was, nevertheless, in the judgment of M. Renan, probably not able to read Hebrew or understand Greek!

M. Renan's remarks relative to the Baptist's intercourse with Jesus are equally profound. "John's last act towards Jesus," he says, "had effectually united the two schools in the most intimate bonds. . . . The school of John did not die with its founder. It lived some time distinct from that of Jesus; and, in proof, he refers the reader to Acts xviii. 24, and following, and xix. 1-5. And, as a further logical deduction based on the reading of these passages, he adds: "Seeing that his school continued to exist a considerable time parallel with the Christian Churches, we are led to think that, notwithstanding his regard for Jesus, John did not look upon Him as the one who was to realize the divine promises." Now, if instead of most absurdly drawing this inference from these passages in the Acts, he had drawn it from John's message to Jesus about whether He were really the Christ or not, there would have been some show of consistency in it; for, notwithstanding it is a recorded fact that "John bare record of Him, saying, "Ye yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before Him. He must increase, but I must decrease. He that cometh from above is above all." And again: "There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I, indeed, have baptized you with water but He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost." And again, when, "to fulfil all righteousness," Jesus came to be baptized of him, John said, "I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?"——notwithstanding it is a recorded fact that John thus bore record of 1 Page 153-157. 2 John iii. 28–31. 3 Mark i. 7, 8. 4 Matt. iii. 14.

Him, it is true that a gloomy cloud of unbelief seems to have come over him when lying in the prison in which he had been confined by Herod, arising, perhaps, from the suggestion of the adversary that if Jesus were really the true Messiah, supposing Him to be a temporal as well as a spiritual Deliverer, He would surely devise some means of effecting the deliverance of his recognized forerunner from the hands of his enemy, the King. But this temptation, arising probably from a mistaken idea as to the two-fold nature of Christ's Kingdom, was doubtless of short duration, and was wholly dispelled by the return of His disciples with the assuring message from Jesus, "Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see. . . . And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in Me."1

As a further illustration of Renan's logical acumen, we give the following: "Tradition in fact," he says, "attributes to Jesus two entirely opposite rules of proselytism, which He may have practised in turn: 'He that is not against us, is on our part.' 'He that is not with Me, is against Me.' Impassioned conflict involves almost necessarily this kind of contradictions." Our logical philosopher, it appears, thinks he has discovered a contradiction in this passage. Well, it may be because we have not had the advantage of a rationalistic training, and have therefore not been able to explore the secret depths whence rationalistic logic proceeds but viewing the passage in the ordinary common sense or reasonable (not to say rationalistic) light, we take the one to be simply explanatory of the other-the one affirming that those who are not against are with; and the other, that all are against who are not with. No middle ground can be taken : we are all either active friends of Christ, or enemies.

We have seen in a previous paragraph what M. Renan has had to say in reference to "the ideas of the poor but honest man" judging the world. We have now to consider another light in which he views the poor man, and which he professes to have also gathered from the teaching of Jesus. Unfortunately for him, however, instead of our having merely to explain the terms of a Scripture passage which he imagined to involve a contradiction, as in the passage preceding, in addition to its utter perversion of the true teaching of Jesus, we have to give the reader another specimen. of his own extraordinary liability to make contradictory statements. "Like all great men," Renan says, "Jesus loved the people, and felt Himself at home with them. The Gospel, in His idea, is made for the poor." For "the poor in spirit," truly, but not so does M. Renan understand it, for he adds: "Pure Ebionism—that is, the doctrine that the poor (ebionim) alone shall be saved, that the reign of the poor is approaching-was, therefore, the doctrine of Jesus." Now, not to speak of the many places where Renan tells us that Jesus was not a teacher of creed, dogma, or theology, and of their irreconcilability with such statements as, "He was obliged to become controversialist, jurist, exegetist, and theologian"-in the passage just quoted, he tells us that "the doctrine that the poor alone shall be saved, was the doctrine of Jesus;' while on page 127, he tells us that "Of those who followed Him, and constantly ministered unto Him, some were rich, and by their fortune enabled the Young Prophet to live without following the trade which He had until then practised." And on page 166, he says: "The charming Teacher forgave every one provided they loved Him." And again: "Jesus maintained that every well-disposed man, every man who received 2 Page 241.

1

1 Page 143.

and loved Him, was a son of Abraham," who, we are told, was Himself rich. And then again, to crown all, immediately on making the affirmation that the poor alone, according to the teaching of Jesus, are to be saved, in confirmation of it he quotes the passage, "Then said He also to him that bade Him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just."1 Here, in flagrant contradiction of the assertion he makes, is the case of a rich man who provides a sumptuous feast for the poor, assured by Jesus that he shall be rewarded at the resurrection of the just. How singular that M. Renan should thus confound himself by choosing so apt an illustration of the very truth that falsifies his position, blindly overlooking the fact that to provide a feast for the poor a man must be himself rich; and that, according to Christ's teaching, all who are thus charitable from Christian principles and motives, shall be recompensed in the world to

come.

"Christianity," Renan says, "in spite of its failures still reaps the results of its glorious origin. To renew itself it has but to return to the Gospel "2—that is, to the Gospel as we have seen it explained by M. Renan! and which originated with Him of whom in other leading spirits, he says: a surprising energy into action. giants of an heroic age, which But how does he account for their

1 Luke xiv. 12-14.

company with St. Paul and "These mighty souls carried They appear to us like the could not have been real." surprising energy and 2 Page 302.

success? Why, because "the breath of God was free in them," he says, while "with us it is restrained by the iron bonds of a mean society." "1 And, let us add, It was because the power of God was manifest in them. There was something higher and more potential than the mere "ideal" about them: the Divinity was in them. Their energy and power were substantial, were real. "Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God," was the secret spring of their power, and of the mighty results which have followed their labours. It is because the Founder of our holy Christianity was the Son of God, claiming equality with Him, and was therefore God Himself, since there can be no equality with Deity without being God. Has not M. Renan himself stamped Him with the insignia of Divinity? He has, for example, in many places written of Him such sentiments as the following: "He pronounced for the first time the sentence upon which will repose the edifice of eternal religion. He founded the pure worship of all ages and of all lands, that which all elevated souls will practise until the end of time. 2 Not only was His religion on this day the best religion of humanity, it was the absolute religion; and if other planets have inhabitants gifted with reason and morality, their religion cannot be different from that which Jesus proclaimed near the well of Jacob." Very true, but saying so, you Deify its founder. It is the work, not of man, but of God.

This pure "Christianity," which St. Paul declares came "not by man, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ," Renan further remarks, "still preserves, after eighteen centuries, the character of a universal and eternal religion. Before Jesus, 1 Page 305. 2" To the end of time."-This, coming from one who rejects the Divine authority of the Bible, is, of course, to be regarded as a mere flourish of rhetoric. 3 Page 176.