Christianity, in its nature and its first rapid successes, is unintelligible.

Heathen historians assure us of the fact of some religion having originated with Jesus and spread with surprising rapidity to a marvellous extent: but how did it spread? The voice of history tells us not. It says nothing of the sword helping Christianity till the reign of Constantine, more than three hundred years after the birth of Jesus. It tells us nothing of the magic, the imposture, the fraud or the other means by which this religion spread. It merely testifies of the apparent unattractiveness, the virtues and the atheism (i. e, the freedom from idolatry) of the Christians, so that the gifted, accomplished and sagacious Gibbon can only surmise that, in a world which was bad enough to crucify Jesus and slay many of his most intimate associates, it was the goodness of Christianity which commended it to the acceptance of the gross and demoralised multitude.

We are not now prepared to gainsay this surmise: but, if Gibbon was right in this extraordinary supposition, we are the more interested to know what was the peculiar excellence of Christ's religion, as contrasted with the holy, hopeful teaching of Socrates and his disciples Plato and Xenophon. What was it which caused Platonism, as a purifier of mankind at large, to stagnate, whilst Christianity flourished? High morality, tolerable theosophy, and the doctrines of an after world, a judgment and even a resurrection of the body-these truths were clearly enunciated in the dialogue of the Phædo which, between three hundred and four hundred

years before Christ, Plato wrote in Greece, the very centre of education for the ancient world. How was it that this religion-coming from so revered a teacher, in Athens, under the most favourable circumstances, and recorded in language than which no words can be more eloquentfell almost still-born on the ears of man, whereas the religion of Jesus, from wickedly notorious Nazareth, in despised Galilee a district of remote and neglected Judæa, went forth conquering and to conquer and has continued to hold its grasp on the mind of man? The only book, which professes to be able to give us information on this subject by telling us what primitive Christianity was and how it grew, is the Bible. We grant that the Bible which professes to give us this information is not infallible: but still, if even it contained many and great errors, it should, for its antiquity and for the reverence in which from of old it was held, be respectfully and most diligently examined in order that we may discover-if it be possible-some faint hint in its pages which may teach us the world-attractive secret of Christ's confessedly virtuous religion. If men ransack the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides and Tacitus to find any useful hints for conducting the policy and government of temporal states-if Galen and Hippocrates are still read by medical students in our day-if politicians seek wisdom and statecraft in the Politics of Aristotle and the Republic of Plato, how

*For a very attractive statement of the outward circumstances of Jesus, the reader is referred to the Rev. John Young's "Christ of History," recently published by Longman and Co.

much more should we all search the Scriptures if haply we may find in their fallible records any still disregarded or unappreciated maxim of wisdom, morality and piety. Surely the sole and very ancient records of Christianity, as it came from Christ and his apostles, must ever be an object of most solemn curiosity to every thinking

man.

In such reflections as these there is sufficient cause and ample guarantee for every intelligent man reading the Bible thoughtfully and in no light or irreverent mood. But tell such an one that he is to read that blessed book as the infallible word of God, and then, every time he finds an inaccuracy in the science, a discrepancy in the history or an error in the grammar of the Bible, he is shocked and his religious earnestness is likely to be chilled by the inevitable conviction that this belief in an infallible book is untrue. He is made occasionally unhappy by unbelief and, in proportion to the strength of his intellect or the depth of his devotion, he ultimately becomes a callous infidel, a weak and unsanctified believer, or in some rare cases a resigned but most unsatisfied Christian.

CHAPTER III.

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS URGING TO A STUDY OF THE BIBLE AS A

BOOK OF VENERABLE AUTHORITY AND AS A RULE OF FAITH.

A. THE BIBLE TO BE REVERED AS THE HANDMAID OF ALL GREAT MODERN IMPROVEMENTS.

THUS far, then, history and the antiquity of our sacred writings put in a reasonable demand that the Old and New Testaments (in common, possibly, with some apocryphal writings) should be studiously and not irreverently nor superstitiously examined: but the heading of this Book speaks of the authority of the Bible: and we are now prepared to proceed in asserting that authority. We have already shown good reason for serious study of the Bible. Our next step is to claim for it a reverential study. This claim we ground on a consideration that, if the Bible, as distinct from Christianity, has not always been the manifest originator of all civilisations in Christendom, it has at all events been their handmaid, and, without it, they have not prospered or been any great blessing to mankind.

1.-OF GERMAN ENGLISH AND SCOTCH PROGRESS AS CONTRASTED WITH SPANISH AND ITALIAN RETROGRESSION.

WE shall illustrate our argument by a reference to the period of the Reformation. The human mind re

ceived a great impulse in the fifteenth century. The printing press gave a novel power of disseminating thoughts new and old. The discovery of America and of the passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope quickened the spirit of mercantile adventure; and generally set men thinking freely and independently on all questions. The capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 expelled many learned men from that chief seat of the Eastern Empire and they travelled westward in search of safety in some new home. All the old wisdom of the Greeks these refugees had studied: and much classical lore and true philosophy they were able and willing to teach to any ruler or people who would receive them.

The beneficial influences of this impulse penetrated little into the rude and barbarous nations of Germany. It was to Italy-and mainly to fair Florence, the queen of cities, that the Greek refugees bent their steps. There Lorenzo the Magnificent, as afterwards at Rome his nephew Leo the Tenth, gave them joyful welcome. The Italian cities were full of all the best arts and sciences that then were attainable. Homer, the Greek tragedians, Horace, Cicero, Plato and Aristotle were all well known in the Italian courts and amongst the élite of Italian society. All seemed bright and full of promise. In Spain and Portugal, too, if there was somewhat less of literature and the fine arts, there were energy and power, active and growing amidst the golden walks of commerce with the East and with the newly discovered West.