, although it cannot here be fully discussed. if the pictures which have filled for so long the horizon of the future must vanish, no hideous blank can rightly be maintained in their place. we should clearly distinguish between what we know and know not, but as carefully abstain from characterising that which we know not as if it were really known to us. that mysterious unknown or unknowable is no cruel darkness, but simply an impenetrable distance into which we are impotent to glance, but which excludes no legitimate speculation and forbids no reasonable hope. [endnotes] [1:1] originally published in the _fortnightly review_, january 1, 1875. [4:1] _on the canon_, p. 65. [4:2] _ibid._ p. 61, note 2. [4:3] at the end of this note dr. westcott adds, "indeed, from the similar mode of introducing the story of the vine, which is afterwards referred to papias, it is reasonable to conjecture that this interpretation is one from papias' _exposition_." [4:4] _reliq. sacrae_, i. p. 10 f. [4:5] _lehre pers. christ_, i. p. 217 f., anm. 56, p. 218, anm, 62. [5:1] _theol. jahrb. _1845, p. 593, anm. 2; cf. 1847, p. 160, anm. 1. [5:2] _synops. evang._, proleg. xxxi. [5:3] _komm. ev. des johannes_, p. 6 f. [5:4] _die zeugn. ev. joh._ p. 116 f. [5:5] _basilides_, p. 110 f. [5:6] _zeitschr. für wiss. theol._ 1867, p. 186, anm. 1, 1868, p. 219, anm. 4; cf. 1865, p. 334 f., "die evangelien," p. 339, anm. 4. [6:1] _der johann. ursprung des viert. evang._ 1874, p. 72. [6:2] _th. stud. u. krit._ 1866, p. 674. [6:3] _intro. n.t._ ii. p. 424 f. [6:4] _ibid._ ii. p. 372. [8:1] the work was all printed, and i could only reprint the sheet with such alterations as could be made by omissions and changes at the part itself. [8:2] dr. lightfoot makes use of my second edition. [9:1] _contemporary review_, december, p. 4, n. 1; _essays on s.r._ p. 4, n. 4. [9:2] professor hofstede de groot, in advancing this passage after the example of tischendorf, carefully distinguishes the words which he introduces, referring it to the presbyters, by placing them within brackets. [10:1] _s.r._ ii. p. 231 f. [10:2] _contemporary review_, december, p. 5 f.; _essays on s.r._ p. 7. [10:3] _s.r._ ii. 228 ff. [11:1] _wann wurden_, u.s.w., p. 73 f. [11:2] the translation in scholten's work is substantially the same as tischendorf's, except that he has "promises" for "has promised," which is of no importance. upon this, however, scholten argues that celsus is treated as a contemporary. [12:1] _s.r._ ii. p. 229 ff. [13:1] i may here briefly refer to one or two instances of translation attacked by dr. lightfoot. he sneers at such a rendering as [greek: ho logos edêlou], "scripture declares," introducing an isolated phrase from justin martyr (ii. 296). the slight liberty taken with the tense is surely excusable in such a case, and for the rest i may point out that prudentius maranus renders the words "... scripturam declarare," and otto "... effatum declarare." they occur in reference to passages from the old testament quoted in controversy with a jew. the next passage is [greek: kata korrhês propêlakizein], which dr. lightfoot says is rendered "to inflict a blow on one side," but this is not the case. the phrase occurs in contrasting the words of matt. v. 39, [greek: all' hostis se rhapisei epi tên dexian sou siagona, strepson autô kai tên allên], with a passage in athenagoras, [greek: alla tois men kan kata korrhês prospêlakizosi, kai to eteron paiein parechein tês kephalês meros]. in endeavouring to convey to the english reader some idea of the linguistic difference, i rendered the latter (ii. 193), "but to those who inflict a blow on the one side, also to present the other side, _of the head_," &c., inserting the three greek words after "side," to explain the suspension of sense, and the merging, for the sake of brevity, the double expression in the words i have italicised. dr. lightfoot represents the phrase as ending at "side." the passage from tertullian was quoted almost solely for the purpose of showing the uncertainty, in so bold a writer, of the expression "videtur," for which reason, although the latin is given below, the word was introduced into the text. it was impossible for anyone to _mistake_ the tense and meaning of "quem caederet," but i ventured to paraphrase the words and their context, instead of translating them. in this sentence, i may say, the "mutilation hypothesis" is introduced, and thereafter tertullian proceeds to press against marcion his charge of mutilating the gospel of luke, and i desired to contrast the doubt of the "videtur" with the assurance of the subsequent charge. i had imagined that no one could have doubted that luke is represented as one of the "commentatores." [14:1] i altered "certainly" to "probably" in the second edition, as dr. lightfoot points out, in order to avoid the possibility of exaggeration; but my mind was so impressed with the certainty that i had clearly shown i was merely, for the sake of fairness, reporting the critical judgment of others, that i did not perceive the absence of the words given above. [15:1] dr. lightfoot is mistaken in his ingenious conjecture of my having been misled by the "nur" of credner; but so scrupulous a critic might have mentioned that i not only refer to credner for this argument, but also to _de wette_, who has "... dass er _nie_ joh. dem taüfer wie der synoptiker den beinamen [greek: ho baptistês] giebt" (_einl. n.t._ p. 230), and to _bleek_, who says, "nicht ein einziges mal" (_beiträge_, p. 178, and _einl. n.t._ p. 150), which could not be misread. [16:1] _contemporary review_, december, p. 15; _essays on s.r._ p. 21 f. [16:2] clem. alex. _strom._ vii. 17-106. dr. westcott gives the above reference, but does not quote the passage. [16:3] dr. westcott quotes the passage relative to matthias. [17:1] _canon_, p. 255 f. [17:2] the same remarks apply to the two passages, pointed out by tischendorf, from clement of alexandria and epiphanius. [18:1] luthardt, _der johann. ursprung des viert. evang._ 1874, p. 85 f. [19:1] _strom._ vii. 17, § 106. [19:2] _canon_, p. 255. [19:3] _contemporary review_, december, p. 16 [_essays_, p. 22]. [20:1] _contemporary review_, december, p. 8 [_ibid._ p. 11]. [21:1] _contemporary review_, p. 8 [_ibid._ p. 11]. [21:2] _a crit. history of chr. lit. and doctrine_, i. 184 f. i do not refer to the numerous authors who enforce this view. [22:1] _contemporary review_, p. 8 [_ibid._ p. 11 f.] [23:1] _contemporary review_, p. 8 f. [_ibid._ p. 11]. [23:2] _s.r._ i. p. 441. [24:1] _contemporary review_, p. 8 f. [_ibid._ p. 12 f.] [24:2] _s.r._ i. p. 387 ff. [24:3] _canon_, p. 112 f. [24:4] _contemporary review_, p. 9, note [_ibid._ p. 12, n. 4]. [24:5] _s.r._ i. p. 360, note 1. dr. lightfoot, of course, "can hardly suppose" that "i had read the passage to which i refer." [25:1] _contemporary review_, p. 9 [_ibid._ p. 13]. [26:1] _contemporary review_, p. 9 [_ibid._ p. 13]. [26:2] i cannot go through every instance, but i may briefly say that such a passage as "ye are of your father the devil" and the passage matt. xi. 27 _seq_. are no refutation whatever of my statement of the contrast between the fourth gospel and the synoptics; and that the allusion to paul's teaching in the apocalypse is in no way excluded even by his death. regarding the relations between paul and the "pillar" apostles, i hope to speak hereafter. i must maintain that my argument regarding the identification of an eye-witness (ii. p. 444 ff.) sufficiently meets the reasoning to which dr. lightfoot refers. [27:1] _contemporary review_, p. 11 f. [_ibid._ p. 16]. [27:2] _ibid._ p. 10 [_ibid._ p. 14]. [28:1] _s.r._ ii. p. 402. [28:2] _ibid._ ii. p. 406. [28:3] see acts iv. 13. [28:4] _s.r._ ii. p. 410. [28:5] _ibid._ ii, p. 413. [29:1] _der johann. ursp. des viert. evang._ 1874, pp. 204-7. [29:2] _einl. n.t._ p. 625. [30:1] in regard to one other point, i may say that, so far from being silent about the presence of a form of the logos doctrine in the apocalypse with which dr. lightfoot reproaches me, i repeatedly point out its existence, as, for instance, _s.r._ ii. pp. 255, 273, 278, &c., and i also show its presence elsewhere, my argument being that the doctrine not only was not originated by the fourth gospel, but that it had already been applied to christianity in n.t. writings before the composition of that work. [30:2] _s.r._ ii. 421. [30:3] _contemporary review_, 12 f. [_ibid._ p. 17 f.] [31:1] dr. lightfoot will find the passage to which i refer, more especially p. 241, line 4, commencing with the words, "nur zwei neuere ausleger ahnen die einfache wahrheit." [31:2] _s.r._ 421 f. [32:1] _works_, ed. pitman, x. 339 f.; _horae et talm._ p. 938. [32:2] _chron. synopse d. vier. evv._ p. 256, anm. 1. [32:3] _bibl. comm., das. ev. n. joh._, umgearb. ebrard ii. 1, p. 122 f. [32:4] _kurzgef. ex. handbuch n.t._ i. 3, p. 84. [32:5] _einl. n.t._ ii. 194 f. hug more strictly applies the name to the sepulchre where the bones of joseph were laid (josh. xxiv. 32). [32:6] _bibelwerk_, iv. 219. [32:7] _die zeugnisse_, p. 21. [32:8] _comm. sur l'ev. de st. jean_, i. p. 475 f. [32:9] _einl. n.t._ p. 211. [32:10] _zeitschr. gesammt. luth. theol. u. kirche_, 1856, p. 240 ff. [32:11] _die joh. schriften_, i. p. 181, anm. 1; _jahrb. bibl. wiss._ viii. p. 255 f.; cf. _gesch. v. isr._ v. p. 348, anm. 1. [32:12] _das ev. joh._ p. 107. [32:13] _comm. ev. n. joh._ p. 188 f. [33:1] _comm. ev. des joh._ i. p. 577 f. [33:2] _jahrb. bibl. wiss._ viii. p. 255 f. [33:3] _die joh. schr._ i. p. 181, anm. 1. [33:4] _authorship and hist. char. of fourth gospel_, 1872, p. 92. [33:5] mr. sanday adds in a note here: "this may perhaps be called the current explanation of the name. it is accepted as well by those who deny the genuineness of the gospel as by those who maintain it. cf. keim, i. 133. but there is much to be said for the identification with el askar, &c." _authorship and hist. char. of fourth gospel_, p. 93, note 1. [34:1] _life of christ_, i. p. 206, note 1. [34:2] _la géographie du tulmud_, p. 170. [34:3] smith's _dictionary of the bible_, iii. p. 1395 f. [36:1] _bampton lect._ 1865, 2nd edit. p. 4. [36:2] _s.r._ i. p. 61 ff. [37:1] _contemporary review_, p. 19 [_ibid._ p. 26 f.] [37:2] _three essays on religion_, p. 216 f. [38:1] _three essays on religion_, p. 234. [38:2] _ibid._ p. 219. [39:1] _s.r._ ii. p. 477. [40:1] this appeared as the preface to the 6th edition. [45:1] _contemporary review_, january 1875, p. 1 ff. (_ibid._ p. 32 ff.) [45:2] _s.r._ i. p. 212. [46:1] _contemporary review_, january 1875, p. 172 [_ibid._ p. 36]. [46:2] _ibid._ p. 183 [_ibid._ p. 51]. [48:1] _contemporary review_, january 1875, p. 173 [_ibid._ p. 38]. [49:1] i regret very much that some ambiguity in my language (_s.r._ i. p. 483) should have misled, and given dr. lightfoot much trouble. i used the word "quotation" in the sense of a use of the epistle of peter, and not in reference to any one sentence in polycarp. i trust that in this edition i have made my meaning clear. [50:1] cf. _h.e._ iii. 3, 4, 18, 24, 25, &c. &c. [50:2] _ibid._ ii. 15, vi. 14. [50:3] _ibid._ v. 8. [50:4] _ibid._ vi. 25. [51:1] _contemporary review_, january 1875, p. 181 [_ibid._ p. 48]. [51:2] by a slip of the pen dr. lightfoot refers to irenaeus, _adv. haer._ iii. 3, 4. it should be ii. 22, 5. [51:3] _ibid._ p. 181. [51:4] _h.e._ iii, 24. [52:1] _h.e._ ii. 23. [52:2] _ibid._ iii. 11. [52:3] _ibid._ 16. [52:4] _ibid._ 19, 20. [52:5] _ibid._ 32. [52:6] _ibid._ iv. 8. [52:7] _ibid._ 11. [52:8] _ibid._ iv. 22. [53:1] _h.e._ ii. 15. [53:2] _ibid._ vii. 25. [54:1] _h.e._ iii. 18. [54:2] _ibid._ 19, 20. [54:3] _ibid._ 20. [54:4] _ibid._ 20. [54:5] _ibid._ 23. [54:6] _ibid._ 24. [55:1] i am much obliged to dr. lightfoot for calling my attention to the accidental insertion of the words "and the apocalypse" (_s.r._ i. p. 433). this was a mere slip of the pen, of which no use is made, and the error is effectually corrected by my own distinct statements. [55:2] _h.e._ iii. 39. [56:1] _contemporary review_, january 1875, p. 183 [_ibid._ p. 51]. [57:1] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 337 ff. [_ibid._ p. 59 ff.] [58:1] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 339 [_ibid._ p. 62]. [59:1] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 340 [_ibid._ p. 63]. [59:2] _s.r._ i. p. 263 f. i have introduced numbers for facility of reference. [60:1] dr. lightfoot says in this volume: "the reading 'most' is explained in the preface to that edition as a misprint" (p. 63, n. 2). not so at all. "a slip of the pen" is a very different thing. [60:2] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 341 [_ibid._ p. 64]. [61:1] _ueber d. urspr. u.s.w. des christennamens_, p. 7, anm. 1. [61:2] _zeitschr. wiss. theol._ 1874, p. 211, anm. 1. i should have added that the priority which lipsius still maintains is that of the text, as dr. lightfoot points out in his _apostolic fathers_ (part ii. vol. i. 1885, p. 273, n. 1), and not of absolute origin; but this appears clearly enough in the quotations i have made. [61:3] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 841 [_ibid._ p. 65]. [62:1] _s.r._ i. p. 259 f. [62:2] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 342 [_ibid._ p, 65 f.] [62:3] _s.r._ i. p. 259. [63:1] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 342. in a note dr. lightfoot states that my references to lipsius are to his earlier works, where he still maintains the priority and genuineness of the curetonian epistles. certainly they are so: but in the right place, two pages further on, i refer to the writings in which he rejects the authenticity, whilst still maintaining his previous view of the priority of these letters [_ibid._ p. 66]. [64:1] calvin's expressions are: "nihil naeniis illis, quae sub ignatii nomine editae sunt, putidius. quo minus tolerabilis est eorum impudentia, qui talibus larvis ad fallendum se instruunt" (_inst. chr. rel._ i. 13, § 39). [64:2] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 342. [64:3] _op. theolog._ 1652, 11, p. 1085. [64:4] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 342 [_ibid._ p. 66]. dr. lightfoot refers to pearson's _vindiciae ignat._ p. 28 (ed. churton). [65:1] _exam. concilii tridentim_, 1614, i. p. 85 (misprinted 89). [65:2] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 343 [_ibid._ p. 67]. [67:1] _critici sacri_, lib. ii cap. 1; _op. theolog._ 1652, ii. p. 1086. [67:2] _vind. ignat._ 1672, p. 14 f.; jacobson, _patr. apost._ i. p. xxxviii. [67:3] _op de theolog. dogmat., de eccles. hierarch._ v. 8 § 1, edit. venetiis, 1757, vol. vii. [68:1] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 343 f. [_ibid._ p. 67 f.] [70:1] _die kirche im ap. zeit._ p. 322. [70:2] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 344 f. [_ibid._ p. 69.] [72:1] _k.g._ 1842, 1. p. 327, anm. 1. [73:1] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 345 [_ibid._ p. 69]. [75:1] _einl. n.t._ pp. 144 f., 233. [78:1] _contemporary review_, january 1875, p. 183 [_ibid._ p. 51]. [78:2] _ibid._, february 1875, p. 346 [_ibid._ p. 71]. [79:1] _theolog. quartalschrift_, 1851, p. 389 ff. [79:2] _hippolytus and his age_, 1852, i. p. 60, note, iv. p. vi ff. [79:3] _gesch. d. v. isr._ vii. p. 321, anm. 1. [80:1] _patr. apost. proleg._ 1863, p. xxx. [80:2] _patr. apost._ ed. 4th, 1855. in a review of denzinger's work in the _theolog. quartalschrift_, 1849, p. 683 ff., hefele devotes eight lines to the armenian version (p. 685 f.) [80:3] _hippolytus_, 1852, i. p. 60, note. cf. iv. p. vi ff. [81:1] _s.r._ i. p. 264. [81:2] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 347 [_ibid._ p. 72]. [82:1] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 348 [_ibid._ p. 74]. [82:2] _s.r._ i. p. 265. [83:1] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 347 [_ibid._ p. 72 f.] dr. lightfoot makes the following important admission in a note: "the roman epistle indeed has been separated from its companions, and is embedded in the martyrology which stands at the end of this collection in the latin version, where doubtless it stood also in the greek, before the ms. of this latter was mutilated. otherwise the vossian epistles come together, and _are followed_ by the confessedly spurious epistles in the greek and latin mss. in the armenian all the vossian epistles are together, and the confessedly spurious epistles follow. see zahn, _ignatius von antiochien_, p. 111." [83:2] note to horne's _int. to the holy scriptures_, 12th ed. 1869, iv. p. 332, note 1. the italics are in the original. [83:3] _the ancient syrian version_, &c. 1845, p. xxiv f. [84:1] _corpus ignat._ p. 338. [84:2] _ibid._ p. ii. [84:3] dressel, _patr. ap._ p. lvi. [84:4] cureton, _corp. ign._ p. iii. [84:5] dressel, _patr. ap._ p. lvii f. [84:6] cureton, _corp. ignat._ p. vii f. [84:7] _ibid._ p. xi; dressel, _patr. ap._ p. xxxi; cf. p. lxii; jacobson, _patr. ap._ i. p. lxxiii; vossius, _ep. gen. s. ign. mart._, amstel. 1646. [84:8] dressel, _patr. ap._ p. lxi. [86:1] "a few words on 'supernatural religion,'" pref. to _hist. of the canon_, 4th ed. 1874, p. xix. [87:1] "a few words on 's.r.,'" preface to _hist. of canon_, 4th ed. p. xix f. [87:2] _s.r._ i. p. 268. [88:1] _on the canon_, preface, 4th ed. p. xx. [89:1] these consist only of an additional page of baur's work first quoted, and a reference to another of his works quoted in the second note, but accidentally left out of note 3. [90:1] i take the liberty of putting these words in italics to call attention to the assertion opposed to what i find in the note. [91:1] it is the same work, i believe, subsequently published in an extended form. the work i quote is entitled _kirchengeschichte der ersten sechs jahrhunderte_, dritte, umgearbeitete auflage, 1869, and is part of a course of lectures carrying the history to the nineteenth century. [92:1] i do not know why dr. westcott adds the 'ff' to my reference, but i presume it is taken from note 4, where the reference is given to 'p. 52 ff.' this shows how completely he has failed to see the different object of the two notes. [93:1] _on the canon_, pref. 4th ed. p. xxi f. [97:1] p. 213. [98:1] _on the canon_, preface, 4th ed. p. xxiv. dr. westcott adds, in a note, "it may be worth while to add that in spite of the profuse display of learning in connection with ignatius, i do not see even in the second edition any reference to the full and elaborate work of zahn." i might reply to this that my ms. had left my hands before zahn's work had reached england, but, moreover, the work contains nothing new to which reference was necessary. [99:1] _on the canon_, preface, 4th ed. p xxv. [100:1] ruinart, _acta mart._ p. 137 ff.; cf. baronius, _mart. rom._ 1631, p. 152. [100:2] cf. lardner, _credibility_, &c., _works_, iii. p. 3. [101:1] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 349 [_ibid._ p. 75]. [101:2] _ibid._ p. 350 [_ibid._ p. 76]. [102:1] there are grave reasons for considering it altogether inauthentic. cf. cotterill, _peregrinus proteus_, 1879. [102:2] _de morte peregr._ 11. [102:3] _ibid._ 14. [102:4] _gesch. chr. kirche_, i. p. 410 f. [103:1] see, for instance, denzinger, _ueber die aechtheit d. bish. textes d. ignat. briefe_, 1849, p. 87 ff.; zahn, _ignatius v. ant._, 1873, p. 517 ff. [103:2] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 350 f. [_ibid._ p. 77]. [104:1] _s.r._ i. p. 268, note 4. [105:1] dean milman says: "trajan, indeed, is absolved, at least by the almost general voice of antiquity, from the crime of persecuting the christians." in a note he adds: "excepting of ignatius, probably of simeon of jerusalem, there is no authentic martyrdom in the reign of trajan."--_hist. of christianity_, 1867, ii. p. 103. [106:1] _k.g._ 1842, i. p. 171. [106:2] _ibid._ i. p. 172, anm. [108:1] _hist. of christianity_, ii. p. 101 f. [109:1] p. 276 (ed. bonn). _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 352 [_ibid._ p. 79]. [109:2] _ibid._ p. 353 f. [_ibid._ p. 80]. [109:3] _ibid._ p. 352 [_ibid._ p. 79 f.]. [110:1] _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 353 f. [_ibid._ p. 81]. [110:2] _ignatius v. ant._ p. 66, anm. 3. [111:1] i need not refer to the statement of nicephorus that these relics were first brought from rome to constantinople and afterwards translated to antioch. [112:1] ruinart, _acta mart._ pp. 59, 69. [112:2] _ignatius v. ant._ p, 68. [112:3] ruinart, _acta mart._ p. 56. baronius makes the anniversary of the martyrdom 1st february, and that of the translation 17th december. (_mart. rom._ pp. 87, 766 ff.) [112:4] _ignatius v. ant._ p. 27, p. 68, anm. 2. [112:5] there is no sufficient evidence for the statement that, in chrysostom's time, the day dedicated to ignatius was in june. the mere allusion, in a homily delivered in honour of ignatius, that "recently" the feast of st. pelagia (in the latin calendar 9th june) had been celebrated, by no means justifies such a conclusion, and there is nothing else to establish it. [114:1] _st. paul's ep. to the philippians_, 3rd ed. 1873, p. 232, note. cf. _contemporary review_, february 1875, p. 358 f. (_ibid._ p. 88) [116:1] complete ed. i. p. 277 f. all the references which i give in these essays must be understood as being to the complete edition. [117:1] i. p. 443 ff. [117:2] [pg transcriber's note: probably a misprint for "lost work"] [118:1] this rendering is quoted from dr. lightfoot's _essays_, p. 163. [119:1] _essays_, p. 167 f. [120:1] _essays_, p. 170. [121:1] _ibid._ p. 169. [122:1] _essays_, p. 170. [122:2] _ibid._ p. 170. [122:3] _ibid._ p. 170. [123:1] _ibid._ p. 152. [124:1] vol. i. p. 463 f. [124:2] _ibid._ p. 171. [124:3] _ibid._ p. 172 f. [124:4] i. p. 463 f. [125:1] _ibid._ p. 173. [125:2] i. 236 ff. [125:3] note. [125:4] note. [126:1] _clem. rom._ § 53, § 45; ibid. 173 f. [130:1] i. p. 210 f. [132:1] i. p. 213 ff. i have italicised a few phrases. [133:1] _s.r._ i. 259 ff. see further illustrations here. [134:1] _s.r._ i. p. 363 f. [135:1] _s.r._ ii. p. 221, n. 7. [135:2] _ibid._ p. 220. [135:3] _ibid._ ii. p. 169 f. [136:1] _s.r._ ii. p. 226. [136:2] in discussing the authenticity of fragments ascribed to melito, dr. lightfoot quoted, as an argument from _supernatural religion_ the following words: "they have, in fact, no attestation whatever except that of the syriac translation, which is unknown and which, therefore, is worthless." the passage appeared thus in the _contemporary review_, and now is again given in the same form in the present volume. i presume that the passage which dr. lightfoot intends to quote is: "they have no attestation whatever, except that of the syriac translator, who is unknown, and which is, therefore, worthless" (_s.r._ ii. p. 181). if dr. lightfoot, who has so much assistance in preparing his works for the press, can commit such mistakes, he ought to be a little more charitable to those who have none. [137:1] _s.r._ ii. p. 182 ff. [137:2] _ibid._ p. 239. [137:3] _ibid._ p. 248. [140:1] _s.r._ ii. p. 198 ff., iii. 24 ff. [140:2] _ibid._ 255. [141:1] _s.r._ ii. p. 200. [142:1] _s.r._ ii. p. 200 f. [143:1] _s.r._ iii. p. 257 [143:2] _ibid._ p. 25 f. [144:1] _ibid._, p. 259. [145:1] ii. pp. 144 ff., 372 ff. [146:1] euseb. _h.e._ iv. 29. (_ibid._ p. 227 f.) [146:2] i need not quote the references which dr. lightfoot gives in a note. [146:3] _ibid._ p. 278. [147:1] _unters. n.t. kanons_, 1881, p. 15 f. [147:2] _on the canon_, 1875, p. 318, n. 3. cf. 1881, p. 322, n. 3. [147:3] _the diatessaron of tatian_, 1888, p. xiv. [147:4] _ibid._ p. 279. [148:1] dr. lightfoot's rendering, p, 280. assem. _bibl. orient._ ii. p. 159 sq. [148:2] _ibid._ p. 280 f. [149:1] _the diatessaron of tatian_, p. xxx. [149:2] euseb. _op._ iv. p. 1276 (ed. migne.) the translation is by dr. lightfoot (_l.c._ p. 281, n. 1). [150:1] zahn, _tatian's diatessaron_, 1881, p. 70 f. [150:2] _hist. chr. lit. and doctr._ iii. p. 26. [150:3] moesinger, _evang. concor. expositio_, 1876, p. x f. [150:4] _ibid._ p. xi. [152:1] zahn, _l.c._ p. 38. [153:1] _ibid._ p. 286. [153:2] _ibid._ p. 288. the italics are mine. [153:3] hemphill, _the diatessaron of tatian_, p. xxiv. [154:1] i have already referred to this document further back, p. 136. [156:1] lightfoot, _apostolic fathers_, part ii. 1885, p. 598 ff. [168:1] by recent returns the number of the professors of different religions is estimated as follows: parsees 150,000 sikhs 1,200,000 jews 7,000,000, being about ½ per cent. of the whole. greek catholics 75,000,000 " 6 " " roman catholics 152,000,000 " 12 " " other christians 100,000,000 " 8 " " hindus 160,000,000 " 13 " " muhammedans 155,000,000 " 12½ " " buddhists 500,000,000 " 40 " " not included in the above 100,000,000 " 8 " " ---------- 1,250,350,000 we have taken these statistics, which are approximately correct, from an excellent little work recently published by the society for the propagation of christian knowledge--_buddhism_, by t.w. rhys davids, p. 6. index. acts of the apostles, evidence for, 142 f., 164 addai, doctrine of, 147 ammonius, _diatessaron_ of, 148 anger, 5 antioch, earthquake at, in a.d. 115, 107 f. aphthonius; see elias of salamia apocalypse, allusion to paul in, 26, n. 2; language of, 27 ff. apollinaris, claudius; date, 137; evidence for gospels, 137 aristion, 55 ascension, evidence for, 165 aubertin, 65, 66 aucher, 145 baronius, 112 n. 3 bar-salibi, dionysius, 147 f. basnage, 65, 66 baumgarten-crusius, 70, 72 baur, does not allude to armenian version of ignatian epistles, 79; date of martyrdom of ignatius, 89 f.; place of his martyrdom, 95 ff.; on peregrinus proteus, 102 beausobre, 70, 71 bleek, 7, 32, 60, 62, 68, 74, 80, 90, 93 blondel, 65, 66 bochart, 65, 66 böhringer, 59, 62, 63, 80 bunsen, 32, 62, 63, 79 calvin, 64 campianus, 64 casaubon, 65, 67 celsus, origen on, 10 ff., 146 centuriators, magdeburg, 64 chemnitz, 62, 64, 65 christianity, claim to be divine revelation, not original, 166 f.; history and achievements opposed to this claim, 167 f.; census of religions, 168 n. 1; transformation of, 169 f. chrysostom, 108, 110, 111 f. ciasca, alleged arabic version of tatian's _diatessaron_, 145, 150 f. clement of alexandria, on basilides, 18 f. cleophas, 52 cook, 65, 66 criticism, attitude towards, 1 cureton, 62, 63, 65, 68 ff., 79, 83 f. curetonian version of ignatian epistles, 59 ff., 67 ff., 74 ff., 80 f. dallaeus, 62 davidson, dr., on passage of irenaeus, 6; date of martyrdom of ignatius, 91; place of the martyrdom, 96 delitzsch, 30, 31, 32 denzinger, 78, 79, 80 n. 2, 103 n. 1 diatessaron of ammonius, 148 ff., 152 ff. diatessaron of elias of salamia, 148 ff. diatessaron of tatian, 145 ff.; alleged armenian version of ephraem's commentary on it, 145 f.; latin translation by aucher and moesinger, 145 f.; arabic version of, translated by ciasca, 145 f.; eusebius on it, 146 f.; did eusebius directly know it? 146 f.; bar-salibi on it, 147 f.; theodoret suppresses it, 149 f.; the genealogies of jesus said to be excised, 149 f.; not all suppressed in armenian and arabic works, 150; called 'gospel according to the hebrews,' 150; epiphanius had not seen it, 150; we could not identify it, 150; arabic version of ciasca, 150 f.; said to be translated from syriac, 151; its date, 151; ascribed in notes to tatian, 151; original language of tatian's _diatessaron_, 151 f.; gospel texts in alleged versions affected by repeated translation, 151 f.; name of tatian not on original work, 152; could it be identified? 152 ff.; case of victor of capua, 152 ff.; was he mistaken? 153 f.; dr. wace says: no, 153; value of evidence if alleged versions be genuine, 154 dionysius of corinth, 56 doctrine of addai, 147 donaldson, dr., on epistle of polycarp, 21; on tatian's _diatessaron_, 150 dorner, 4 dressel, 79 ebrard, 7 elias of salamia, his _diatessaron_, 147 f.; he finds fault with canons of eusebius, 148 ephraem syrus, his commentary on tatian's _diatessaron_, 147 f.; date, 148; alleged armenian version of his commentary, 145; date of the ms., 150; translated from syriac, 150; evidence, 150 f.; tatian's name not mentioned, 150; value as evidence if genuine, 154 epiphanius, 150 eusebius, on papias, 7; silence of, 45 f.; my only inference from silence of, 50 f.; procedure of, 50 f.; his references to hegesippus, 52 ff.; his references to john, 53 ff.; on claudius apollinaris, 137; on polycrates of ephesus, 137; on tatian's _diatessaron_, 146 f.; on _diatessaron_ of ammonius, 148 f.; his epistle to carpianus, 148 f., 152 ewald, 32, 33, 62, 63, 79, 141 farrar, dr., 34 francke, 97 gfrörer, 7, 75 glaucias, 15, 18, 19, gobarus, stephanus, 23 godet, 32 gospel, the fourth, contrast with synoptics, 26 f., 26 n. 2; hebraic character of its language, 27 ff.; eusebius regarding it, 49, 51, 53 f., 55 ff.; evidence to it of martyrdom of polycarp, 135; alleged evidence of claudius apollinaris, 137; alleged evidence of polycrates 137; supposed reference to it in epistle of vienne and lyons, 144; tatian's _diatessaron_ said to begin with it, 147 f.; insufficiency of evidence for it, 162 ff.; its contents cannot be reconciled with synoptics, 163 f. gospels, justin's use of, 24 f.; evidence of alleged quotations, 24 f.; object in examining evidence for, 37 ff., 41 ff.; numerous gospels circulating in early church, 131 f.; anonymous quotations not necessarily from canonical, 131 ff.; illustrations of this, 132 ff.; evidence of martyrdom of polycarp, 135; evidence of melito of sardis, 135 f.; evidence of claudius apollinaris, 137; evidence of epistle of vienne and lyons, 141 ff.; principles on which evidence is examined, 162; insufficiency of evidence for, 162 ff. greet, hofstede de, 5, 9 n. 2 grove, 34 guericke, 7, 90 f., 93 hadrian, 12 hagenbach, 91, 93 harless, 75 hase, 76 hebrews, gospel according to the, 122 f., 123, 150 hefele, 80 hegesippus, his attitude to paul, 23; references to him by eusebius, 52 ff.; on simeon, 52 hemphill, professor, did eusebius directly know tatian's _diatessaron_? 146 f.; on arabic _diatessaron_, 149; it takes matthew as basis, 149; its substantial identity with victor's _diatessaron_, 153 hengstenberg, 31 hilgenfeld, on passage of irenaeus, 5 f.; on ignatian epistles, 78, 79; place and date of martyrdom of ignatius, 97 ff.; on papias and matthew's hebrew "oracles," 122; protevangelium jacobi, 142; eusebius on tatian's _diatessaron_, 146 f. hippolytus, 17 f. holtzmann, 135, 147 hug, 32 humfrey, 66 ignatius, epistle of polycarp regarding him, 20 ff.; date and place of his martyrdom, 87, 94 ff.; his alleged martyr-journey, 94 ff.; his treatment during it, 99 f.; compared with paul's journey, 100 f.; compared with case of peregrinus, 101 ff.; reasons opposed to martyr-journey to rome, and for martyrdom in antioch, 104 ff.; remains of ignatius, 111 ff.; martyrologies, 112 f. ignatian epistles, dr. lightfoot on, 57 ff.; critics on priority of syriac version, 59 ff., long recension, 64 ff.; vossian epistles, 67 ff.; version of ussher, 67; armenian version, 78 ff.; eusebian epistles, 80 ff.; their order in mss., 82 ff.; their value as evidence, 113 f. irenaeus, 3 ff. jacobson, 65 jerome, 110 f. john, references of eusebius, 53 ff.; papias and presbyters on, 55 f.; double use of name, 55 f. justin martyr, his quotations, 28 ff. keim, 135 kestner, 70, 71 kirchhofer, 7 lange, 32 lardner, 70, 136 lechler, 76 f. lightfoot, 32, 33 lightfoot, dr., objectionable style of criticism, 1 f., 3, 7 f., 13 n. 1, 14 f., 15 n. 1, 20, 21, 23 f., 24 n. 5, 25 f., 27, 30 f., 36, 44 f., 46 f., 57 ff., 68 ff.; 73 ff., 144; on a passage of irenaeus, 3 ff.; discussion of date of celsus, 9 ff.; dr. westcott on basilides, 15 ff.; weightier arguments of apologists, 20 ff.; on epistle of polycarp, 20 f., object of papias' work, 22; on hegesippus and apostle paul, 22 f.; on justin martyr's quotations, 23 ff.; on duration of ministry of jesus, 26 f.; on hebraic character of language of the fourth gospel, 27 ff.; identification of sychar, 30 ff.; on argument of s.r., 36 ff.; on silence of eusebius, 45 ff.; the intention of eusebius, 44 f.; procedure of eusebius, 50 f.; silence of eusebius as evidence for fourth gospel, 56 f.; on ignatian epistles, 57 ff.; on view of lipsius, 60 f.; misstatements regarding references in s.r., 61 ff.; differentiation of ignatian epistles, 80 ff.; their position in mss., 82 ff.; on martyr-journey and treatment of ignatius, 99 f.; compared with apostle paul's, 100 f.; compared with case of peregrinus proteus, 101 ff.; on john malalas, 108 ff.; on polycarp of smyrna, 115 f.; date of his epistle, 115; does not examine alleged quotations of gospels, 116; on papias of hierapolis, 117 ff.; papias on mark, 117 f.; papias on matthew, 119 ff.; on accuracy of papias, 120 ff.; translation of hebrew oracles of matthew, 121 f.; on gospel according to the hebrews, 122 f.; on nature of oracles of matthew, 124 ff.; can oracles include narrative? 125 f.; his misapprehension of argument of s.r., 129 ff.; on martyrdom of polycarp, 135; on melito of sardis, 135 f.; erroneous quotation from s.r., 136, n. 2; on claudius apollinaris, 137 f.; on polycrates of ephesus, 137; on epistle of vienne and lyons, 139 ff.; on the "testimony of zacharias," 140 ff.; alleged reference to acts, 142 f.; alleged reference to fourth gospel, 144; tatian's diatessaron, 145 f.; on eusebius's mention of it, 146 f.; did he directly know it? 146; on doctrine of addai, 147; it mentions tatian's diatessaron, 147; dionysius bar-salibi on tatian's _diatessaron_, 147 f.; on _diatessaron_ of ammonius, 148; quite different from tatian's work, 148 f.; similarity to arabic version asserted by hemphill, 149; case of victor of capua, 152 f.; victor must have been mistaken, 153 f.; victor not mistaken after all, 153; on letter of the smyrnaens, 154 ff.; a short way with its miraculous elements, 154 f.; practically justifies procedure of "supernatural religion," 156 lipsius, on ignatian epistles, 60 f., 63, 78, 79; on martyrdom of polycarp, 135 logia, meaning of, in n.t., 124 ff. logos doctrine in apocalypse, 30 n. 1 lucian, 12, 101 f. luke, gospel according to, supposed reference to it in epistle of vienne and lyons, 141 f.; its use in _diatessaron_, 149, 153 luthardt, on passage of irenaeus, 6; on basilides, 18; on language of fourth gospel and apocalypse, 28 ff. magdeburg centuriators, 64 malalas, john, on martyrdom of ignatius, 108 ff. marcus aurelius, 105 f. mark, presbyters and papias on, 117 f.; not eye-witness but interpreter of peter, 118 f.; value of his gospel as evidence, 118 f.; use in _diatessaron_, 149 matthew, presbyters and papias on, 55 f., 119 ff.; wrote oracles in hebrew, 119 ff.; when translated, 121 ff.; use in _diatessaron_ of ammonius, 148; also in that of tatian, 149 f. matthias, 16, 18 mayerhoff, 91, 93 melito of sardis, 135 f. merx, 78, 79 meyer, on passage of irenaeus, 5, 82 mill, on miracles, 36 ff. milman, 59, 62, 63, 105 n. 1, 107 f. moesinger, ephraem's commentary, 145 f., 150 mozley, on belief, 35 f. neander, 70, 71 f., 105 f. neubauer, 30, 34 nicephorus, 111 n. 1 olshausen, 7, 32 "oracles," meaning of, 124 ff. origen, on celsus, 10 f. papias of hierapolis, alleged quotations from him, 3 ff.; object of his work, 22; references of eusebius to him, 54 ff.; words of the presbyters, 55 f.; double reference to "john," 55 f.; he had nothing to tell of fourth gospel, 55 ff.; on mark's gospel, 117 ff.; on matthew's hebrew oracles, 119 f.; value of his evidence for the gospels, 127 f. parker, 65, 66 paul, apostle, his treatment as prisoner compared to that of ignatius, 100 f.; unconscious testimony regarding the supernatural, 165; his testimony for resurrection and ascension, 165 f. pearson, 67 peregrinus proteus, 102 ff. perpetua, saturus and, 100 petau, 65, 67 petermann, 78 ff. phillips, 147 polycarp of smyrna, 115 f.; date of martyrdom, 115 polycarp, martyrdom of, 135, 154 ff.; dr. lightfoot's short way with the miraculous elements, 154 f. polycrates of ephesus, date, 137; evidence for fourth gospel, 137 pressensé, de, 60 protevangelium jacobi, 142 quadratus, statius, date of proconsulship, 115 "religion, supernatural," argument of, 36 ff., 40 ff., 129 ff.; canons of criticism, 130 ff.; the "testimony of zacharias," epistle of vienne and lyons, 140 ff.; was eusebius directly acquainted with tatian's _diatessaron_? 146 f.; argument of s.r. practically justified by dr. lightfoot, 154 ff.; conclusions of, 157 ff.; evidence of divine revelation which is necessary, 157; miracles as evidence destroyed by doubtful source, 157 f.; miraculous evidence not original, 158 f., stream of miraculous pretension, 158; true character of miracles betrayed, 158 f.; origin of belief in supernatural interference, 159; assumptions to justify miracles, 159 f.; an infinite personal god, 159 f.; divine design of revelation, 160; miracles antecedently incredible, 160 f.; evidence for the christian miracles, 161 f.; principles upon which evidence examined, 162; evidence for gospels, 162 f.; evidence for acts, 164; the remaining books of new testament, 164 f.; evidence of paul, 165; evidence for resurrection and ascension, 165 f.; results tested by general considerations, 166 ff.; claim of christianity to be divinely revealed not original, 166 f.; history and achievements of christianity opposed to it, 167 f.; census of religions, 168 n. 1; how far the great teacher was misunderstood, 168 f.; transformation of christianity, 169 f.; alleged objections to disturbing belief, 169 f.; objections not valid, 170 f.; argument that divine revelation is necessary to man, 172 f.; we gain more than we lose by finding our theology to be mere human inventions, 173 f. resurrection, evidence for, 165 f. reuss, 147 riggenbach, on passage of irenaeus, 5; on sychar, 32 ritschl, 62, 63 rivet, 64, 65, 67 routh, on passage of irenaeus, 4 ruinart, anniversary of ignatius, 112 rumpf, 60 sanday, 33 saumaise, 65, 66 schleimann, 75 f. scholten, 11 n. 2, 80, 91 f., 96 f., 147 schroeckh, 70, 71 schürer, 135 shechem, 30 ff. simeon, 52, 105 f. smyrnaens, letter of, 154 ff.; dr. lightfoot as a sceptical critic, 154 f. socinus, 65 stephen, 142 f. sychar, 30 ff. synoptics, contrasted with fourth gospel, 26 f. tatian's _diatessaron_: see diatessaron theodoret, the ignatian epistles, 81 thiersch, 7, 70 tholuck, 7 tischendorf, on passage of irenaeus, 3 ff.; passage of celsus, 11 ff.; does not notice armenian version of ignatian epistles, 80; "testimony of zacharias," in epistle of vienne and lyons, 142; it is a reference to the protevangelium jacobi, 142 trajan, in connection with the martyrdom of ignatius, 89 ff., 105 ff. tregelles, 60, 82 f. uhlhorn, 78, 79 ussher, 67 vienne and lyons, epistle of, 139 ff.; date, 139; the "testimony of zacharias," 140 f.; alleged quotations of acts, 142 ff.; value of evidence, 143; dr. lightfoot on fragrance of the martyrs, 155 volkmar, on celsus, 10 ff.; on ignatian epistles, 60; does not notice armenian version, 80; date of martyrdom of ignatius, 92 f.; place of martyrdom, 94 ff. vossian epistles of ignatius, 67 f. wace, dr., 153 waddington, 115 weiss, 62, 63, 78, 79 weissmann, 69 f. westcott, dr., criticisms on, 3 f.; on papias, 4; on basilides, 15 ff.; on justin martyr's quotations, 23 ff.; on "supernatural religion," 44 f.; misstatements regarding notes, 85 ff.; was eusebius directly acquainted with tatian's _diatessaron_? 147 wette, de, 7, 15 n. 1, 32 wieseler, 31, 32 wotton, 68, 69 zacharias, the testimony of, epistle of vienne and lyons, 140 ff. zahn, on passage of irenaeus, 6; on ignatian epistles, 78, 79, 99 n. 1, 101; on john malalas, 110, date of martyrdom of ignatius, 112; did eusebius directly know tatian's _diatessaron_? 147; passages regarding descent of jesus from david not all excised from alleged armenian version, 150 zeller, on passage of irenaeus, 5 www.pgdp.net. collected essays; volume v science and christian tradition by thomas h. huxley new york, d. appleton and company, 1902 preface "for close upon forty years i have been writing with one purpose; from time to time, i have fought for that which seemed to me the truth, perhaps still more, against that which i have thought error; and, in this way, i have reached, indeed over-stepped, the threshold of old age. there, every earnest man has to listen to the voice within: 'give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward.' "that i have been an unjust steward my conscience does not bear witness. at times blundering, at times negligent, heaven knows: but, on the whole, i have done that which i felt able and called upon to do; and i have done it without looking to the right or to the left; seeking no man's favor, fearing no man's disfavor. "but what is it that i have been doing? in the end one's conceptions should form a whole, though only parts may have found utterance, as occasion arose; now do these exhibit harmony and mutual connexion? in one's zeal much of the old gets broken to pieces; but has one made ready something new, fit to be set in the place of the old? "that they merely destroy without reconstructing, is the especial charge, with which those who work in this direction are constantly reproached. in a certain sense i do not defend myself against the charge; but i deny that any reproach is deserved. "i have never proposed to myself to begin outward construction; because i do not believe that the time has come for it. our present business is with inward preparation, especially the preparation of those who have ceased to be content with the old, and find no satisfaction in half measures. i have wished, and i still wish, to disturb no man's peace of mind, no man's beliefs; but only to point out to those in whom they are already shattered, the direction in which, in my conviction, firmer ground lies."[1] so wrote one of the protagonists of the new reformation--and a well-abused man if ever there was one--a score of years since, in the remarkable book in which he discusses the negative and the positive results of the rigorous application of scientific method to the investigation of the higher problems of human life. recent experience leads me to imagine that there may be a good many countrymen of my own, even at this time, to whom it may be profitable to read, mark and inwardly digest, the weighty words of the author of that "leben jesu," which, half a century ago, stirred the religious world so seriously that it has never settled down again quite on the old foundations; indeed, some think it never will. i have a personal interest in the carrying out of the recommendation i venture to make. it may enable many worthy persons, in whose estimation i should really be glad to stand higher than i do, to become aware of the possibility that my motives in writing the essays, contained in this and the preceding volume, were not exactly those that they ascribe to me. i too have reached the term at which the still, small voice, more audible than any other to the dulled ear of age, makes its demand; and i have found that it is of no sort of use to try to cook the accounts rendered. nevertheless, i distinctly decline to admit some of the items charged; more particularly that of having "gone out of my way" to attack the bible; and i as steadfastly deny that "hatred of christianity" is a feeling with which i have any acquaintance. there are very few things which i find it permissible to hate; and though, it may be, that some of the organisations, which arrogate to themselves the christian name, have richly earned a place in the category of hateful things, that ought to have nothing to do with one's estimation of the religion, which they have perverted and disfigured out of all likeness to the original. the simple fact is that, as i have already more than once hinted, my story is that of the wolf and the lamb over again. i have never "gone out of my way" to attack the bible, or anything else: it was the dominant ecclesiasticism of my early days, which, as i believe, without any warrant from the bible itself, thrust the book in my way. i had set out on a journey, with no other purpose than that of exploring a certain province of natural knowledge; i strayed no hair's breadth from the course which it was my right and my duty to pursue; and yet i found that, whatever route i took, before long, i came to a tall and formidable-looking fence. confident as i might be in the existence of an ancient and indefeasible right of way, before me stood the thorny barrier with its comminatory notice-board--"no thoroughfare. by order. moses." there seemed no way over; nor did the prospect of creeping round, as i saw some do, attract me. true there was no longer any cause to fear the spring guns and man-traps set by former lords of the manor; but one is apt to get very dirty going on all-fours. the only alternatives were either to give up my journey--which i was not minded to do--or to break the fence down and go through it. now i was and am, by nature, a law-abiding person, ready and willing to submit to all legitimate authority. but i also had and have a rooted conviction, that reasonable assurance of the legitimacy should precede the submission; so i made it my business to look up the manorial title-deeds. the pretensions of the ecclesiastical "moses" to exercise a control over the operations of the reasoning faculty in the search after truth, thirty centuries after his age, might be justifiable; but, assuredly, the credentials produced in justification of claims so large required careful scrutiny. singular discoveries rewarded my industry. the ecclesiastical "moses" proved to be a mere traditional mask, behind which, no doubt, lay the features of the historical moses--just as many a mediæval fresco has been hidden by the whitewash of georgian churchwardens. and as the æsthetic rector too often scrapes away the defacement, only to find blurred, parti-coloured patches, in which the original design is no longer to be traced; so, when the successive layers of jewish and christian traditional pigment, laid on, at intervals, for near three thousand years, had been removed, by even the tenderest critical operations, there was not much to be discerned of the leader of the exodus. only one point became perfectly clear to me, namely, that moses is not responsible for nine-tenths of the pentateuch; certainly not for the legends which had been made the bugbears of science. in fact, the fence turned out to be a mere heap of dry sticks and brushwood, and one might walk through it with impunity: the which i did. but i was still young, when i thus ventured to assert my liberty; and young people are apt to be filled with a kind of _sæva indignatio_, when they discover the wide discrepancies between things as they seem and things as they are. it hurts their vanity to feel that they have prepared themselves for a mighty struggle to climb over, or break their way through, a rampart, which turns out, on close approach, to be a mere heap of ruins; venerable, indeed, and archæologically interesting, but of no other moment. and some fragment of the superfluous energy accumulated is apt to find vent in strong language. such, i suppose, was my case, when i wrote some passages which occur in an essay reprinted among "darwiniana."[2] but when, not long ago "the voice" put it to me, whether i had better not expunge, or modify, these passages; whether, really, they were not a little too strong; i had to reply, with all deference, that while, from a merely literary point of view, i might admit them to be rather crude, i must stand by the substance of these items of my expenditure. i further ventured to express the conviction that scientific criticism of the old testament, since 1860, has justified every word of the estimate of the authority of the ecclesiastical "moses" written at that time. and, carried away by the heat of self-justification, i even ventured to add, that the desperate attempt now set afoot to force biblical and post-biblical mythology into elementary instruction, renders it useful and necessary to go on making a considerable outlay in the same direction. not yet, has "the cosmogony of the semi-barbarous hebrew" ceased to be the "incubus of the philosopher, and the opprobrium of the orthodox;" not yet, has "the zeal of the bibliolater" ceased from troubling; not yet, are the weaker sort, even of the instructed, at rest from their fruitless toil "to harmonise impossibilities," and "to force the generous new wine of science into the old bottles of judaism." but i am aware that the head and front of my offending lies not now where it formerly lay. thirty years ago, criticism of "moses" was held by most respectable people to be deadly sin; now it has sunk to the rank of a mere peccadillo; at least, if it stops short of the history of abraham. destroy the foundation of most forms of dogmatic christianity contained in the second chapter of genesis, if you will; the new ecclesiasticism undertakes to underpin the superstructure and make it, at any rate to the eye, as firm as ever: but let him be anathema who applies exactly the same canons of criticism to the opening chapters of "matthew" or of "luke." school-children may be told that the world was by no means made in six days, and that implicit belief in the story of noah's ark is permissible only, as a matter of business, to their toy-makers; but they are to hold for the certainest of truths, to be doubted only at peril of their salvation, that their galilean fellow-child jesus, nineteen centuries ago, had no human father. * * * * * well, we will pass the item of 1860, said "the voice." but why all this more recent coil about the gadarene swine and the like? do you pretend that these poor animals got in your way, years and years after the "mosaic" fences were down, at any rate so far as you are concerned? got in my way? why, my good "voice," they were driven in my way. i had happened to make a statement, than which, so far as i have ever been able to see, nothing can be more modest or inoffensive; to wit, that i am convinced of my own utter ignorance about a great number of things, respecting which the great majority of my neighbours (not only those of adult years, but children repeating their catechisms) affirm themselves to possess full information. i ask any candid and impartial judge, is that attacking anybody or anything? yet, if i had made the most wanton and arrogant onslaught on the honest convictions of other people, i could not have been more hardly dealt with. the pentecostal charism, i believe, exhausted itself amongst the earliest disciples. yet any one who has had to attend, as i have done, to copious objurgations, strewn with such appellations as "infidel" and "coward," must be a hardened sceptic indeed if he doubts the existence of a "gift of tongues" in the churches of our time; unless, indeed, it should occur to him that some of these outpourings may have taken place after "the third hour of the day." i am far from thinking that it is worth while to give much attention to these inevitable incidents of all controversies, in which one party has acquired the mental peculiarities which are generated by the habit of much talking, with immunity from criticism. but as a rule, they are the sauce of dishes of misrepresentations and inaccuracies which it may be a duty, nay, even an innocent pleasure, to expose. in the particular case of which i am thinking, i felt, as strauss says, "able and called upon" to undertake the business: and it is no responsibility of mine, if i found the gospels, with their miraculous stories, of which the gadarene is a typical example, blocking my way, as heretofore, the pentateuch had done. i was challenged to question the authority for the theory of "the spiritual world," and the practical consequences deducible from human relations to it, contained in these documents. in my judgment, the actuality of this spiritual world--the value of the evidence for its objective existence and its influence upon the course of things--are matters, which lie as much within the province of science, as any other question about the existence and powers of the varied forms of living and conscious activity. it really is my strong conviction that a man has no more right to say he believes this world is haunted by swarms of evil spirits, without being able to produce satisfactory evidence of the fact, than he has a right to say, without adducing adequate proof, that the circumpolar antarctic ice swarms with sea-serpents. i should not like to assert positively that it does not. i imagine that no cautious biologist would say as much; but while quite open to conviction, he might properly decline to waste time upon the consideration of talk, no better accredited than forecastle "yarns," about such monsters of the deep. and if the interests of ordinary veracity dictate this course, in relation to a matter of so little consequence as this, what must be our obligations in respect of the treatment of a question which is fundamental alike for science and for ethics? for not only does our general theory of the universe and of the nature of the order which pervades it, hang upon the answer; but the rules of practical life must be deeply affected by it. the belief in a demonic world is inculcated throughout the gospels and the rest of the books of the new testament; it pervades the whole patristic literature; it colours the theory and the practice of every christian church down to modern times. indeed, i doubt if, even now, there is any church which, officially, departs from such a fundamental doctrine of primitive christianity as the existence, in addition to the cosmos with which natural knowledge is conversant, of a world of spirits; that is to say, of intelligent agents, not subject to the physical or mental limitations of humanity, but nevertheless competent to interfere, to an undefined extent, with the ordinary course of both physical and mental phenomena. more especially is this conception fundamental for the authors of the gospels. without the belief that the present world, and particularly that part of it which is constituted by human society, has been given over, since the fall, to the influence of wicked and malignant spiritual beings, governed and directed by a supreme devil--the moral antithesis and enemy of the supreme god--their theory of salvation by the messiah falls to pieces. "to this end was the son of god manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil."[3] the half-hearted religiosity of latter-day christianity may choose to ignore the fact; but it remains none the less true, that he who refuses to accept the demonology of the gospels rejects the revelation of a spiritual world, made in them, as much as if he denied the existence of such a person as jesus of nazareth; and deserves, as much as any one can do, to be ear-marked "infidel" by our gentle shepherds. * * * * * now that which i thought it desirable to make perfectly clear, on my own account, and for the sake of those who find their capacity of belief in the gospel theory of the universe failing them, is the fact, that, in my judgment, the demonology of primitive christianity is totally devoid of foundation; and that no man, who is guided by the rules of investigation which are found to lead to the discovery of truth in other matters, not merely of science, but in the everyday affairs of life, will arrive at any other conclusion. to those who profess to be otherwise guided, i have nothing to say; but to beg them to go their own way and leave me to mine. i think it may be as well to repeat what i have said, over and over again, elsewhere, that _a priori_ notions, about the possibility, or the impossibility, of the existence of a world of spirits, such as that presupposed by genuine christianity, have no influence on my mind. the question for me is purely one of evidence: is the evidence adequate to bear out the theory, or is it not? in my judgment it is not only inadequate, but quite absurdly insufficient. and on that ground, i should feel compelled to reject the theory; even if there were no positive grounds for adopting a totally different conception of the cosmos. for most people, the question of the evidence of the existence of a demonic world, in the long run, resolves itself into that of the trustworthiness of the gospels; first, as to the objective truth of that which they narrate on this topic; second, as to the accuracy of the interpretation which their authors put upon these objective facts. for example, with respect to the gadarene miracle, it is one question whether, at a certain time and place, a raving madman became sane, and a herd of swine rushed into the lake of tiberias; and quite another, whether the cause of these occurrences was the transmigration of certain devils from the man into the pigs. and again, it is one question whether jesus made a long oration on a certain occasion, mentioned in the first gospel; altogether another, whether more or fewer of the propositions contained in the "sermon on the mount" were uttered on that occasion. one may give an affirmative answer to one of each of these pairs of questions and a negative to the other: one may affirm all, or deny all. in considering the historical value of any four documents, proof when they were written and who wrote them is, no doubt, highly important. for if proof exists, that a b c and d wrote them, and that they were intelligent persons, writing independently and without prejudice, about facts within their own knowledge--their statements must needs be worthy of the most attentive consideration.[4] but, even ecclesiastical tradition does not assert that either "mark" or "luke" wrote from his own knowledge--indeed "luke" expressly asserts he did not. i cannot discover that any competent authority now maintains that the apostle matthew wrote the gospel which passes under his name. and whether the apostle john had, or had not, anything to do with the fourth gospel; and if he had, what his share amounted to; are, as everybody who has attended to these matters knows, questions still hotly disputed, and with regard to which the extant evidence can hardly carry an impartial judge beyond the admission of a possibility this way or that. thus, nothing but a balancing of very dubious probabilities is to be attained by approaching the question from this side. it is otherwise if we make the documents tell their own story: if we study them, as we study fossils, to discover internal evidence, of when they arose, and how they have come to be. that really fruitful line of inquiry has led to the statement and the discussion of what is known as the _synoptic problem_. in the essays (vii.--xi.) which deal with the consequences of the application of the agnostic principle to christian evidences, contained in this volume, there are several references to the results of the attempts which have been made, during the last hundred years, to solve this problem. and, though it has been clearly stated and discussed, in works accessible to, and intelligible by, every english reader,[5] it may be well that i should here set forth a very brief exposition of the matters of fact out of which the problem has arisen; and of some consequences, which, as i conceive, must be admitted if the facts are accepted. these undisputed and, apparently, indisputable data may be thus stated: i. the three books of which an ancient, but very questionable, ecclesiastical tradition asserts matthew, mark, and luke to be the authors, agree, not only in presenting the same general view, or _synopsis_, of the nature and the order of the events narrated; but, to a remarkable extent, the very words which they employ coincide. ii. nevertheless, there are many equally marked, and some irreconcilable, differences between them. narratives, verbally identical in some portions, diverge more or less in others. the order in which they occur in one, or in two, gospels may be changed in another. in "matthew" and in "luke" events of great importance make their appearance, where the story of "mark" seems to leave no place for them; and, at the beginning and the end of the two former gospels, there is a great amount of matter of which there is no trace in "mark." iii. obvious and highly important differences, in style and substance, separate the three "synoptics," taken together, from the fourth gospel, connected, by ecclesiastical tradition, with the name of the apostle john. in its philosophical proemium; in the conspicuous absence of exorcistic miracles; in the self-assertive theosophy of the long and diffuse monologues, which are so utterly unlike the brief and pregnant utterances of jesus recorded in the synoptics; in the assertion that the crucifixion took place before the passover, which involves the denial, by implication, of the truth of the synoptic story--to mention only a few particulars--the "johannine" gospel presents a wide divergence from the other three. iv. if the mutual resemblances and differences of the synoptic gospels are closely considered, a curious result comes out; namely, that each may be analyzed into four components. the _first_ of these consists of passages, to a greater or less extent verbally identical, which occur in all three gospels. if this triple tradition is separated from the rest it will be found to comprise: _a_. a narrative, of a somewhat broken and anecdotic aspect, which covers the period from the appearance of john the baptist to the discovery of the emptiness of the tomb, on the first day of the week, some six-and-thirty hours after the crucifixion. _b_. an apocalyptic address. _c_. parables and brief discourses, or rather, centos of religious and ethical exhortations and injunctions. the _second_ and the _third_ set of components of each gospel present equally close resemblances to passages, which are found in only one of the other gospels; therefore it may be said that, for them, the tradition is double. the _fourth_ component is peculiar to each gospel; it is a single tradition and has no representative in the others. to put the facts in another way: each gospel is composed of a _threefold tradition_, two _twofold traditions_, and one _peculiar tradition_. if the gospels were the work of totally independent writers, it would follow that there are three witnesses for the statements in the first tradition; two for each of those in the second, and only one for those in the third. v. if the reader will now take up that extremely instructive little book, abbott and rushbrooke's "common tradition" he will easily satisfy himself that "mark" has the remarkable structure just described. almost the whole of this gospel consists of the first component; namely, the _threefold tradition_. but in chap. i. 23-28 he will discover an exorcistic story, not to be found in "matthew," but repeated, often word for word, in "luke." this, therefore, belongs to one of the _twofold traditions_. in chap. viii. 1-10, on the other hand, there is a detailed account of the miracle of feeding the four thousand; which is closely repeated in "matthew" xv. 32-39, but is not to be found in "luke." this is an example of the other _twofold tradition_, possible in "mark." finally, the story of the blind man of bethsaida, "mark" viii. 22-26, is _peculiar_ to "mark." vi. suppose that, a standing for the _threefold tradition_, or the matter common to all three gospels; we call the matter common to "mark" and "matthew" only--b; that common to "mark" and "luke" only--c; that common to "matthew" and "luke" only--d; while the peculiar components of "mark," "matthew," and "luke" are severally indicated by e, f, g; then the structure of the gospels may be represented thus: components of "mark" = a + b + c + e. " "matthew" = a + b + d + f. " "luke" = a + c + d + g. vii. the analysis of the synoptic documents need be carried no further than this point, in order to suggest one extremely important, and, apparently unavoidable conclusion; and that is, that their authors were neither three independent witnesses of the things narrated; nor, for the parts of the narrative about which all agree, that is to say, the _threefold tradition_, did they employ independent sources of information. it is simply incredible that each of three independent witnesses of any series of occurrences should tell a story so similar, not only in arrangement and in small details, but in words, to that of each of the others. hence it follows, either that the synoptic writers have, mediately or immediately, copied one from the other: or that the three have drawn from a common source; that is to say, from one arrangement of similar traditions (whether oral or written); though that arrangement may have been extant in three or more, somewhat different versions. viii. the suppositions (_a_) that "mark" had "matthew" and "luke" before him; and (_b_) that either of the two latter was acquainted with the work of the other, would seem to involve some singular consequences. _a_. the second gospel is saturated with the lowest supernaturalism. jesus is exhibited as a wonder-worker and exorcist of the first rank. the earliest public recognition of the messiahship of jesus comes from an "unclean spirit"; he himself is made to testify to the occurrence of the miraculous feeding twice over. the purpose with which "mark" sets out is to show forth jesus as the son of god, and it is suggested, if not distinctly stated, that he acquired this character at his baptism by john. the absence of any reference to the miraculous events of the infancy, detailed by "matthew" and "luke;" or to the appearances after the discovery of the emptiness of the tomb; is unintelligible, if "mark" knew anything about them, or believed in the miraculous conception. the second gospel is no summary: "mark" can find room for the detailed story, irrelevant to his main purpose, of the beheading of john the baptist, and his miraculous narrations are crowded with minute particulars. is it to be imagined that, with the supposed apostolic authority of matthew before him, he could leave out the miraculous conception of jesus and the ascension? further, ecclesiastical tradition would have us believe that mark wrote down his recollections of what peter taught. did peter then omit to mention these matters? did the fact testified by the oldest authority extant, that the first appearance of the risen jesus was to himself seem not worth mentioning? did he really fail to speak of the great position in the church solemnly assigned to him by jesus? the alternative would seem to be the impeachment either of mark's memory, or of his judgment. but mark's memory, is so good that he can recollect how, on the occasion of the stilling of the waves, jesus was asleep "on the cushion," he remembers that the woman with the issue had "spent all she had" on her physicians; that there was not room "even about the door" on a certain occasion at capernaum. and it is surely hard to believe that "mark" should have failed to recollect occurrences of infinitely greater moment, or that he should have deliberately left them out, as things not worthy of mention. _b_. the supposition that "matthew" was acquainted with "luke," or "luke" with "matthew" has equally grave implications. if that be so, the one who used the other could have had but a poor opinion of his predecessor's historical veracity. if, as most experts agree, "luke" is later than "matthew," it is clear that he does not credit "matthew's" account of the infancy; does not believe the "sermon on the mount" as given by matthew was preached; does not believe in the two feeding miracles, to which jesus himself is made to refer; wholly discredits "matthew's" account of the events after the crucifixion; and thinks it not worth while to notice "matthew's" grave admission that "some doubted." ix. none of these troublesome consequences pursue the hypothesis that the _threefold tradition_, in one, or more, greek versions, was extant before either of the canonical synoptic gospels; and that it furnished the fundamental framework of their several narratives. where and when the threefold narrative arose, there is no positive evidence; though it is obviously probable that the traditions it embodies, and perhaps many others, took their rise in palestine and spread thence to asia minor, greece, egypt and italy, in the track of the early missionaries. nor is it less likely that they formed part of the "didaskalia" of the primitive nazarene and christian communities.[6] x. the interest which attaches to "mark" arises from the fact that it seems to present this early, probably earliest, greek gospel narrative, with least addition, or modification. if, as appears likely from some internal evidences, it was compiled for the use of the christian sodalities in rome; and that it was accepted by them as an adequate account of the life and work of jesus, it is evidence of the most valuable kind respecting their beliefs and the limits of dogma, as conceived by them. in such case, a good roman christian of that epoch might know nothing of the doctrine of the incarnation, as taught by "matthew" and "luke"; still less of the "logos" doctrine of "john"; neither need he have believed anything more than the simple fact of the resurrection. it was open to him to believe it either corporeal or spiritual. he would never have heard of the power of the keys bestowed upon peter; nor have had brought to his mind so much as a suggestion of trinitarian doctrine. he might be a rigidly monotheistic judæo-christian, and consider himself bound by the law: he might be a gentile pauline convert, neither knowing of nor caring for such restrictions. in neither case would he find in "mark" any serious stumbling-block. in fact, persons of all the categories admitted to salvation by justin, in the middle of the second century,[7] could accept "mark" from beginning to end. it may well be, that, in this wide adaptability, backed by the authority of the metropolitan church, there lies the reason for the fact of the preservation of "mark," notwithstanding its limited and dogmatically colourless character, as compared with the gospels of "luke" and "matthew." xi. "mark," as we have seen, contains a relatively small body of ethical and religious instruction and only a few parables. were these all that existed in the primitive threefold tradition? were none others current in the roman communities, at the time "mark" wrote, supposing he wrote in rome? or, on the other hand, was there extant, as early as the time at which "mark" composed his greek edition of the primitive evangel, one or more collections of parables and teachings, such as those which form the bulk of the twofold tradition, common exclusively to "matthew" and "luke," and are also found in their single traditions? many have assumed this, or these, collections to be identical with, or at any rate based upon, the "logia," of which ecclesiastical tradition says, that they were written in aramaic by matthew, and that everybody translated them as he could. here is the old difficulty again. if such materials were known to "mark," what imaginable reason could he have for not using them? surely displacement of the long episode of john the baptist--even perhaps of the story of the gadarene swine--by portions of the sermon on the mount or by one or two of the beautiful parables in the twofold and single traditions would have been great improvements; and might have been effected, even though "mark" was as much pressed for space as some have imagined. but there is no ground for that imagination; mark has actually found room for four or five parables; why should he not have given the best, if he had known of them? admitting he was the mere _pedissequus et breviator_ of matthew, that even augustine supposed him to be, what could induce him to omit the lord's prayer? whether more or less of the materials of the twofold tradition d, and of the peculiar traditions f and g, were or were not current in some of the communities, as early as, or perhaps earlier than, the triple tradition, it is not necessary for me to discuss; nor to consider those solutions of the synoptic problem which assume that it existed earlier, and was already combined with more or less narrative. those who are working out the final solution of the synoptic problem are taking into account, more than hitherto, the possibility that the widely separated christian communities of palestine, asia minor, egypt, and italy, especially after the jewish war of a.d. 66-70, may have found themselves in possession of very different traditional materials. many circumstances tend to the conclusion that, in asia minor, even the narrative part of the threefold tradition had a formidable rival; and that, around this second narrative, teaching traditions of a totally different order from those in the synoptics, grouped themselves; and, under the influence of converts imbued more or less with the philosophical speculations of the time, eventually took shape in the fourth gospel and its associated literature. xii. but it is unnecessary, and it would be out of place, for me to attempt to do more than indicate the existence of these complex and difficult questions. my purpose has been to make it clear that the synoptic problem must force itself upon every one who studies the gospels with attention; that the broad facts of the case, and some of the consequences deducible from these facts, are just as plain to the simple english reader as they are to the profoundest scholar. one of these consequences is that the threefold tradition presents us with a narrative believed to be historically true, in all its particulars, by the major part, if not the whole, of the christian communities. that narrative is penetrated, from beginning to end, by the demonological beliefs of which the gadarene story is a specimen; and, if the fourth gospel indicates the existence of another and, in some respects, irreconcilably divergent narrative, in which the demonology retires into the background, it is none the less there. therefore, the demonology is an integral and inseparable component of primitive christianity. the farther back the origin of the gospels is dated, the stronger does the certainty of this conclusion grow; and the more difficult it becomes to suppose that jesus himself may not have shared the superstitious beliefs of his disciples. it further follows that those who accept devils, possession, and exorcism as essential elements of their conception of the spiritual world may consistently consider the testimony of the gospels to be unimpeachable in respect of the information they give us respecting other matters which appertain to that world. those who reject the gospel demonology, on the other hand, would seem to be as completely barred, as i feel myself to be, from professing to take the accuracy of that information for granted. if the threefold tradition is wrong about one fundamental topic, it may be wrong about another, while the authority of the single traditions, often mutually contradictory as they are, becomes a vanishing quantity. it really is unreasonable to ask any rejector of the demonology to say more with respect to those other matters, than that the statements regarding them may be true, or may be false; and that the ultimate decision, if it is to be favourable, must depend on the production of testimony of a very different character from that of the writers of the four gospels. until such evidence is brought forward, that refusal of assent, with willingness to re-open the question, on cause shown, which is what i mean by agnosticism, is, for me, the only course open. * * * * * a verdict of "not proven" is undoubtedly unsatisfactory and essentially provisional, so far forth as the subject of the trial is capable of being dealt with by due process of reason. those who are of opinion that the historical realities at the root of christianity, lie beyond the jurisdiction of science, need not be considered. those who are convinced that the evidence is, and must always remain, insufficient to support any definite conclusion, are justified in ignoring the subject. they must be content to put up with that reproach of being mere destroyers, of which strauss speaks. they may say that there are so many problems which are and must remain insoluble, that the "burden of the mystery" "of all this unintelligible world" is not appreciably affected by one more or less. for myself, i must confess that the problem of the origin of such very remarkable historical phenomena as the doctrines, and the social organization, which in their broad features certainly existed, and were in a state of rapid development, within a hundred years of the crucifixion of jesus; and which have steadily prevailed against all rivals, among the most intelligent and civilized nations in the world ever since, is, and always has been, profoundly interesting; and, considering how recent the really scientific study of that problem, and how great the progress made during the last half century in supplying the conditions for a positive solution of the problem, i cannot doubt that the attainment of such a solution is a mere question of time. i am well aware that it has lain far beyond my powers to take any share in this great undertaking. all that i can hope is to have done somewhat towards "the preparation of those who have ceased to be contented with the old and find no satisfaction in half measures": perhaps, also, something towards the lessening of that great proportion of my countrymen, whose eminent characteristic it is that they find "full satisfaction in half measures." t.h.h. hodeslea, eastbourne, _december 4th, 1893_. footnotes: [1] d.f. strauss, _der alte und der neue glaube_ (1872), pp. 9, 10. [2] _collected essays_, vol. ii., "on the origin of species" (1860). [3] 1 john iii. 8. [4] not necessarily of more than this. a few centuries ago the twelve most intelligent and impartial men to be found in england, would have independently testified that the sun moves, from east to west, across the heavens every day. [5] nowhere more concisely and clearly than in dr. sutherland black's article "gospels" in chambers's _encyclopædia_. references are given to the more elaborate discussions of the problem. [6] those who regard the apocalyptic discourse as a "vaticination after the event" may draw conclusions therefrom as to the date of the gospels in which its several forms occur. but the assumption is surely dangerous, from an apologetic point of view, since it begs the question as to the unhistorical character of this solemn prophecy. [7] see p. 287 of this volume. contents page i. prologue 1 (_controverted questions_, 1892). ii. scientific and pseudo-scientific realism [1887] 59 iii. science and pseudo-science [1887] 90 iv. an episcopal trilogy [1887] 126 v. the value of witness to the miraculous [1889] 160 vi. possibilities and impossibilities [1891] 192 vii. agnosticism [1889] 209 viii. agnosticism: a rejoinder [1889] 263 ix. agnosticism and christianity [1889] 309 x. the keepers of the herd of swine [1890] 366 xi. illustrations of mr. gladstone's controversial methods [1891] 393 i: prologue [_controverted questions_, 1892] le plus grand service qu'on puisse rendre à la science est d'y faire place nette avant d'y rien construire.--cuvier. most of the essays comprised in the present volume have been written during the last six or seven years, without premeditated purpose or intentional connection, in reply to attacks upon doctrines which i hold to be well founded; or in refutation of allegations respecting matters lying within the province of natural knowledge, which i believe to be erroneous; and they bear the mark of their origin in the controversial tone which pervades them. of polemical writing, as of other kinds of warfare, i think it may be said, that it is often useful, sometimes necessary, and always more or less of an evil. it is useful, when it attracts attention to topics which might otherwise be neglected; and when, as does sometimes happen, those who come to see a contest remain to think. it is necessary, when the interests of truth and of justice are at stake. it is an evil, in so far as controversy always tends to degenerate into quarrelling, to swerve from the great issue of what is right and what is wrong to the very small question of who is right and who is wrong. i venture to hope that the useful and the necessary were more conspicuous than the evil attributes of literary militancy, when these papers were first published; but i have had some hesitation about reprinting them. if i may judge by my own taste, few literary dishes are less appetising than cold controversy; moreover, there is an air of unfairness about the presentation of only one side of a discussion, and a flavour of unkindness in the reproduction of "winged words," which, however appropriate at the time of their utterance, would find a still more appropriate place in oblivion. yet, since i could hardly ask those who have honoured me by their polemical attentions to confer lustre on this collection, by permitting me to present their lucubrations along with my own; and since it would be a manifest wrong to them to deprive their, by no means rare, vivacities of language of such justification as they may derive from similar freedoms on my part; i came to the conclusion that my best course was to leave the essays just as they were written;[8] assuring my honourable adversaries that any heat of which signs may remain was generated, in accordance with the law of the conservation of energy, by the force of their own blows, and has long since been dissipated into space. but, however the polemical coincomitants of these discussions may be regarded--or better, disregarded--there is no doubt either about the importance of the topics of which they treat, or as to the public interest in the "controverted questions" with which they deal. or rather, the controverted question; for disconnected as these pieces may, perhaps, appear to be, they are, in fact, concerned only with different aspects of a single problem, with which thinking men have been occupied, ever since they began seriously to consider the wonderful frame of things in which their lives are set, and to seek for trustworthy guidance among its intricacies. experience speedily taught them that the shifting scenes of the world's stage have a permanent background; that there is order amidst the seeming confusion, and that many events take place according to unchanging rules. to this region of familiar steadiness and customary regularity they gave the name of nature. but, at the same time, their infantile and untutored reason, little more, as yet, than the playfellow of the imagination, led them to believe that this tangible, commonplace, orderly world of nature was surrounded and interpenetrated by another intangible and mysterious world, no more bound by fixed rules than, as they fancied, were the thoughts and passions which coursed through their minds and seemed to exercise an intermittent and capricious rule over their bodies. they attributed to the entities, with which they peopled this dim and dreadful region, an unlimited amount of that power of modifying the course of events of which they themselves possessed a small share, and thus came to regard them as not merely beyond, but above, nature. hence arose the conception of a "supernature" antithetic to "nature"--the primitive dualism of a natural world "fixed in fate" and a supernatural, left to the free play of volition--which has pervaded all later speculation and, for thousands of years, has exercised a profound influence on practice. for it is obvious that, on this theory of the universe, the successful conduct of life must demand careful attention to both worlds; and, if either is to be neglected, it may be safer that it should be nature. in any given contingency, it must doubtless be desirable to know what may be expected to happen in the ordinary course of things; but it must be quite as necessary to have some inkling of the line likely to be taken by supernatural agencies able, and possibly willing, to suspend or reverse that course. indeed, logically developed, the dualistic theory must needs end in almost exclusive attention to supernature, and in trust that its overruling strength will be exerted in favour of those who stand well with its denizens. on the other hand, the lessons of the great schoolmaster, experience, have hardly seemed to accord with this conclusion. they have taught, with considerable emphasis, that it does not answer to neglect nature; and that, on the whole, the more attention paid to her dictates the better men fare. thus the theoretical antithesis brought about a practical antagonism. from the earliest times of which we have any knowledge, naturalism and supernaturalism have consciously, or unconsciously, competed and struggled with one another; and the varying fortunes of the contest are written in the records of the course of civilisation, from those of egypt and babylonia, six thousand years ago, down to those of our own time and people. these records inform us that, so far as men have paid attention to nature, they have been rewarded for their pains. they have developed the arts which have furnished the conditions of civilised existence; and the sciences, which have been a progressive revelation of reality and have afforded the best discipline of the mind in the methods of discovering truth. they have accumulated a vast body of universally accepted knowledge; and the conceptions of man and of society, of morals and of law, based upon that knowledge, are every day more and more, either openly or tacitly, acknowledged to be the foundations of right action. history also tells us that the field of the supernatural has rewarded its cultivators with a harvest, perhaps not less luxuriant, but of a different character. it has produced an almost infinite diversity of religions. these, if we set aside the ethical concomitants upon which natural knowledge also has a claim, are composed of information about supernature; they tell us of the attributes of supernatural beings, of their relations with nature, and of the operations by which their interference with the ordinary course of events can be secured or averted. it does not appear, however, that supernaturalists have attained to any agreement about these matters, or that history indicates a widening of the influence of supernaturalism on practice, with the onward flow of time. on the contrary, the various religions are, to a great extent, mutually exclusive; and their adherents delight in charging each other, not merely with error, but with criminality, deserving and ensuing punishment of infinite severity. in singular contrast with natural knowledge, again, the acquaintance of mankind with the supernatural appears the more extensive and the more exact, and the influence of supernatural doctrines upon conduct the greater, the further back we go in time and the lower the stage of civilisation submitted to investigation. historically, indeed, there would seem to be an inverse relation between supernatural and natural knowledge. as the latter has widened, gained in precision and in trustworthiness, so has the former shrunk, grown vague and questionable; as the one has more and more filled the sphere of action, so has the other retreated into the region of meditation, or vanished behind the screen of mere verbal recognition. whether this difference of the fortunes of naturalism and of supernaturalism is an indication of the progress, or of the regress, of humanity; of a fall from, or an advance towards, the higher life; is a matter of opinion. the point to which i wish to direct attention is that the difference exists and is making itself felt. men are growing to be seriously alive to the fact that the historical evolution of humanity, which is generally, and i venture to think not unreasonably, regarded as progress, has been, and is being, accompanied by a co-ordinate elimination of the supernatural from its originally large occupation of men's thoughts. the question--how far is this process to go?--is, in my apprehension, the controverted question of our time. * * * * * controversy on this matter--prolonged, bitter, and fought out with the weapons of the flesh, as well as with those of the spirit--is no new thing to englishmen. we have been more or less occupied with it these five hundred years. and, during that time, we have made attempts to establish a _modus vivendi_ between the antagonists, some of which have had a world-wide influence; though, unfortunately, none have proved universally and permanently satisfactory. in the fourteenth century, the controverted question among us was, whether certain portions of the supernaturalism of mediæval christianity were well-founded. john wicliff proposed a solution of the problem which, in the course of the following two hundred years, acquired wide popularity and vast historical importance: lollards, hussites, lutherans, calvinists, zwinglians, socinians, and anabaptists, whatever their disagreements, concurred in the proposal to reduce the supernaturalism of christianity within the limits sanctioned by the scriptures. none of the chiefs of protestantism called in question either the supernatural origin and infallible authority of the bible, or the exactitude of the account of the supernatural world given in its pages. in fact, they could not afford to entertain any doubt about these points, since the infallible bible was the fulcrum of the lever with which they were endeavouring to upset the chair of st. peter. the "freedom of private judgment" which they proclaimed, meant no more, in practice, than permission to themselves to make free with the public judgment of the roman church, in respect of the canon and of the meaning to be attached to the words of the canonical books. private judgment--that is to say, reason--was (theoretically, at any rate) at liberty to decide what books were and what were not to take the rank of "scripture"; and to determine the sense of any passage in such books. but this sense, once ascertained to the mind of the sectary, was to be taken for pure truth--for the very word of god. the controversial efficiency of the principle of biblical infallibility lay in the fact that the conservative adversaries of the reformers were not in a position to contravene it without entangling themselves in serious difficulties; while, since both papists and protestants agreed in taking efficient measures to stop the mouths of any more radical critics, these did not count. the impotence of their adversaries, however, did not remove the inherent weakness of the position of the protestants. the dogma of the infallibility of the bible is no more self-evident than is that of the infallibility of the pope. if the former is held by "faith," then the latter may be. if the latter is to be accepted, or rejected, by private judgment, why not the former? even if the bible could be proved anywhere to assert its own infallibility, the value of that self-assertion to those who dispute the point is not obvious. on the other hand, if the infallibility of the bible was rested on that of a "primitive church," the admission that the "church" was formerly infallible was awkward in the extreme for those who denied its present infallibility. moreover, no sooner was the protestant principle applied to practice, than it became evident that even an infallible text, when manipulated by private judgment, will impartially countenance contradictory deductions; and furnish forth creeds and confessions as diverse as the quality and the information of the intellects which exercise, and the prejudices and passions which sway, such judgments. every sect, confident in the derivative infallibility of its wire-drawing of infallible materials, was ready to supply its contingent of martyrs; and to enable history, once more, to illustrate the truth, that steadfastness under persecution says much for the sincerity and still more for the tenacity, of the believer, but very little for the objective truth of that which he believes. no martyrs have sealed their faith with their blood more steadfastly than the anabaptists. last, but not least, the protestant principle contained within itself the germs of the destruction of the finality, which the lutheran, calvinistic, and other protestant churches fondly imagined they had reached. since their creeds were professedly based on the canonical scriptures, it followed that, in the long run, whoso settled the canon defined the creed. if the private judgment of luther might legitimately conclude that the epistle of james was contemptible, while the epistles of paul contained the very essence of christianity, it must be permissible for some other private judgment, on as good or as bad grounds, to reverse these conclusions; the critical process which excluded the apocrypha could not be barred, at any rate by people who rejected the authority of the church, from extending its operations to daniel, the canticles, and ecclesiastes; nor, having got so far, was it easy to allege any good ground for staying the further progress of criticism. in fact, the logical development of protestantism could not fail to lay the authority of the scriptures at the feet of reason; and, in the hands of latitudinarian and rationalistic theologians, the despotism of the bible was rapidly converted into an extremely limited monarchy. treated with as much respect as ever, the sphere of its practical authority was minimised; and its decrees were valid only so far as they were countersigned by common sense, the responsible minister. the champions of protestantism are much given to glorify the reformation of the sixteenth century as the emancipation of reason; but it may be doubted if their contention has any solid ground; while there is a good deal of evidence to show, that aspirations after intellectual freedom had nothing whatever to do with the movement. dante, who struck the papacy as hard blows as wicliff; wicliff himself and luther himself, when they began their work; were far enough from any intention of meddling with even the most irrational of the dogmas of mediæval supernaturalism. from wicliff to socinus, or even to münzer, rothmann, and john of leyden, i fail to find a trace of any desire to set reason free. the most that can be discovered is a proposal to change masters. from being the slave of the papacy the intellect was to become the serf of the bible; or, to speak more accurately, of somebody's interpretation of the bible, which, rapidly shifting its attitude from the humility of a private judgment to the arrogant cæsaro-papistry of a state-enforced creed, had no more hesitation about forcibly extinguishing opponent private judgments and judges, than had the old-fashioned pontiff-papistry. it was the iniquities, and not the irrationalities, of the papal system that lay at the bottom of the revolt of the laity; which was, essentially, an attempt to shake off the intolerable burden of certain practical deductions from a supernaturalism in which everybody, in principle, acquiesced. what was the gain to intellectual freedom of abolishing transubstantiation, image worship, indulgences, ecclesiastical infallibility; if consubstantiation, real-unreal presence mystifications, the bibliolatry, the "inner-light" pretensions, and the demonology, which are fruits of the same supernaturalistic tree, remained in enjoyment of the spiritual and temporal support of a new infallibility? one does not free a prisoner by merely scraping away the rust from his shackles. it will be asked, perhaps, was not the reformation one of the products of that great outbreak of many-sided free mental activity included under the general head of the renascence? melanchthon, ulrich von hutten, beza, were they not all humanists? was not the arch-humanist, erasmus, fautor-in-chief of the reformation, until he got frightened and basely deserted it? from the language of protestant historians, it would seem that they often forget that reformation and protestantism are by no means convertible terms. there were plenty of sincere and indeed zealous reformers, before, during, and after the birth and growth of protestantism, who would have nothing to do with it. assuredly, the rejuvenescence of science and of art; the widening of the field of nature by geographical and astronomical discovery; the revelation of the noble ideals of antique literature by the revival of classical learning; the stir of thought, throughout all classes of society, by the printers' work, loosened traditional bonds and weakened the hold of mediæval supernaturalism. in the interests of liberal culture and of national welfare, the humanists were eager to lend a hand to anything which tended to the discomfiture of their sworn enemies, the monks, and they willingly supported every movement in the direction of weakening ecclesiastical interference with civil life. but the bond of a common enemy was the only real tie between the humanist and the protestant; their alliance was bound to be of short duration, and, sooner or later, to be replaced by internecine warfare. the goal of the humanists, whether they were aware of it or not, was the attainment of the complete intellectual freedom of the antique philosopher, than which nothing could be more abhorrent to a luther, a calvin, a beza, or a zwingli. the key to the comprehension of the conduct of erasmus, seems to me to lie in the clear apprehension of this fact. that he was a man of many weaknesses may be true; in fact, he was quite aware of them and professed himself no hero. but he never deserted that reformatory movement which he originally contemplated; and it was impossible he should have deserted the specifically protestant reformation in which he never took part. he was essentially a theological whig, to whom radicalism was as hateful as it is to all whigs; or, to borrow a still more appropriate comparison from modern times, a broad churchman who refused to enlist with either the high church or the low church zealots, and paid the penalty of being called coward, time-server and traitor, by both. yet really there is a good deal in his pathetic remonstrance that he does not see why he is bound to become a martyr for that in which he does not believe; and a fair consideration of the circumstances and the consequences of the protestant reformation seems to me to go a long way towards justifying the course he adopted. few men had better means of being acquainted with the condition of europe; none could be more competent to gauge the intellectual shallowness and self-contradiction of the protestant criticism of catholic doctrine; and to estimate, at its proper value, the fond imagination that the waters let out by the renascence would come to rest amidst the blind alleys of the new ecclesiasticism. the bastard, whilom poor student and monk, become the familiar of bishops and princes, at home in all grades of society, could not fail to be aware of the gravity of the social position, of the dangers imminent from the profligacy and indifference of the ruling classes, no less than from the anarchical tendencies of the people who groaned under their oppression. the wanderer who had lived in germany, in france, in england, in italy, and who counted many of the best and most influential men in each country among his friends, was not likely to estimate wrongly the enormous forces which were still at the command of the papacy. bad as the churchmen might be, the statesmen were worse; and a person of far more sanguine temperament than erasmus might have seen no hope for the future, except in gradually freeing the ubiquitous organisation of the church from the corruptions which alone, as he imagined, prevented it from being as beneficent as it was powerful. the broad tolerance of the scholar and man of the world might well be revolted by the ruffianism, however genial, of one great light of protestantism, and the narrow fanaticism, however learned and logical, of others; and to a cautious thinker, by whom, whatever his shortcomings, the ethical ideal of the christian evangel was sincerely prized, it really was a fair question, whether it was worth while to bring about a political and social deluge, the end of which no mortal could foresee, for the purpose of setting up lutheran, zwinglian, and other peterkins, in the place of the actual claimant to the reversion of the spiritual wealth of the galilean fisherman. let us suppose that, at the beginning of the lutheran and zwinglian movement, a vision of its immediate consequences had been granted to erasmus; imagine that to the spectre of the fierce outbreak of anabaptist communism, which opened the apocalypse, had succeeded, in shadowy procession, the reign of terror and of spoliation in england, with the judicial murders of his friends, more and fisher; the bitter tyranny of evangelistic clericalism in geneva and in scotland; the long agony of religious wars, persecutions, and massacres, which devastated france and reduced germany almost to savagery; finishing with the spectacle of lutheranism in its native country sunk into mere dead erastian formalism, before it was a century old; while jesuitry triumphed over protestantism in three-fourths of europe, bringing in its train a recrudescence of all the corruptions erasmus and his friends sought to abolish; might not he have quite honestly thought this a somewhat too heavy price to pay for protestantism; more especially, since no one was in a better position than himself to know how little the dogmatic foundation of the new confessions was able to bear the light which the inevitable progress of humanistic criticism would throw upon them? as the wiser of his contemporaries saw, erasmus was, at heart, neither protestant nor papist, but an "independent christian"; and, as the wiser of his modern biographers have discerned, he was the precursor, not of sixteenth century reform, but of eighteenth century "enlightenment"; a sort of broad-church voltaire, who held by his "independent christianity" as stoutly as voltaire by his deism. in fact, the stream of the renascence, which bore erasmus along, left protestantism stranded amidst the mudbanks of its articles and creeds: while its true course became visible to all men, two centuries later. by this time, those in whom the movement of the renascence was incarnate became aware what spirit they were of; and they attacked supernaturalism in its biblical stronghold, defended by protestants and romanists with equal zeal. in the eyes of the "patriarch," ultramontanism, jansenism, and calvinism were merely three persons of the one "infâme" which it was the object of his life to crush. if he hated one more than another, it was probably the last; while d'holbach, and the extreme left of the free-thinking host, were disposed to show no more mercy to deism and pantheism. the sceptical insurrection of the eighteenth century made a terrific noise and frightened not a few worthy people out of their wits; but cool judges might have foreseen, at the outset, that the efforts of the later rebels were no more likely than those of the earlier, to furnish permanent resting-places for the spirit of scientific inquiry. however worthy of admiration may be the acuteness, the common sense, the wit, the broad humanity, which abound in the writings of the best of the free-thinkers; there is rarely much to be said for their work as an example of the adequate treatment of a grave and difficult investigation. i do not think any impartial judge will assert that, from this point of view, they are much better than their adversaries. it must be admitted that they share to the full the fatal weakness of _a priori_ philosophising, no less than the moral frivolity common to their age; while a singular want of appreciation of history, as the record of the moral and social evolution of the human race, permitted them to resort to preposterous theories of imposture, in order to account for the religious phenomena which are natural products of that evolution. for the most part, the romanist and protestant adversaries of the free-thinkers met them with arguments no better than their own; and with vituperation, so far inferior that it lacked the wit. but one great christian apologist fairly captured the guns of the free-thinking array, and turned their batteries upon themselves. speculative "infidelity" of the eighteenth century type was mortally wounded by the _analogy_; while the progress of the historical and psychological sciences brought to light the important part played by the mythopoeic faculty; and, by demonstrating the extreme readiness of men to impose upon themselves, rendered the calling in of sacerdotal cooperation, in most cases, a superfluity. again, as in the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries, social and political influences came into play. the free-thinking _philosophes_, who objected to rousseau's sentimental religiosity almost as much as they did to _l'infâme_, were credited with the responsibility for all the evil deeds of rousseau's jacobin disciples, with about as much justification as wicliff was held responsible for the peasants' revolt, or luther for the _bauern-krieg_. in england, though our _ancien régime_ was not altogether lovely, the social edifice was never in such a bad way as in france; it was still capable of being repaired; and our forefathers, very wisely, preferred to wait until that operation could be safely performed, rather than pull it all down about their ears, in order to build a philosophically planned house on brand-new speculative foundations. under these circumstances, it is not wonderful that, in this country, practical men preferred the gospel of wesley and whitfield to that of jean jacques; while enough of the old leaven of puritanism remained to ensure the favour and support of a large number of religious men to a revival of evangelical supernaturalism. thus, by degrees, the free-thinking, or the indifference, prevalent among us in the first half of the eighteenth century, was replaced by a strong supernaturalistic reaction, which submerged the work of the free-thinkers; and even seemed, for a time, to have arrested the naturalistic movement of which that work was an imperfect indication. yet, like lollardry, four centuries earlier, free-thought merely took to running underground, safe, sooner or later, to return to the surface. * * * * * my memory, unfortunately, carries me back to the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, when the evangelical flood had a little abated and the tops of certain mountains were soon to appear, chiefly in the neighbourhood of oxford; but when nevertheless, bibliolatry was rampant; when church and chapel alike proclaimed, as the oracles of god, the crude assumptions of the worst informed and, in natural sequence, the most presumptuously bigoted, of all theological schools. in accordance with promises made on my behalf, but certainly without my authorisation, i was very early taken to hear "sermons in the vulgar tongue." and vulgar enough often was the tongue in which some preacher, ignorant alike of literature, of history, of science, and even of theology, outside that patronised by his own narrow school, poured forth, from the safe entrenchment of the pulpit, invectives against those who deviated from his notion of orthodoxy. from dark allusions to "sceptics" and "infidels," i became aware of the existence of people who trusted in carnal reason; who audaciously doubted that the world was made in six natural days, or that the deluge was universal; perhaps even went so far as to question the literal accuracy of the story of eve's temptation, or of balaam's ass; and, from the horror of the tones in which they were mentioned, i should have been justified in drawing the conclusion that these rash men belonged to the criminal classes. at the same time, those who were more directly responsible for providing me with the knowledge essential to the right guidance of life (and who sincerely desired to do so), imagined they were discharging that most sacred duty by impressing upon my childish mind the necessity, on pain of reprobation in this world and damnation in the next, of accepting, in the strict and literal sense, every statement contained in the protestant bible. i was told to believe, and i did believe, that doubt about any of them was a sin, not less reprehensible than a moral delict. i suppose that, out of a thousand of my contemporaries, nine hundred, at least, had their minds systematically warped and poisoned, in the name of the god of truth, by like discipline. i am sure that, even a score of years later, those who ventured to question the exact historical accuracy of any part of the old testament and _a fortiori_ of the gospels, had to expect a pitiless shower of verbal missiles, to say nothing of the other disagreeable consequences which visit those who, in any way, run counter to that chaos of prejudices called public opinion. my recollections of this time have recently been revived by the perusal of a remarkable document,[9] signed by as many as thirty-eight out of the twenty odd thousand clergymen of the established church. it does not appear that the signataries are officially accredited spokesmen of the ecclesiastical corporation to which they belong; but i feel bound to take their word for it, that they are "stewards of the lord, who have received the holy ghost," and, therefore, to accept this memorial as evidence that, though the evangelicism of my early days may be deposed from its place of power, though so many of the colleagues of the thirty-eight even repudiate the title of protestants, yet the green bay tree of bibliolatry flourishes as it did sixty years ago. and, as in those good old times, whoso refuses to offer incense to the idol is held to be guilty of "a dishonour to god," imperilling his salvation. it is to the credit of the perspicacity of the memorialists that they discern the real nature of the controverted question of the age. they are awake to the unquestionable fact that, if scripture has been discovered "not to be worthy of unquestioning belief," faith "in the supernatural itself" is, so far, undermined. and i may congratulate myself upon such weighty confirmation of an opinion in which i have had the fortune to anticipate them. but whether it is more to the credit of the courage, than to the intelligence, of the thirty-eight that they should go on to proclaim that the canonical scriptures of the old and new testaments "declare incontrovertibly the actual historical truth in all records, both of past events and of the delivery of predictions to be thereafter fulfilled," must be left to the coming generation to decide. the interest which attaches to this singular document will, i think, be based by most thinking men, not upon what it is, but upon that of which it is a sign. it is an open secret, that the memorial is put forth as a counterblast to a manifestation of opinion of a contrary character, on the part of certain members of the same ecclesiastical body, who therefore have, as i suppose, an equal right to declare themselves "stewards of the lord and recipients of the holy ghost." in fact, the stream of tendency towards naturalism, the course of which i have briefly traced, has, of late years, flowed so strongly, that even the churches have begun, i dare not say to drift, but, at any rate, to swing at their moorings. within the pale of the anglican establishment, i venture to doubt, whether, at this moment, there are as many thorough-going defenders of "plenary inspiration" as there were timid questioners of that doctrine, half a century ago. commentaries, sanctioned by the highest authority, give up the "actual historical truth" of the cosmogonical and diluvial narratives. university professors of deservedly high repute accept the critical decision that the hexateuch is a compilation, in which the share of moses, either as author or as editor, is not quite so clearly demonstrable as it might be; highly placed divines tell us that the pre-abrahamic scripture narratives may be ignored; that the book of daniel may be regarded as a patriotic romance of the second century b.c.; that the words of the writer of the fourth gospel are not always to be distinguished from those which he puts into the mouth of jesus. conservative, but conscientious, revisers decide that whole passages, some of dogmatic and some of ethical importance, are interpolations. an uneasy sense of the weakness of the dogma of biblical infallibility seems to be at the bottom of a prevailing tendency once more to substitute the authority of the "church" for that of the bible. in my old age, it has happened to me to be taken to task for regarding christianity as a "religion of a book" as gravely as, in my youth, i should have been reprehended for doubting that proposition. it is a no less interesting symptom that the state church seems more and more anxious to repudiate all complicity with the principles of the protestant reformation and to call itself "anglo-catholic." inspiration, deprived of its old intelligible sense, is watered down into a mystification. the scriptures are, indeed, inspired; but they contain a wholly undefined and indefinable "human element"; and this unfortunate intruder is converted into a sort of biblical whipping boy. whatsoever scientific investigation, historical or physical, proves to be erroneous, the "human element" bears the blame; while the divine inspiration of such statements, as by their nature are out of reach of proof or disproof, is still asserted with all the vigour inspired by conscious safety from attack. though the proposal to treat the bible "like any other book" which caused so much scandal, forty years ago, may not yet be generally accepted, and though bishop colenso's criticisms may still lie, formally, under ecclesiastical ban, yet the church has not wholly turned a deaf ear to the voice of the scientific tempter; and many a coy divine, while "crying i will ne'er consent," has consented to the proposals of that scientific criticism which the memorialists renounce and denounce. a humble layman, to whom it would seem the height of presumption to assume even the unconsidered dignity of a "steward of science," may well find this conflict of apparently equal ecclesiastical authorities perplexing--suggestive, indeed, of the wisdom of postponing attention to either, until the question of precedence between them is settled. and this course will probably appear the more advisable, the more closely the fundamental position of the memorialists is examined. "no opinion of the fact or form of divine revelation, founded on literary criticism [and i suppose i may add historical, or physical, criticism] of the scriptures themselves, can be admitted to interfere with the traditionary testimony of the church, when that has been once ascertained and verified by appeal to antiquity."[10] grant that it is "the traditionary testimony of the church" which guarantees the canonicity of each and all of the books of the old and new testaments. grant also that canonicity means infallibility; yet, according to the thirty-eight, this "traditionary testimony" has to be "ascertained and verified by appeal to antiquity." but "ascertainment and verification" are purely intellectual processes, which must be conducted according to the strict rules of scientific investigation, or be self-convicted of worthlessness. moreover, before we can set about the appeal to "antiquity," the exact sense of that usefully vague term must be defined by similar means. "antiquity" may include any number of centuries, great or small; and whether "antiquity" is to comprise the council of trent, or to stop a little beyond that of nicæa, or to come to an end in the time of irenænus, or in that of justin martyr, are knotty questions which can be decided, if at all, only by those critical methods which the signataries treat so cavalierly. and yet the decision of these questions is fundamental, for as the limits of the canonical scriptures vary, so may the dogmas deduced from them require modification. christianity is one thing, if the fourth gospel, the epistle to the hebrews, the pastoral epistles, and the apocalypse are canonical and (by the hypothesis) infallibly true; and another thing, if they are not. as i have already said, whoso defines the canon defines the creed. now it is quite certain with respect to some of these books, such as the apocalypse and the epistle to the hebrews, that the eastern and the western church differed in opinion for centuries; and yet neither the one branch nor the other can have considered its judgment infallible, since they eventually agreed to a transaction by which each gave up its objection to the book patronised by the other. moreover, the "fathers" argue (in a more or less rational manner) about the canonicity of this or that book, and are by no means above producing evidence, internal and external, in favour of the opinions they advocate. in fact, imperfect as their conceptions of scientific method may be, they not unfrequently used it to the best of their ability. thus it would appear that though science, like nature, may be driven out with a fork, ecclesiastical or other, yet she surely comes back again. the appeal to "antiquity" is, in fact, an appeal to science, first to define what antiquity is; secondly, to determine what "antiquity," so defined, says about canonicity; thirdly, to prove that canonicity means infallibility. and when science, largely in the shape of the abhorred "criticism," has answered this appeal, and has shown that "antiquity" used her own methods, however clumsily and imperfectly, she naturally turns round upon the appellants, and demands that they should show cause why, in these days, science should not resume the work the ancients did so imperfectly, and carry it out efficiently. but no such cause can be shown. if "antiquity" permitted eusebius, origen, tertullian, irenæus, to argue for the reception of this book into the canon and the rejection of that, upon rational grounds, "antiquity" admitted the whole principle of modern criticism. if irenæus produces ridiculous reasons for limiting the gospels to four, it was open to any one else to produce good reasons (if he had them) for cutting them down to three, or increasing them to five. if the eastern branch of the church had a right to reject the apocalypse and accept the epistle to the hebrews, and the western an equal right to accept the apocalypse and reject the epistle, down to the fourth century, any other branch would have an equal right, on cause shown, to reject both, or, as the catholic church afterwards actually did, to accept both. thus i cannot but think that the thirty-eight are hoist with their own petard. their "appeal to antiquity" turns out to be nothing but a round-about way of appealing to the tribunal, the jurisdiction of which they affect to deny. having rested the world of christian supernaturalism on the elephant of biblical infallibility, and furnished the elephant with standing ground on the tortoise of "antiquity," they, like their famous hindoo analogue, have been content to look no further; and have thereby been spared the horror of discovering that the tortoise rests on a grievously fragile construction, to a great extent the work of that very intellectual operation which they anathematise and repudiate. moreover, there is another point to be considered. it is of course true that a christian church (whether the christian church, or not, depends on the connotation of the definite article) existed before the christian scriptures; and that the infallibility of these depends upon the infallibility of the judgment of the persons who selected the books of which they are composed, out of the mass of literature current among the early christians. the logical acumen of augustine showed him that the authority of the gospel he preached must rest on that of the church to which he belonged.[11] but it is no less true that the hebrew and the septuagint versions of most, if not all, of the old testament books existed before the birth of jesus of nazareth; and that their divine authority is presupposed by, and therefore can hardly depend upon, the religious body constituted by his disciples. as everybody knows, the very conception of a "christ" is purely jewish. the validity of the argument from the messianic prophecies vanishes unless their infallible authority is granted; and, as a matter of fact, whether we turn to the gospels, the epistles, or the writings of the early apologists, the jewish scriptures are recognised as the highest court of appeal of the christian. the proposal to cite christian "antiquity" as a witness to the infallibility of the old testament, when its own claims to authority vanish, if certain propositions contained in the old testament are erroneous, hardly satisfies the requirements of lay logic. it is as if a claimant to be sole legatee, under another kind of testament, should offer his assertion as sufficient evidence of the validity of the will. and, even were not such a circular, or rather rotatory, argument, that the infallibility of the bible is testified by the infallible church, whose infallibility is testified by the infallible bible, too absurd for serious consideration, it remains permissible to ask, where and when the church, during the period of its infallibility, as limited by anglican dogmatic necessities, has officially decreed the "actual historical truth of all records" in the old testament? was augustine heretical when he denied the actual historical truth of the record of the creation? father suarez, standing on later roman tradition, may have a right to declare that he was; but it does not lie in the mouth of those who limit their appeal to that early "antiquity," in which augustine played so great a part, to say so. * * * * * among the watchers of the course of the world of thought, some view with delight and some with horror, the recrudescence of supernaturalism which manifests itself among us, in shapes ranged along the whole flight of steps, which, in this case, separates the sublime from the ridiculous--from neo-catholicism and inner-light mysticism, at the top, to unclean things, not worthy of mention in the same breath, at the bottom. in my poor opinion, the importance of these manifestations is often greatly over-estimated. the extant forms of supernaturalism have deep roots in human nature, and will undoubtedly die hard; but, in these latter days, they have to cope with an enemy whose full strength is only just beginning to be put out, and whose forces, gathering strength year by year, are hemming them round on every side. this enemy is science, in the acceptation of systematized natural knowledge, which, during the last two centuries, has extended those methods of investigation, the worth of which is confirmed by daily appeal to nature, to every region in which the supernatural has hitherto been recognised. when scientific historical criticism reduced the annals of heroic greece and of regal rome to the level of fables; when the unity of authorship of the _iliad_ was successfully assailed by scientific literary criticism; when scientific physical criticism, after exploding the geocentric theory of the universe and reducing the solar system itself to one of millions of groups of like cosmic specks, circling, at unimaginable distances from one another through infinite space, showed the supernaturalistic theories of the duration of the earth and of life upon it, to be as inadequate as those of its relative dimensions and importance had been; it needed no prophetic gift to see that, sooner or later, the jewish and the early christian records would be treated in the same manner; that the authorship of the hexateuch and of the gospels would be as severely tested; and that the evidence in favour of the veracity of many of the statements found in the scriptures would have to be strong indeed, if they were to be opposed to the conclusions of physical science. in point of fact, so far as i can discover, no one competent to judge of the evidential strength of these conclusions, ventures now to say that the biblical accounts of the creation and of the deluge are true in the natural sense of the words of the narratives. the most modern reconcilers venture upon is to affirm, that some quite different sense may he put upon the words; and that this non-natural sense may, with a little trouble, be manipulated into some sort of noncontradiction of scientific truth. my purpose, in the essay (xvi.) which treats of the narrative of the deluge, was to prove, by physical criticism, that no such event as that described ever took place; to exhibit the untrustworthy character of the narrative demonstrated by literary criticism; and, finally, to account for its origin, by producing a form of those ancient legends of pagan chaldæa, from which the biblical compilation is manifestly derived. i have yet to learn that the main propositions of this essay can be seriously challenged. in the essays (ii., iii.) on the narrative of the creation, i have endeavoured to controvert the assertion that modern science supports, either the interpretation put upon it by mr. gladstone, or any interpretation which is compatible with the general sense of the narrative, quite apart from particular details. the first chapter of genesis teaches the supernatural creation of the present forms of life; modern science teaches that they have come about by evolution. the first chapter of genesis teaches the successive origin--firstly, of all the plants, secondly, of all the aquatic and aerial animals, thirdly, of all the terrestrial animals, which now exist--during distinct intervals of time; modern science teaches that, throughout all the duration of an immensely long past so far as we have any adequate knowledge of it (that is as far back as the silurian epoch), plants, aquatic, aerial, and terrestrial animals have co-existed; that the earliest known are unlike those which at present exist; and that the modern species have come into existence as the last terms of a series, the members of which have appeared one after another. thus, far from confirming the account in genesis, the results of modern science, so far as they go, are in principle, as in detail, hopelessly discordant with it. yet, if the pretensions to infallibility set up, not by the ancient hebrew writings themselves, but by the ecclesiastical champions and friends from whom they may well pray to be delivered, thus shatter themselves against the rock of natural knowledge, in respect of the two most important of all events, the origin of things and the palingenesis of terrestrial life, what historical credit dare any serious thinker attach to the narratives of the fabrication of eve, of the fall, of the commerce between the _bene elohim_ and the daughters of men, which lie between the creational and the diluvial legends? and, if these are to lose all historical worth, what becomes of the infallibility of those who, according to the later scriptures, have accepted them, argued from them, and staked far-reaching dogmatic conclusions upon their historical accuracy? it is the merest ostrich policy for contemporary ecclesiasticism to try to hide its hexateuchal head--in the hope that the inseparable connection of its body with pre-abrahamic legends may be overlooked. the question will still be asked, if the first nine chapters of the pentateuch are unhistorical, how is the historical accuracy of the remainder to be guaranteed? what more intrinsic claim has the story of the exodus than that of the deluge, to belief? if god did not walk in the garden of eden, how can we be assured that he spoke from sinai? * * * * * in some other of the following essays (ix., x., xi., xii., xiv., xv.) i have endeavoured to show that sober and well-founded physical and literary criticism plays no less havoc with the doctrine that the canonical scriptures of the new testament "declare incontrovertibly the actual historical truth in all records." we are told that the gospels contain a true revelation of the spiritual world--a proposition which, in one sense of the word "spiritual," i should not think it necessary to dispute. but, when it is taken to signify that everything we are told about the world of spirits in these books is infallibly true; that we are bound to accept the demonology which constitutes an inseparable part of their teaching; and to profess belief in a supernaturalism as gross as that of any primitive people--it is at any rate permissible to ask why? science may be unable to define the limits of possibility, but it cannot escape from the moral obligation to weigh the evidence in favour of any alleged wonderful occurrence; and i have endeavoured to show that the evidence for the gadarene miracle is altogether worthless. we have simply three, partially discrepant, versions of a story, about the primitive form, the origin, and the authority for which we know absolutely nothing. but the evidence in favour of the gadarene miracle is as good as that for any other. elsewhere, i have pointed out that it is utterly beside the mark to declaim against these conclusions on the ground of their asserted tendency to deprive mankind of the consolations of the christian faith, and to destroy the foundations of morality; still less to brand them with the question-begging vituperative appellation of "infidelity." the point is not whether they are wicked; but, whether, from the point of view of scientific method, they are irrefragably true. if they are, they will be accepted in time, whether they are wicked, or not wicked. nature, so far as we have been able to attain to any insight into her ways, recks little about consolation and makes for righteousness by very round-about paths. and, at any rate, whatever may be possible for other people, it is becoming less and less possible for the man who puts his faith in scientific methods of ascertaining truth, and is accustomed to have that faith justified by daily experience, to be consciously false to his principle in any matter. but the number of such men, driven into the use of scientific methods of inquiry and taught to trust them, by their education, their daily professional and business needs, is increasing and will continually increase. the phraseology of supernaturalism may remain on men's lips, but in practice they are naturalists. the magistrate who listens with devout attention to the precept "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" on sunday, on monday, dismisses, as intrinsically absurd, a charge of bewitching a cow brought against some old woman; the superintendent of a lunatic asylum who substituted exorcism for rational modes of treatment would have but a short tenure of office; even parish clerks doubt the utility of prayers for rain, so long as the wind is in the east; and an outbreak of pestilence sends men, not to the churches, but to the drains. in spite of prayers for the success of our arms and _te deums_ for victory, our real faith is in big battalions and keeping our powder dry; in knowledge of the science of warfare; in energy, courage, and discipline. in these, as in all other practical affairs, we act on the aphorism "_laborare est orare_"; we admit that intelligent work is the only acceptable worship; and that, whether there be a supernature or not, our business is with nature. * * * * * it is important to note that the principle of the scientific naturalism of the latter half of the nineteenth century, in which the intellectual movement of the renascence has culminated, and which was first clearly formulated by descartes, leads not to the denial of the existence of any supernature;[12] but simply to the denial of the validity of the evidence adduced in favour of this, or of that, extant form of supernaturalism. looking at the matter from the most rigidly scientific point of view, the assumption that, amidst the myriads of worlds scattered through endless space, there can be no intelligence, as much greater than man's as his is greater than a blackbeetle's; no being endowed with powers of influencing the course of nature as much greater than his, as his is greater than a snail's seems to me not merely baseless, but impertinent. without stepping beyond the analogy of that which is known, it is easy to people the cosmos with entities, in ascending scale, until we reach something practically indistinguishable from omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. if our intelligence can, in some matters, surely reproduce the past of thousands of years ago and anticipate the future, thousands of years hence, it is clearly within the limits of possibility that some greater intellect, even of the same order, may be able to mirror the whole past and the whole future; if the universe is penetrated by a medium of such a nature that a magnetic needle on the earth answers to a commotion in the sun, an omnipresent agent is also conceivable; if our insignificant knowledge gives us some influence over events, practical omniscience may confer indefinably greater power. finally, if evidence that a thing may be, were equivalent to proof that it is, analogy might justify the construction of a naturalistic theology and demonology not less wonderful than the current supernatural; just as it might justify the peopling of mars, or of jupiter, with living forms to which terrestrial biology offers no parallel. until human life is longer and the duties of the present press less heavily, i do not think that wise men will occupy themselves with jovian, or martian, natural history; and they will probably agree to a verdict of "not proven" in respect of naturalistic theology, taking refuge in that agnostic confession, which appears to me to be the only position for people who object to say that they know what they are quite aware they do not know. as to the interests of morality, i am disposed to think that if mankind could be got to act up to this last principle in every relation of life, a reformation would be effected such as the world has not yet seen; an approximation to the millennium, such as no supernaturalistic religion has ever yet succeeded, or seems likely ever to succeed, in effecting. * * * * * i have hitherto dwelt upon scientific naturalism chiefly in its critical and destructive aspect. but the present incarnation of the spirit of the renascence differs from its predecessor in the eighteenth century, in that it builds up, as well as pulls down. that of which it has laid the foundation, of which it is already raising the superstructure, is the doctrine of evolution. but so many strange misconceptions are current about this doctrine--it is attacked on such false grounds by its enemies, and made to cover so much that is disputable by some of its friends, that i think it well to define as clearly as i can, what i do not and what i do understand by the doctrine. i have nothing to say to any "philosophy of evolution." attempts to construct such a philosophy may be as useful, nay, even as admirable, as was the attempt of descartes to get at a theory of the universe by the same _a priori_ road; but, in my judgment, they are as premature. nor, for this purpose, have i to do with any theory of the "origin of species," much as i value that which is known as the darwinian theory. that the doctrine of natural selection presupposes evolution is quite true; but it is not true that evolution necessarily implies natural selection. in fact, evolution might conceivably have taken place without the development of groups possessing the characters of species. for me, the doctrine of evolution is no speculation, but a generalisation of certain facts, which may be observed by any one who will take the necessary trouble. these facts are those which are classed by biologists under the heads of embryology and of palæontology. embryology proves that every higher form of individual life becomes what it is by a process of gradual differentiation from an extremely low form; palæontology proves, in some cases, and renders probable in all, that the oldest types of a group are the lowest; and that they have been followed by a gradual succession of more and more differentiated forms. it is simply a fact, that evolution of the individual animal and plant is taking place, as a natural process, in millions and millions of cases every day; it is a fact, that the species which have succeeded one another in the past, do, in many cases, present just those morphological relations, which they must possess, if they had proceeded, one from the other, by an analogous process of evolution. the alternative presented, therefore, is: either the forms of one and the same type--say, _e.g._, that of the horse tribe[13]--arose successively, but independently of one another, at intervals, during myriads of years; or, the later forms are modified descendants of the earlier. and the latter supposition is so vastly more probable than the former, that rational men will adopt it, unless satisfactory evidence to the contrary can be produced. the objection sometimes put forward, that no one yet professes to have seen one species pass into another, comes oddly from those who believe that mankind are all descended from adam. has any one then yet seen the production of negroes from a white stock, or _vice versâ_? moreover, is it absolutely necessary to have watched every step of the progress of a planet, to be justified in concluding that it really does go round the sun? if so, astronomy is in a bad way. i do not, for a moment, presume to suggest that some one, far better acquainted than i am with astronomy and physics; or that a master of the new chemistry, with its extraordinary revelations; or that a student of the development of human society, of language, and of religions, may not find a sufficient foundation for the doctrine of evolution in these several regions. on the contrary, i rejoice to see that scientific investigation, in all directions, is tending to the same result. and it may well be, that it is only my long occupation with biological matters that leads me to feel safer among them than anywhere else. be that as it may, i take my stand on the facts of embryology and of palæontology; and i hold that our present knowledge of these facts is sufficiently thorough and extensive to justify the assertion that all future philosophical and theological speculations will have to accommodate themselves to some such common body of established truths as the following:-1. plants and animals have existed on our planet for many hundred thousand, probably millions, of years. during this time, their forms, or species, have undergone a succession of changes, which eventually gave rise to the species which constitute the present living population of the earth. there is no evidence, nor any reason to suspect, that this secular process of evolution is other than a part of the ordinary course of nature; there is no more ground for imagining the occurrence of supernatural intervention, at any moment in the development of species in the past, than there is for supposing such intervention to take place, at any moment in the development of an individual animal or plant, at the present day. 2. at present, every individual animal or plant commences its existence as an organism of extremely simple anatomical structure; and it acquires all the complexity it ultimately possesses by gradual differentiation into parts of various structure and function. when a series of specific forms of the same type, extending over a long period of past time, is examined, the relation between the earlier and the later forms is analogous to that between earlier and later stages of individual development. therefore, it is a probable conclusion that, if we could follow living beings back to their earlier states, we should find them to present forms similar to those of the individual germ, or, what comes to the same thing, of those lowest known organisms which stand upon the boundary line between plants and animals. at present, our knowledge of the ancient living world stops very far short of this point. 3. it is generally agreed, and there is certainly no evidence to the contrary, that all plants are devoid of consciousness; that they neither feel, desire, nor think. it is conceivable that the evolution of the primordial living substance should have taken place only along the plant line. in that case, the result might have been a wealth of vegetable life, as great, perhaps as varied, as at present, though certainly widely different from the present flora, in the evolution of which animals have played so great a part. but the living world thus constituted would be simply an admirable piece of unconscious machinery, the working out of which lay potentially in its primitive composition; pleasure and pain would have no place in it; it would be a veritable garden of eden without any tree of the knowledge of good and evil. the question of the moral government of such a world could no more be asked, than we could reasonably seek for a moral purpose in a kaleidoscope. 4. how far down the scale of animal life the phenomena of consciousness are manifested, it is impossible to say. no one doubts their presence in his fellow-men; and, unless any strict cartesians are left, no one doubts that mammals and birds are to be reckoned creatures that have feelings analogous to our smell, taste, sight, hearing, touch, pleasure, and pain. for my own part, i should be disposed to extend this analogical judgment a good deal further. on the other hand, if the lowest forms of plants are to be denied consciousness, i do not see on what ground it is to be ascribed to the lowest animals. i find it hard to believe that an infusory animalcule, a foraminifer, or a fresh-water polype is capable of feeling; and, in spite of shakspere, i have doubts about the great sensitiveness of the "poor beetle that we tread upon." the question is equally perplexing when we turn to the stages of development of the individual. granted a fowl feels; that the chick just hatched feels; that the chick when it chirps within the egg may possibly feel; what is to be said of it on the fifth day, when the bird is there, but with all its tissues nascent? still more, on the first day, when it is nothing but a flat cellular disk? i certainly cannot bring myself to believe that this disk feels. yet if it does not, there must be some time in the three weeks, between the first day and the day of hatching, when, as a concomitant, or a consequence, of the attainment by the brain of the chick of a certain stage of structural evolution, consciousness makes its appearance. i have frequently expressed my incapacity to understand the nature of the relation between consciousness and a certain anatomical tissue, which is thus established by observation. but the fact remains that, so far as observation and experiment go, they teach us that the psychical phenomena are dependent on the physical. in like manner, if fishes, insects, scorpions, and such animals as the pearly nautilus, possess feeling, then undoubtedly consciousness was present in the world as far back as the silurian epoch. but, if the earliest animals were similar to our rhizopods and monads, there must have been some time, between the much earlier epoch in which they constituted the whole animal population and the silurian, in which feeling dawned, in consequence of the organism having reached the stage of evolution on which it depends. 5. consciousness has various forms, which may be manifested independently of one another. the feelings of light and colour, of sound, of touch, though so often associated with those of pleasure and pain, are, by nature, as entirely independent of them as is thinking. an animal devoid of the feelings of pleasure and of pain, may nevertheless exhibit all the effects of sensation and purposive action. therefore, it would be a justifiable hypothesis that, long after organic evolution had attained to consciousness, pleasure and pain were still absent. such a world would be without either happiness or misery; no act could be punished and none could be rewarded; and it could have no moral purpose. 6. suppose, for argument's sake, that all mammals and birds are subjects of pleasure and pain. then we may be certain that these forms of consciousness were in existence at the beginning of the mesozoic epoch. from that time forth, pleasure has been distributed without reference to merit, and pain inflicted without reference to demerit, throughout all but a mere fraction of the higher animals. moreover, the amount and the severity of the pain, no less than the variety and acuteness of the pleasure, have increased with every advance in the scale of evolution. as suffering came into the world, not in consequence of a fall, but of a rise, in the scale of being, so every further rise has brought more suffering. as the evidence stands it would appear that the sort of brain which characterizes the highest mammals and which, so far as we know, is the indispensable condition of the highest sensibility, did not come into existence before the tertiary epoch. the primordial anthropoid was probably, in this respect, on much the same footing as his pithecoid kin. like them he stood upon his "natural rights," gratified all his desires to the best of his ability, and was as incapable of either right or wrong doing as they. it would be as absurd as in their case, to regard his pleasures, any more than theirs, as moral rewards, and his pains, any more than theirs, as moral punishments. 7. from the remotest ages of which we have any cognizance, death has been the natural and, apparently, the necessary concomitant of life. in our hypothetical world (3), inhabited by nothing but plants, death must have very early resulted from the struggle for existence: many of the crowd must have jostled one another out of the conditions on which life depends. the occurrence of death, as far back as we have any fossil record of life, however, needs not to be proved by such arguments; for, if there had been no death there would have been no fossil remains, such as the great majority of those we met with. not only was there death in the world, as far as the record of life takes us; but, ever since mammals and birds have been preyed upon by carnivorous animals, there has been painful death, inflicted by mechanisms specially adapted for inflicting it. 8. those who are acquainted with the closeness of the structural relations between the human organisation and that of the mammals which come nearest to him, on the one hand; and with the palæontological history of such animals as horses and dogs, on the other; will not be disposed to question the origin of man from forms which stand in the same sort of relation to _homo sapiens_, as _hipparion_ does to _equus_. i think it a conclusion, fully justified by analogy, that, sooner or later, we shall discover the remains of our less specialised primatic ancestors in the strata which have yielded the less specialised equine and canine quadrupeds. at present, fossil remains of men do not take us hack further than the later part of the quaternary epoch; and, as was to be expected, they do not differ more from existing men, than quaternary horses differ from existing horses. still earlier we find traces of man, in implements, such as are used by the ruder savages at the present day. later, the remains of the palæolithic and neolithic conditions take us gradually from the savage state to the civilizations of egypt and of mycenæ; though the true chronological order of the remains actually discovered may be uncertain. 9. much has yet to be learned, but, at present, natural knowledge affords no support to the notion that men have fallen from a higher to a lower state. on the contrary, everything points to a slow natural evolution; which, favoured by the surrounding conditions in such localities as the valleys of the yang-tse-kang, the euphrates, and the nile, reached a relatively high pitch, five or six thousand years ago; while, in many other regions, the savage condition has persisted down to our day. in all this vast lapse of time there is not a trace of the occurrence of any general destruction of the human race; not the smallest indication that man has been treated on any other principles than the rest of the animal world. 10. the results of the process of evolution in the case of man, and in that of his more nearly allied contemporaries, have been marvellously different. yet it is easy to see that small primitive differences of a certain order, must, in the long run, bring about a wide divergence of the human stock from the others. it is a reasonable supposition that, in the earliest human organisms, an improved brain, a voice more capable of modulation and articulation, limbs which lent themselves better to gesture, a more perfect hand, capable among other things of imitating form in plastic or other material, were combined with the curiosity, the mimetic tendency, the strong family affection of the next lower group; and that they were accompanied by exceptional length of life and a prolonged minority. the last two peculiarities are obviously calculated to strengthen the family organisation, and to give great weight to its educative influences. the potentiality of language, as the vocal symbol of thought, lay in the faculty of modulating and articulating the voice. the potentiality of writing, as the visual symbol of thought, lay in the hand that could draw; and in the mimetic tendency, which, as we know, was gratified by drawing, as far back as the days of quaternary man. with speech as the record, in tradition, of the experience of more than one generation; with writing as the record of that of any number of generations; the experience of the race, tested and corrected generation after generation, could be stored up and made the starting point for fresh progress. having these perfectly natural factors of the evolutionary process in man before us, it seems unnecessary to go further a-field in search of others. 11. that the doctrine of evolution implies a former state of innocence of mankind is quite true; but, as i have remarked, it is the innocence of the ape and of the tiger, whose acts, however they may run counter to the principles of morality, it would be absurd to blame. the lust of the one and the ferocity of the other are as much provided for in their organisation, are as clear evidences of design, as any other features that can be named. observation and experiment upon the phenomena of society soon taught men that, in order to obtain the advantages of social existence, certain rules must be observed. morality commenced with society. society is possible only upon the condition that the members of it shall surrender more or less of their individual freedom of action. in primitive societies, individual selfishness is a centrifugal force of such intensity that it is constantly bringing the social organisation to the verge of destruction. hence the prominence of the positive rules of obedience to the elders; of standing by the family or the tribe in all emergencies; of fulfilling the religious rites, non-observance of which is conceived to damage it with the supernatural powers, belief in whose existence is one of the earliest products of human thought; and of the negative rules which restrain each from meddling with the life or property of another. 12. the highest conceivable form of human society is that in which the desire to do what is best for the whole dominates and limits the action of every member of that society. the more complex the social organisation the greater the number of acts from which each man must abstain if he desires to do that which is best for all. thus the progressive evolution of society means increasing restriction of individual freedom in certain directions. with the advance of civilisation, and the growth of cities and of nations by the coalescence of families and of tribes, the rules which constitute the common foundation of morality and of law became more numerous and complicated, and the temptations to break or evade many of them stronger. in the absence of a clear apprehension of the natural sanctions of these rules, a supernatural sanction was assumed; and imagination supplied the motives which reason was supposed to be incompetent to furnish. religion, at first independent of morality, gradually took morality under its protection; and the supernaturalists have ever since tried to persuade mankind that the existence of ethics is bound up with that of supernaturalism. i am not of that opinion. but, whether it is correct or otherwise, it is very clear to me that, as beelzebub is not to be cast out by the aid of beelzebub, so morality is not to be established by immorality. it is, we are told, the special peculiarity of the devil that he was a liar from the beginning. if we set out in life with pretending to know that which we do not know; with professing to accept for proof evidence which we are well aware is inadequate; with wilfully shutting our eyes and our ears to facts which militate against this or that comfortable hypothesis; we are assuredly doing our best to deserve the same character. * * * * * i have not the presumption to imagine that, in spite of all my efforts, errors may not have crept into these propositions. but i am tolerably confident that time will prove them to be substantially correct. and if they are so, i confess i do not see how any extant supernaturalistic system can also claim exactness. that they are irreconcilable with the biblical cosmogony, anthropology, and theodicy is obvious; but they are no less inconsistent with the sentimental deism of the "vicaire savoyard" and his numerous modern progeny. it is as impossible, to my mind, to suppose that the evolutionary process was set going with full foreknowledge of the result and yet with what we should understand by a purely benevolent intention, as it is to imagine that the intention was purely malevolent. and the prevalence of dualistic theories from the earliest times to the present day--whether in the shape of the doctrine of the inherently evil nature of matter; of an ahriman; of a hard and cruel demiurge; of a diabolical "prince of this world," show how widely this difficulty has been felt. many seem to think that, when it is admitted that the ancient literature, contained in our bibles, has no more claim to infallibility than any other ancient literature; when it is proved that the israelites and their christian successors accepted a great many supernaturalistic theories and legends which have no better foundation than those of heathenism, nothing remains to be done but to throw the bible aside as so much waste paper. i have always opposed this opinion. it appears to me that if there is anybody more objectionable than the orthodox bibliolater it is the heterodox philistine, who can discover in a literature which, in some respects, has no superior, nothing but a subject for scoffing and an occasion for the display of his conceited ignorance of the debt he owes to former generations. twenty-two years ago i pleaded for the use of the bible as an instrument of popular education, and i venture to repeat what i then said: "consider the great historical fact that, for three centuries, this book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in english history; that it has become the national epic of britain and is as familiar to gentle and simple, from john o' groat's house to land's end, as dante and tasso once were to the italians; that it is written in the noblest and purest english and abounds in exquisite beauties of mere literary form; and, finally, that it forbids the veriest hind, who never left his village, to be ignorant of the existence of other countries and other civilisations and of a great past, stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest nations in the world. by the study of what other book could children be so much humanised and made to feel that each figure in that vast historical procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary space in the interval between the eternities; and earns the blessings or the curses of all time, according to its effort to do good and hate evil, even as they also are earning their payment for their work?"[14] at the same time, i laid stress upon the necessity of placing such instruction in lay hands; in the hope and belief, that it would thus gradually accommodate itself to the coming changes of opinion; that the theology and the legend would drop more and more out of sight, while the perennially interesting historical, literary, and ethical contents would come more and more into view. i may add yet another claim of the bible to the respect and the attention of a democratic age. throughout the history of the western world, the scriptures, jewish and christian, have been the great instigators of revolt against the worst forms of clerical and political despotism. the bible has been the _magna charta_ of the poor and of the oppressed; down to modern times, no state has had a constitution in which the interests of the people are so largely taken into account, in which the duties, so much more than the privileges, of rulers are insisted upon, as that drawn up for israel in deuteronomy and in leviticus; nowhere is the fundamental truth that the welfare of the state, in the long run, depends on the uprightness of the citizen so strongly laid down. assuredly, the bible talks no trash about the rights of man; but it insists on the equality of duties, on the liberty to bring about that righteousness which is somewhat different from struggling for "rights"; on the fraternity of taking thought for one's neighbour as for one's self. so far as such equality, liberty, and fraternity are included under the democratic principles which assume the same names, the bible is the most democratic book in the world. as such it began, through the heretical sects, to undermine the clerico-political despotism of the middle ages, almost as soon as it was formed, in the eleventh century; pope and king had as much as they could do to put down the albigenses and the waldenses in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; the lollards and the hussites gave them still more trouble in the fourteenth and fifteenth; from the sixteenth century onward, the protestant sects have favoured political freedom in proportion to the degree in which they have refused to acknowledge any ultimate authority save that of the bible. but the enormous influence which has thus been exerted by the jewish and christian scriptures has had no necessary connection with cosmogonies, demonologies, and miraculous interferences. their strength lies in their appeals, not to the reason, but to the ethical sense. i do not say that even the highest biblical ideal is exclusive of others or needs no supplement. but i do believe that the human race is not yet, possibly may never be, in a position to dispense with it. footnotes: [8] with a few exceptions, which are duly noted when they amount to more than verbal corrections. [9] _declaration on the truth of holy scripture._ the _times_, 18th december, 1891. [10] _declaration_, article 10. [11] ego vero evangelio non crederem, nisi ecclesiæ catholicæ me commoveret auctoritas.--_contra epistolam manichæi_, cap. v. [12] i employ the words "supernature" and "supernatural" in their popular senses. for myself, i am bound to say that the term "nature" covers the totality of that which is. the world of psychical phenomena appears to me to be as much part of "nature" as the world of physical phenomena; and i am unable to perceive any justification for cutting the universe into two halves, one natural and one supernatural. [13] the general reader will find an admirably clear and concise statement of the evidence in this case, in professor flower's recently published work _the horse: a study in natural history_. [14] "the school boards: what they can do and what they may do," 1870. _critiques and addresses_, p. 51. ii: scientific and pseudo-scientific realism [1887] next to undue precipitation in anticipating the results of pending investigations, the intellectual sin which is commonest and most hurtful to those who devote themselves to the increase of knowledge is the omission to profit by the experience of their predecessors recorded in the history of science and philosophy. it is true that, at the present day, there is more excuse than at any former time for such neglect. no small labour is needed to raise one's self to the level of the acquisitions already made; and able men, who have achieved thus much, know that, if they devote themselves body and soul to the increase of their store, and avoid looking back, with as much care as if the injunction laid on lot and his family were binding upon them, such devotion is sure to be richly repaid by the joys of the discoverer and the solace of fame, if not by rewards of a less elevated character. so, following the advice of francis bacon, we refuse _inter mortuos quærere vivum_; we leave the past to bury its dead, and ignore our intellectual ancestry. nor are we content with that. we follow the evil example set us, not only by bacon but by almost all the men of the renaissance, in pouring scorn upon the work of our immediate spiritual forefathers, the schoolmen of the middle ages. it is accepted as a truth which is indisputable, that, for seven or eight centuries, a long succession of able men--some of them of transcendent acuteness and encyclopædic knowledge--devoted laborious lives to the grave discussion of mere frivolities and the arduous pursuit of intellectual will-o'-the-wisps. to say nothing of a little modesty, a little impartial pondering over personal experience might suggest a doubt as to the adequacy of this short and easy method of dealing with a large chapter of the history of the human mind. even an acquaintance with popular literature which had extended so far as to include that part of the contributions of sam slick which contains his weighty aphorism that "there is a great deal of human nature in all mankind," might raise a doubt whether, after all, the men of that epoch, who, take them all round, were endowed with wisdom and folly in much the same proportion as ourselves, were likely to display nothing better than the qualities of energetic idiots, when they devoted their faculties to the elucidation of problems which were to them, and indeed are to us, the most serious which life has to offer. speaking for myself, the longer i live the more i am disposed to think that there is much less either of pure folly, or of pure wickedness, in the world than is commonly supposed. it may be doubted if any sane man ever said to himself, "evil, be thou my good," and i have never yet had the good fortune to meet with a perfect fool. when i have brought to the inquiry the patience and long-suffering which become a scientific investigator, the most promising specimens have turned out to have a good deal to say for themselves from their own point of view. and, sometimes, calm reflection has taught the humiliating lesson, that their point of view was not so different from my own as i had fondly imagined. comprehension is more than half-way to sympathy, here as elsewhere. if we turn our attention to scholastic philosophy in the frame of mind suggested by these prefatory remarks, it assumes a very different character from that which it bears in general estimation. no doubt it is surrounded by a dense thicket of thorny logomachies and obscured by the dust-clouds of a barbarous and perplexing terminology. but suppose that, undeterred by much grime and by many scratches, the explorer has toiled through this jungle, he comes to an open country which is amazingly like his dear native land. the hills which he has to climb, the ravines he has to avoid, look very much the same; there is the same infinite space above, and the same abyss of the unknown below; the means of travelling are the same, and the goal is the same. that goal for the schoolmen, as for us, is the settlement of the question how far the universe is the manifestation of a rational order; in other words, how far logical deduction from indisputable premisses will account for what which has happened and does happen. that was the object of scholasticism, and, so far as i am aware, the object of modern science may be expressed in the same terms. in pursuit of this end, modern science takes into account all the phenomena of the universe which are brought to our knowledge by observation or by experiment. it admits that there are two worlds to be considered, the one physical and the other psychical; and that though there is a most intimate relation and interconnection between the two, the bridge from one to the other has yet to be found; that their phenomena run, not in one series, but along two parallel lines. to the schoolmen the duality of the universe appeared under a different aspect. how this came about will not be intelligible unless we clearly apprehend the fact that they did really believe in dogmatic christianity as it was formulated by the roman church. they did not give a mere dull assent to anything the church told them on sundays, and ignore her teachings for the rest of the week; but they lived and moved and had their being in that supersensible theological world which was created, or rather grew up, during the first four centuries of our reckoning, and which occupied their thoughts far more than the sensible world in which their earthly lot was cast. for the most part, we learn history from the colourless compendiums or partisan briefs of mere scholars, who have too little acquaintance with practical life, and too little insight into speculative problems, to understand that about which they write. in historical science, as in all sciences which have to do with concrete phenomena, laboratory practice is indispensable; and the laboratory practice of historical science is afforded, on the one hand, by active social and political life, and, on the other, by the study of those tendencies and operations of the mind which embody themselves in philosophical and theological systems. thucydides and tacitus, and, to come nearer our own time, hume and grote, were men of affairs, and had acquired, by direct contact with social and political history in the making, the secret of understanding how such history is made. our notions of the intellectual history of the middle ages are, unfortunately, too often derived from writers who have never seriously grappled with philosophical and theological problems: and hence that strange myth of a millennium of moonshine to which i have adverted. however, no very profound study of the works of contemporary writers who, without devoting themselves specially to theology or philosophy, were learned and enlightened--such men, for example, as eginhard or dante--is necessary to convince one's self, that, for them, the world of the theologian was an ever-present and awful reality. from the centre of that world, the divine trinity, surrounded by a hierarchy of angels and saints, contemplated and governed the insignificant sensible world in which the inferior spirits of men, burdened with the debasement of their material embodiment and continually solicited to their perdition by a no less numerous and almost as powerful hierarchy of devils, were constantly struggling on the edge of the pit of everlasting damnation.[15] the men of the middle ages believed that through the scriptures, the traditions of the fathers, and the authority of the church, they were in possession of far more, and more trustworthy, information with respect to the nature and order of things in the theological world than they had in regard to the nature and order of things in the sensible world. and, if the two sources of information came into conflict, so much the worse for the sensible world, which, after all, was more or less under the dominion of satan. let us suppose that a telescope powerful enough to show us what is going on in the nebula of the sword of orion, should reveal a world in which stones fell upwards, parallel lines met, and the fourth dimension of space was quite obvious. men of science would have only two alternatives before them. either the terrestrial and the nebular facts must be brought into harmony by such feats of subtle sophistry as the human mind is always capable of performing when driven into a corner; or science must throw down its arms in despair, and commit suicide, either by the admission that the universe is, after all, irrational, inasmuch as that which is truth in one corner of it is absurdity in another, or by a declaration of incompetency. in the middle ages, the labours of those great men who endeavoured to reconcile the system of thought which started from the data of pure reason, with that which started from the data of roman theology, produced the system of thought which is known as scholastic philosophy; the alternative of surrender and suicide is exemplified by avicenna and his followers when they declared that that which is true in theology may be false in philosophy, and _vice versâ_; and by sanchez in his famous defence of the thesis "_quod nil scitur_." to those who deny the validity of one of the primary assumptions of the disputants--who decline, on the ground of the utter insufficiency of the evidence, to put faith in the reality of that other world, the geography and the inhabitants of which are so confidently described in the so-called[16] christianity of catholicism--the long and bitter contest, which engaged the best intellects for so many centuries, may seem a terrible illustration of the wasteful way in which the struggle for existence is carried on in the world of thought, no less than in that of matter. but there is a more cheerful mode of looking at the history of scholasticism. it ground and sharpened the dialectic implements of our race as perhaps nothing but discussions, in the result of which men thought their eternal, no less than their temporal, interests were at stake, could have done. when a logical blunder may ensure combustion, not only in the next world but in this, the construction of syllogisms acquires a peculiar interest. moreover, the schools kept the thinking faculty alive and active, when the disturbed state of civil life, the mephitic atmosphere engendered by the dominant ecclesiasticism, and the almost total neglect of natural knowledge, might well have stifled it. and, finally, it should be remembered that scholasticism really did thresh out pretty effectually certain problems which have presented themselves to mankind ever since they began to think, and which, i suppose, will present themselves so long as they continue to think. consider, for example, the controversy of the realists and the nominalists, which was carried on with varying fortunes, and under various names, from the time of scotus erigena to the end of the scholastic period. has it now a merely antiquarian interest? has nominalism, in any of its modifications, so completely won the day that realism may be regarded as dead and buried without hope of resurrection? many people seem to think so, but it appears to me that, without taking catholic philosophy into consideration, one has not to look about far to find evidence that realism is still to the fore, and indeed extremely lively.[17] * * * * * the other day i happened to meet with a report of a sermon recently preached in st. paul's cathedral. from internal evidence i am inclined to think that the report is substantially correct. but as i have not the slightest intention of finding fault with the eminent theologian and eloquent preacher to whom the discourse is attributed, for employment of scientific language in a manner for which he could find only too many scientific precedents, the accuracy of the report in detail is not to the purpose. i may safely take it as the embodiment of views which are thought to be quite in accordance with science by many excellent, instructed, and intelligent people. the preacher further contended that it was yet more difficult to realise that our earthly home would become the scene of a vast physical catastrophe. imagination recoils from the idea that the course of nature--the phrase helps to disguise the truth--so unvarying and regular, the ordered sequence of movement and life, should suddenly cease. imagination looks more reasonable when it assumes the air of scientific reason. physical law, it says, will prevent the occurrence of catastrophes only anticipated by an apostle in an unscientific age. might not there, however, be a suspension of a lower law by the intervention of a higher? thus every time we lifted our arms we defied the laws of gravitation, and in railways and steamboats powerful laws were held in check by others. the flood and the destruction of sodom and gomorrah were brought about by the operation of existing laws, and may it not be that in his illimitable universe there are more important laws than those which surround our puny life--moral and not merely physical forces? is it inconceivable that the day will come when these royal and ultimate laws shall wreck the natural order of things which seems so stable and so fair? earthquakes were not things of remote antiquity, as an island off italy, the eastern archipelago, greece, and chicago bore witness.... in presence of a great earthquake men feel how powerless they are, and their very knowledge adds to their weakness. the end of human probation, the final dissolution of organised society, and the destruction of man's home on the surface of the globe, were none of them violently contrary to our present experience, but only the extension of present facts. the presentiment of death was common; there were felt to be many things which threatened the existence of society; and as our globe was a ball of fire, at any moment the pent-up forces which surge and boil beneath our feet might be poured out ("pall mall gazette," december 6, 1886). the preacher appears to entertain the notion that the occurrence of a "catastrophe"[18] involves a breach of the present order of nature--that it is an event incompatible with the physical laws which at present obtain. he seems to be of opinion that "scientific reason" lends its authority to the imaginative supposition that physical law will prevent the occurrence of the "catastrophes" anticipated by an unscientific apostle. scientific reason, like homer, sometimes nods; but i am not aware that it has ever dreamed dreams of this sort. the fundamental axiom of scientific thought is that there is not, never has been, and never will be, any disorder in nature. the admission of the occurrence of any event which was not the logical consequence of the immediately antecedent events, according to these definite, ascertained, or unascertained rules which we call the "laws of nature," would be an act of self-destruction on the part of science. "catastrophe" is a relative conception. for ourselves it means an event which brings about very terrible consequences to man, or impresses his mind by its magnitude relatively to him. but events which are quite in the natural order of things to us, may be frightful catastrophes to other sentient beings. surely no interruption of the order of nature is involved if, in the course of descending through an alpine pine-wood, i jump upon an anthill and in a moment wreck a whole city and destroy a hundred thousand of its inhabitants. to the ants the catastrophe is worse than the earthquake of lisbon. to me it is the natural and necessary consequence of the laws of matter in motion. a redistribution of energy has taken place, which is perfectly in accordance with natural order, however unpleasant its effects may be to the ants. imagination, inspired by scientific reason, and not merely assuming the airs thereof, as it unfortunately too often does in the pulpit, so far from having any right to repudiate catastrophes and deny the possibility of the cessation of motion and life, easily finds justification for the exactly contrary course. kant in his famous "theory of the heavens" declares the end of the world and its reduction to a formless condition to be a necessary consequence of the causes to which it owes its origin and continuance. and, as to catastrophes of prodigious magnitude and frequent occurrence, they were the favourite _asylum ignorantiæ_ of geologists, not a quarter of a century ago. if modern geology is becoming more and more disinclined to call in catastrophes to its aid, it is not because of any _a priori_ difficulty in reconciling the occurrence of such events with the universality of order, but because the _a posteriori_ evidence of the occurrence of events of this character in past times has more or less completely broken down. it is, to say the least, highly probable that this earth is a mass of extremely hot matter, invested by a cooled crust, through which the hot interior still continues to cool, though with extreme slowness. it is no less probable that the faults and dislocations, the foldings and fractures, everywhere visible in the stratified crust, its large and slow movements through miles of elevation and depression, and its small and rapid movements which give rise to the innumerable perceived and unperceived earthquakes which are constantly occurring, are due to the shrinkage of the crust on its cooling and contracting nucleus. without going beyond the range of fair scientific analogy, conditions are easily conceivable which should render the loss of heat far more rapid than it is at present; and such an occurrence would be just as much in accordance with ascertained laws of nature, as the more rapid cooling of a red-hot bar, when it is thrust into cold water, than when it remains in the air. but much more rapid cooling might entail a shifting and rearrangement of the parts of the crust of the earth on a scale of unprecedented magnitude, and bring about "catastrophes" to which the earthquake of lisbon is but a trifle. it is conceivable that man and his works and all the higher forms of animal life should be utterly destroyed; that mountain regions should he converted into ocean depths and the floor of oceans raised into mountains; and the earth become a scene of horror which even the lurid fancy of the writer of the apocalypse would fail to portray. and yet, to the eye of science, there would he no more disorder here than in the sabbatical peace of a summer sea. not a link in the chain of natural causes and effects would he broken, nowhere would there be the slightest indication of the "suspension of a lower law by a higher." if a sober scientific thinker is inclined to put little faith in the wild vaticinations of universal ruin which, in a less saintly person than the seer of patmos, might seem to be dictated by the fury of a revengeful fanatic, rather than by the spirit of the teacher who bid men love their enemies, it is not on the ground that they contradict scientific principles; but because the evidence of their scientific value does not fulfil the conditions on which weight is attached to evidence. the imagination which supposes that it does, simply does not "assume the air of scientific reason." i repeat that, if imagination is used within the limits laid down by science, disorder is unimaginable. if a being endowed with perfect intellectual and æsthetic faculties, but devoid of the capacity for suffering pain, either physical or moral, were to devote his utmost powers to the investigation of nature, the universe would seem to him to be a sort of kaleidoscope, in which, at every successive moment of time, a new arrangement of parts of exquisite beauty and symmetry would present itself; and each of them would show itself to be the logical consequence of the preceding arrangement, under the conditions which we call the laws of nature. such a spectator might well be filled with that _amor intellectualis dei_, the beatific vision of the _vita contemplativa_, which some of the greatest thinkers of all ages, aristotle, aquinas, spinoza, have regarded as the only conceivable eternal felicity; and the vision of illimitable suffering, as if sensitive beings were unregarded animalcules which had got between the bits of glass of the kaleidoscope, which mars the prospect to us poor mortals, in no wise alters the fact that order is lord of all, and disorder only a name for that part of the order which gives us pain. the other fallacious employment of the names of scientific conceptions which pervades the preacher's utterance, brings me back to the proper topic of the present essay. it is the use of the word "law" as if it denoted a thing--as if a "law of nature," as science understands it, were a being endowed with certain powers, in virtue of which the phenomena expressed by that law are brought about. the preacher asks, "might not there be a suspension of a lower law by the intervention of a higher?" he tells us that every time we lift our arms we defy the law of gravitation. he asks whether some day certain "royal and ultimate laws" may not come and "wreck" those laws which are at present, it would appear, acting as nature's police. it is evident, from these expressions, that "laws," in the mind of the preacher, are entities having an objective existence in a graduated hierarchy. and it would appear that the "royal laws" are by no means to be regarded as constitutional royalties: at any moment, they may, like eastern despots, descend in wrath among the middle-class and plebeian laws, which have hitherto done the drudgery of the world's work, and, to use phraseology not unknown in our seats of learning--"make hay" of their belongings. or perhaps a still more familiar analogy has suggested this singular theory; and it is thought that high laws may "suspend" low laws, as a bishop may suspend a curate. far be it from me to controvert these views, if any one likes to hold them. all i wish to remark is that such a conception of the nature of "laws" has nothing to do with modern science. it is scholastic realism--realism as intense and unmitigated as that of scotus erigena a thousand years ago. the essence of such realism is that it maintains the objective existence of universals, or, as we call them nowadays, general propositions. it affirms, for example, that "man" is a real thing, apart from individual men, having its existence, not in the sensible, but in the intelligible world, and clothing itself with the accidents of sense to make the jack and tom and harry whom we know. strange as such a notion may appear to modern scientific thought, it really pervades ordinary language. there are few people who would, at once, hesitate to admit that colour, for example, exists apart from the mind which conceives the idea of colour. they hold it to be something which resides in the coloured object; and so far they are as much realists as if they had sat at plato's feet. reflection on the facts of the case must, i imagine, convince every one that "colour" is--not a mere name, which was the extreme nominalist position--but a name for that group of states of feeling which we call blue, red, yellow, and so on, and which we believe to be caused by luminiferous vibrations which have not the slightest resemblance to colour; while these again are set afoot by states of the body to which we ascribe colour, but which are equally devoid of likeness to colour. in the same way, a law of nature, in the scientific sense, is the product of a mental operation upon the facts of nature which come under our observation, and has no more existence outside the mind than colour has. the law of gravitation is a statement of the manner in which experience shows that bodies, which are free to move, do, in fact, move towards one another. but the other facts of observation, that bodies are not always moving in this fashion, and sometimes move in a contrary direction, are implied in the words "free to move." if it is a law of nature that bodies tend to move towards one another in a certain way; it is another and no less true law of nature that, if bodies are not free to move as they tend to do, either in consequence of an obstacle, or of a contrary impulse from some other source of energy than that to which we give the name of gravitation, they either stop still, or go another way. scientifically speaking, it is the acme of absurdity to talk of a man defying the law of gravitation when he lifts his arm. the general store of energy in the universe working through terrestrial matter is doubtless tending to bring the man's arm down; but the particular fraction of that energy which is working through certain of his nervous and muscular organs is tending to drive it up, and more energy being expended on the arm in the upward than in the downward direction, the arm goes up accordingly. but the law of gravitation is no more defied, in this case, than when a grocer throws so much sugar into the empty pan of his scales that the one which contains the weight kicks the beam. the tenacity of the wonderful fallacy that the laws of nature are agents, instead of being, as they really are, a mere record of experience, upon which we base our interpretations of that which does happen, and our anticipation of that which will happen, is an interesting psychological fact; and would be unintelligible if the tendency of the human mind towards realism were less strong. even at the present day, and in the writings of men who would at once repudiate scholastic realism in any form, "law" is often inadvertently employed in the sense of cause, just as, in common life, a man will say that he is compelled by the law to do so and so, when, in point of fact, all he means is that the law orders him to do it, and tells him what will happen if he does not do it. we commonly hear of bodies falling to the ground by reason of the law of gravitation, whereas that law is simply the record of the fact that, according to all experience, they have so fallen (when free to move), and of the grounds of a reasonable expectation that they will so fall. if it should be worth anybody's while to seek for examples of such misuse of language on my own part, i am not at all sure he might not succeed, though i have usually been on my guard against such looseness of expression. if i am guilty, i do penance beforehand, and only hope that i may thereby deter others from committing the like fault. and i venture on this personal observation by way of showing that i have no wish to bear hardly on the preacher for falling into an error for which he might find good precedents. but it is one of those errors which, in the case of a person engaged in scientific pursuits, do little harm, because it is corrected as soon as its consequences become obvious; while those who know physical science only by name are, as has been seen, easily led to build a mighty fabric of unrealities on this fundamental fallacy. in fact, the habitual use of the word "law," in the sense of an active thing, is almost a mark of pseudo-science; it characterises the writings of those who have appropriated the forms of science without knowing anything of its substance. there are two classes of these people: those who are ready to believe in any miracle so long as it is guaranteed by ecclesiastical authority; and those who are ready to believe in any miracle so long as it has some different guarantee. the believers in what are ordinarily called miracles--those who accept the miraculous narratives which they are taught to think are essential elements of religious doctrine--are in the one category; the spirit-rappers, table-turners, and all the other devotees of the occult sciences of our day are in the other: and, if they disagree in most things they agree in this, namely, that they ascribe to science a dictum that is not scientific; and that they endeavour to upset the dictum thus foisted on science by a realistic argument which is equally unscientific. it is asserted, for example, that, on a particular occasion, water was turned into wine; and, on the other hand, it is asserted that a man or a woman "levitated" to the ceiling, floated about there, and finally sailed out by the window. and it is assumed that the pardonable scepticism, with which most scientific men receive these statements, is due to the fact that they feel themselves justified in denying the possibility of any such metamorphosis of water, or of any such levitation, because such events are contrary to the laws of nature. so the question of the preacher is triumphantly put: how do you know that there are not "higher" laws of nature than your chemical and physical laws, and that these higher laws may not intervene and "wreck" the latter? the plain answer to this question is, why should anybody be called upon to say how he knows that which he does not know? you are assuming that laws are agents--efficient causes of that which happens--and that one law can interfere with another. to us, that assumption is as nonsensical as if you were to talk of a proposition of euclid being the cause of the diagram which illustrates it, or of the integral calculus interfering with the rule of three. your question really implies that we pretend to complete knowledge not only of all past and present phenomena, but of all that are possible in the future, and we leave all that sort of thing to the adepts of esoteric buddhism. our pretensions are infinitely more modest. we have succeeded in finding out the rules of action of a little bit of the universe; we call these rules "laws of nature," not because anybody knows whether they bind nature or not, but because we find it is obligatory on us to take them into account, both as actors under nature, and as interpreters of nature. we have any quantity of genuine miracles of our own, and if you will furnish us with as good evidence of your miracles as we have of ours, we shall be quite happy to accept them and to amend our expression of the laws of nature in accordance with the new facts. as to the particular cases adduced, we are so perfectly fair-minded as to be willing to help your case as far as we can. you are quite mistaken in supposing that anybody who is acquainted with the possibilities of physical science will undertake categorically to deny that water may be turned into wine. many very competent judges are already inclined to think that the bodies, which we have hitherto called elementary, are really composite arrangements of the particles of a uniform primitive matter. supposing that view to be correct, there would be no more theoretical difficulty about turning water into alcohol, ethereal and colouring matters, than there is, at this present moment, any practical difficulty in working other such miracles; as when we turn sugar into alcohol, carbonic acid, glycerine, and succinic acid; or transmute gas-refuse into perfumes rarer than musk and dyes richer than tyrian purple. if the so-called "elements," oxygen and hydrogen, which compose water, are aggregates of the same ultimate particles, or physical units, as those which enter into the structure of the so-called element "carbon," it is obvious that alcohol and other substances, composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, may be produced by a rearrangement of some of the units of oxygen and hydrogen into the "element" carbon, and their synthesis with the rest of the oxygen and hydrogen. theoretically, therefore, we can have no sort of objection to your miracle. and our reply to the levitators is just the same. why should not your friend "levitate"? fish are said to rise and sink in the water by altering the volume of an internal air-receptacle; and there may be many ways science, as yet, knows nothing of, by which we, who live at the bottom of an ocean of air, may do the same thing. dialectic gas and wind appear to be by no means wanting among you, and why should not long practice in pneumatic philosophy have resulted in the internal generation of something a thousand times rarer than hydrogen, by which, in accordance with the most ordinary natural laws, you would not only rise to the ceiling and float there in quasi-angelic posture, but perhaps, as one of your feminine adepts is said to have done, flit swifter than train or telegram to "still-vexed bermoothes," and twit ariel, if he happens to be there, for a sluggard? we have not the presumption to deny the possibility of anything you affirm; only, as our brethren are particular about evidence, do give us as much to go upon as may save us from being roared down by their inextinguishable laughter. enough of the realism which clings about "laws." there are plenty of other exemplifications of its vitality in modern science, but i will cite only one of them. this is the conception of "vital force" which comes straight from the philosophy of aristotle. it is a fundamental proposition of that philosophy that a natural object is composed of two constituents--the one its matter, conceived as inert or even, to a certain extent, opposed to orderly and purposive motion; the other its form, conceived as a quasi-spiritual something, containing or conditioning the actual activities of the body and the potentiality of its possible activities. i am disposed to think that the prominence of this conception in aristotle's theory of things arose from the circumstance that he was to begin with and throughout his life, devoted to biological studies. in fact it is a notion which must force itself upon the mind of any one who studies biological phenomena, without reference to general physics, as they now stand. everybody who observes the obvious phenomena of the development of a seed into a tree, or of an egg into an animal, will note that a relatively formless mass of matter gradually grows, takes a definite shape and structure, and, finally, begins to perform actions which contribute towards a certain end, namely, the maintenance of the individual in the first place, and of the species in the second. starting from the axiom that every event has a cause, we have here the _causa finalis_ manifested in the last set of phenomena, the _causa materialis_ and _formalis_ in the first, while the existence of a _causa efficiens_ within the seed or egg and its product, is a corollary from the phenomena of growth and metamorphosis, which proceed in unbroken succession and make up the life of the animal or plant. thus, at starting, the egg or seed is matter having a "form" like all other material bodies. but this form has the peculiarity, in contradistinction to lower substantial "forms," that it is a power which constantly works towards an end by means of living organisation. so far as i know, leibnitz is the only philosopher (at the same time a man of science, in the modern sense, of the first rank) who has noted that the modern conception of force, as a sort of atmosphere enveloping the particles of bodies, and having potential or actual activity, is simply a new name for the aristotelian form.[19] in modern biology, up till within quite recent times, the aristotelian conception held undisputed sway; living matter was endowed with "vital force," and that accounted for everything. whosoever was not satisfied with that explanation was treated to that very "plain argument"--"confound you eternally"--wherewith lord peter overcomes the doubts of his brothers in the "tale of a tub." "materialist" was the mildest term applied to him--fortunate if he escaped pelting with "infidel" and "atheist." there may be scientific rip van winkles about, who still hold by vital force; but among those biologists who have not been asleep for the last quarter of a century "vital force" no longer figures in the vocabulary of science. it is a patent survival of realism; the generalisation from experience that all living bodies exhibit certain activities of a definite character is made the basis of the notion that every living body contains an entity, "vital force," which is assumed to be the cause of those activities. it is remarkable, in looking back, to notice to what an extent this and other survivals of scholastic realism arrested or, at any rate, impeded the application of sound scientific principles to the investigation of biological phenomena. when i was beginning to think about these matters, the scientific world was occasionally agitated by discussions respecting the nature of the "species" and "genera" of naturalists, of a different order from the disputes of a later time. i think most were agreed that a "species" was something which existed objectively, somehow or other, and had been created by a divine fiat. as to the objective reality of genera, there was a good deal of difference of opinion. on the other hand, there were a few who could see no objective reality in anything but individuals, and looked upon both species and genera as hypostatised universals. as for myself, i seem to have unconsciously emulated william of occam, inasmuch as almost the first public discourse i ever ventured upon, dealt with "animal individuality," and its tendency was to fight the nominalist battle even in that quarter. realism appeared in still stranger forms at the time to which i refer. the community of plan which is observable in each great group of animals was hypostatised into a platonic idea with the appropriate name of "archetype," and we were told, as a disciple of philo-judæus might have told us, that this realistic figment was "the archetypal light" by which nature has been guided amidst the "wreck of worlds." so, again, another naturalist, who had no less earned a well-deserved reputation by his contributions to positive knowledge, put forward a theory of the production of living things which, as nearly as the increase of knowledge allowed, was a reproduction of the doctrine inculcated by the jewish cabbala. annexing the archetype notion, and carrying it to its full logical consequence, the author of this theory conceived that the species of animals and plants were so many incarnations of the thoughts of god--material representations of divine ideas--during the particular period of the world's history at which they existed. but, under the influence of the embryological and palæontological discoveries of modern times, which had already lent some scientific support to the revived ancient theories of cosmical evolution or emanation, the ingenious author of this speculation, while denying and repudiating the ordinary theory of evolution by successive modification of individuals, maintained and endeavoured to prove the occurrence of a progressive modification in the divine ideas of successive epochs. on the foundation of a supposed elevation of organisation in the whole living population of any epoch, as compared with that of its predecessor, and a supposed complete difference in species between the populations of any two epochs (neither of which suppositions has stood the test of further inquiry), the author of this speculation based his conclusion that the creator had, so to speak, improved upon his thoughts as time went on; and that, as each such amended scheme of creation came up, the embodiment of the earlier divine thoughts was swept away by a universal catastrophe, and an incarnation of the improved ideas took its place. only after the last such "wreck" thus brought about, did the embodiment of a divine thought, in the shape of the first man, make its appearance as the _ne plus ultra_ of the cosmogonical process. i imagine that louis agassiz, the genial backwoodsman of the science of my young days, who did more to open out new tracks in the scientific forest than most men, would have been much surprised to learn that he was preaching the doctrine of the cabbala, pure and simple. according to this modification of neoplatonism by contact with hebrew speculation, the divine essence is unknowable--without form or attribute; but the interval between it and the world of sense is filled by intelligible entities, which are nothing but the familiar hypostatised abstractions of the realists. these have emanated, like immense waves of light, from the divine centre, and, as ten consecutive zones of sephiroth, form the universe. the farther away from the centre, the more the primitive light wanes, until the periphery ends in those mere negations, darkness and evil, which are the essence of matter. on this, the divine agency transmitted through the sephiroth operates after the fashion of the aristotelian forms, and, at first, produces the lowest of a series of worlds. after a certain duration the primitive world is demolished and its fragments used up in making a better; and this process is repeated, until at length a final world, with man for its crown and finish, makes its appearance. it is needless to trace the process of retrogressive metamorphosis by which, through the agency of the messiah, the steps of the process of evolution here sketched are retraced. sufficient has been said to prove that the extremist realism current in the philosophy of the thirteenth century can be fully matched by the speculations of our own time. footnotes: [15] there is no exaggeration in this brief and summary view of the catholic cosmos. but it would be unfair to leave it to be supposed that the reformation made any essential alteration, except perhaps for the worse, in that cosmology which called itself "christian." the protagonist of the reformation, from whom the whole of the evangelical sects are lineally descended, states the case with that plainness of speech, not to say brutality, which characterised him. luther says that man is a beast of burden who only moves as his rider orders; sometimes god rides him, and sometimes satan. "sic voluntas humana in medio posita est, ceu jumentum; si insederit deus, vult et vadit, quo vult deus.... si insederit satan, vult et vadit, quo vult satan; nec est in ejus arbitrio ad utrum sessorem currere, aut eum quærere, sed ipsi sessores certant ob ipsum obtinendum et possidendum" (_de servo arbitrio_, m. lutheri opera, ed. 1546, t. ii. p. 468). one may hear substantially the same doctrine preached in the parks and at street-corners by zealous volunteer missionaries of evangelicism, any sunday, in modern london. why these doctrines, which are conspicuous by their absence in the four gospels, should arrogate to themselves the title of evangelical, in contradistinction to catholic, christianity, may well perplex the impartial inquirer, who, if he were obliged to choose between the two, might naturally prefer that which leaves the poor beast of burden a little freedom of choice. [16] i say "so-called" not by way of offence, but as a protest against the monstrous assumption that catholic christianity is explicitly or implicitly contained in any trustworthy record of the teaching of jesus of nazareth. [17] it may be desirable to observe that, in modern times, the term "realism" has acquired a signification wholly different from that which attached to it in the middle ages. we commonly use it as the contrary of idealism. the idealist holds that the phenomenal world has only a subjective existence, the realist that it has an objective existence. i am not aware that any mediæval philosopher was an idealist in the sense in which we apply the term to berkeley. in fact, the cardinal defect of their speculations lies in their oversight of the considerations which lead to idealism. if many of them regarded the material world as a negation, it was an active negation; not zero, but a minus quantity. [18] at any rate a catastrophe greater than the flood, which, as i observe with interest, is as calmly assumed by the preacher to be an historical event as if science had never had a word to say on that subject! [19] "les formes des anciens ou entéléchies ne sont autre chose que les forces" (leibnitz, _lettre au père bouvet_, 1697). iii: science and pseudo-science [1887] in the opening sentences of a contribution to the last number of this review,[20] the duke of argyll has favoured me with a lecture on the proprieties of controversy, to which i should be disposed to listen with more docility if his grace's precepts appeared to me to be based upon rational principles, or if his example were more exemplary. with respect to the latter point, the duke has thought fit to entitle his article "professor huxley on canon liddon," and thus forces into prominence an element of personality, which those who read the paper which is the object of the duke's animadversions will observe i have endeavoured, most carefully, to avoid. my criticisms dealt with a report of a sermon, published in a newspaper, and thereby addressed to all the world. whether that sermon was preached by a or b was not a matter of the smallest consequence; and i went out of my way to absolve the learned divine to whom the discourse was attributed from the responsibility for statements which, for anything i knew to the contrary, might contain imperfect, or inaccurate, representations of his views. the assertion that i had the wish, or was beset, by any "temptation to attack" canon liddon is simply contrary to fact. but suppose that if, instead of sedulously avoiding even the appearance of such attack, i had thought fit to take a different course; suppose that, after satisfying myself that the eminent clergyman whose name is paraded by the duke of argyll had really uttered the words attributed to him from the pulpit of st. paul's, what right would any one have to find fault with my action on grounds either of justice, expediency, or good taste? establishment has its duties as well as its rights. the clergy of a state church enjoy many advantages over those of unprivileged and unendowed religious persuasions; but they lie under a correlative responsibility to the state, and to every member of the body politic. i am not aware that any sacredness attaches to sermons. if preachers stray beyond the doctrinal limits set by lay lawyers, the privy council will see to it; and, if they think fit to use their pulpits for the promulgation of literary, or historical, or scientific errors, it is not only the right, but the duty, of the humblest layman, who may happen to be better informed, to correct the evil effects of such perversion of the opportunities which the state affords them; and such misuse of the authority which its support lends them. whatever else it may claim to be, in its relations with the state, the established church is a branch of the civil service; and, for those who repudiate the ecclesiastical authority of the clergy, they are merely civil servants, as much responsible to the english people for the proper performance of their duties as any others. the duke of argyll tells us that the "work and calling" of the clergy prevent them from "pursuing disputation as others can." i wonder if his grace ever reads the so-called "religious" newspapers. it is not an occupation which i should commend to any one who wishes to employ his time profitably; but a very short devotion to this exercise will suffice to convince him that the "pursuit of disputation," carried to a degree of acrimony and vehemence unsurpassed in lay controversies, seems to be found quite compatible with the "work and calling" of a remarkably large number of the clergy. finally, it appears to me that nothing can be in worse taste than the assumption that a body of english gentlemen can, by any possibility, desire that immunity from criticism which the duke of argyll claims for them. nothing would be more personally offensive to me than the supposition that i shirked criticism, just or unjust, of any lecture i ever gave. i should be utterly ashamed of myself if, when i stood up as an instructor of others, i had not taken every pains to assure myself of the truth of that which i was about to say; and i should feel myself bound to be even more careful with a popular assembly, who would take me more or less on trust, than with an audience of competent and critical experts. i decline to assume that the standard of morality, in these matters, is lower among the clergy than it is among scientific men. i refuse to think that the priest who stands up before a congregation, as the minister and interpreter of the divinity, is less careful in his utterances, less ready to meet adverse comment, than the layman who comes before his audience, as the minister and interpreter of nature. yet what should we think of the man of science who, when his ignorance or his carelessness was exposed, whined about the want of delicacy of his critics, or pleaded his "work and calling" as a reason for being let alone? no man, nor any body of men, is good enough, or wise enough, to dispense with the tonic of criticism. nothing has done more harm to the clergy than the practice, too common among laymen, of regarding them, when in the pulpit, as a sort of chartered libertines, whose divagations are not to be taken seriously. and i am well assured that the distinguished divine, to whom the sermon is attributed, is the last person who would desire to avail himself of the dishonouring protection which has been superfluously thrown over him. so much for the lecture on propriety. but the duke of argyll, to whom the hortatory style seems to come naturally, does me the honour to make my sayings the subjects of a series of other admonitions, some on philosophical, some on geological, some on biological topics. i can but rejoice that the duke's authority in these matters is not always employed to show that i am ignorant of them; on the contrary, i meet with an amount of agreement, even of approbation, for which i proffer such gratitude as may be due, even if that gratitude is sometimes almost overshadowed by surprise. i am unfeignedly astonished to find that the duke of argyll, who professes to intervene on behalf of the preacher, does really, like another balaam, bless me altogether in respect of the main issue. i denied the justice of the preacher's ascription to men of science of the doctrine that miracles are incredible, because they are violations of natural law; and the duke of argyll says that he believes my "denial to be well-founded. the preacher was answering an objection which has now been generally abandoned." either the preacher knew this or he did not know it. it seems to me, as a mere lay teacher, to be a pity that the "great dome of st. paul's" should have been made to "echo" (if so be that such stentorian effects were really produced) a statement which, admitting the first alternative, was unfair, and, admitting the second, was ignorant.[21] having thus sacrified one half of the preacher's arguments, the duke of argyll proceeds to make equally short work with the other half. it appears that he fully accepts my position that the occurrence of those events, which the preacher speaks of as catastrophes, is no evidence of disorder, inasmuch as such catastrophes may be necessary occasional consequences of uniform changes. whence i conclude, his grace agrees with me, that the talk about royal laws "wrecking" ordinary laws may be eloquent metaphor, but is also nonsense. and now comes a further surprise. after having given these superfluous stabs to the slain body of the preacher's argument, my good ally remarks, with magnificent calmness: "so far, then, the preacher and the professor are at one." "let them smoke the calumet." by all means: smoke would be the most appropriate symbol of this wonderful attempt to cover a retreat. after all, the duke has come to bury the preacher, not to praise him; only he makes the funeral obsequies look as much like a triumphal procession as possible. so far as the questions between the preacher and myself are concerned, then, i may feel happy. the authority of the duke of argyll is ranged on my side. but the duke has raised a number of other questions, with respect to which i fear i shall have to dispense with his support--nay, even be compelled to differ from him as much, or more, than i have done about his grace's new rendering of the "benefit of clergy." in discussing catastrophes, the duke indulges in statements, partly scientific, partly anecdotic, which appear to me to be somewhat misleading. we are told, to begin with, that sir charles lyell's doctrine respecting the proper mode of interpreting the facts of geology (which is commonly called uniformitarianism) "does not hold its head quite so high as it once did." that is great news indeed. but is it true? all i can say is that i am aware of nothing that has happened of late that can in any way justify it; and my opinion is, that the body of lyell's doctrine, as laid down in that great work, "the principles of geology," whatever may have happened to its head, is a chief and permanent constituent of the foundations of geological science. but this question cannot he advantageously discussed, unless we take some pains to discriminate between the essential part of the uniformitarian doctrine and its accessories; and it does not appear that the duke of argyll has carried his studies of geological philosophy so far as this point. for he defines uniformitarianism to be the assumption of the "extreme slowness and perfect continuity of all geological changes." what "perfect continuity" may mean in this definition, i am by no means sure; but i can only imagine that it signifies the absence of any break in the course of natural order during the millions of years, the lapse of which is recorded by geological phenomena. is the duke of argyll prepared to say that any geologist of authority, at the present day, believes that there is the slightest evidence of the occurrence of supernatural intervention, during the long ages of which the monuments are preserved to us in the crust of the earth? and if he is not, in what sense has this part of the uniformitarian doctrine, as he defines it, lowered its pretensions to represent scientific truth? as to the "extreme slowness of all geological changes," it is simply a popular error to regard that as, in any wise, a fundamental and necessary dogma of uniformitarianism. it is extremely astonishing to me that any one who has carefully studied lyell's great work can have so completely failed to appreciate its purport, which yet is "writ large" on the very title-page: "the principles of geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the earth's surface by reference to causes now in operation." the essence of lyell's doctrine is here written so that those who run may read; and it has nothing to do with the quickness or slowness of the past changes of the earth's surface; except in so far as existing analogous changes may go on slowly, and therefore create a presumption in favour of the slowness of past changes. with that epigrammatic force which characterises his style, buffon wrote, nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, in his famous "théorie de la terre": "pour juger de ce qui est arrivé, et même de ce qui arrivera, nous n'avons qu'à examiner ce qui arrive." the key of the past, as of the future, is to be sought in the present; and, only when known causes of change have been shown to be insufficient, have we any right to have recourse to unknown causes. geology is as much a historical science as archæology; and i apprehend that all sound historical investigation rests upon this axiom. it underlay all hutton's work and animated lyell and scope in their successful efforts to revolutionise the geology of half a century ago. there is no antagonism whatever, and there never was, between the belief in the views which had their chief and unwearied advocate in lyell and the belief in the occurrence of catastrophes. the first edition of lyell's "principles," published in 1830, lies before me; and a large part of the first volume is occupied by an account of volcanic, seismic, and diluvial catastrophes which have occurred within the historical period. moreover, the author, over and over again, expressly draws the attention of his readers to the consistency of catastrophes with his doctrine. notwithstanding, therefore, that we have not witnessed within the last three thousand years the devastation by deluge of a large continent, yet, as we may predict the future occurrence of such catastrophes, we are authorized to regard them as part of the present order of nature, and they may be introduced into geological speculations respecting the past, provided that we do not imagine them to have been more frequent or general than we expect them to be in time to come (vol. i. p. 89). again:- if we regard each of the causes separately, which we know to be at present the most instrumental in remodelling the state of the surface, we shall find that we must expect each to be in action for thousands of years, without producing any extensive alterations in the habitable surface, and then to give rise, during a very brief period, to important revolutions (vol. ii. p. 161).[22] lyell quarrelled with the catastrophists then, by no means because they assumed that catastrophes occur and have occurred, but because they had got into the habit of calling on their god catastrophe to help them, when they ought to have been putting their shoulders to the wheel of observation of the present course of nature, in order to help themselves out of their difficulties. and geological science has become what it is, chiefly because geologists have gradually accepted lyell's doctrine and followed his precepts. so far as i know anything about the matter, there is nothing that can be called proof, that the causes of geological phenomena operated more intensely or more rapidly, at any time between the older tertiary and the oldest palæozoic epochs than they have done between the older tertiary epoch and the present day. and if that is so, uniformitarianism, even as limited by lyell,[23] has no call to lower its crest. but if the facts were otherwise, the position lyell took up remains impregnable. he did not say that the geological operations of nature were never more rapid, or more vast, than they are now; what he did maintain is the very different proposition that there is no good evidence of anything of the kind. and that proposition has not yet been shown to be incorrect. i owe more than i can tell to the careful study of the "principles of geology" in my young days; and