1. It is related only in Matthew and Luke, is not referred to afterward in either narrative, and is not once alluded to by any other writer in the New Testament.

2. There is no evidence whatever that Jesus ever mentioned the thing to anybody, or knew that such a tale was told.

3. None of the apostles or minor disciples of Jesus, ever interchanged a word about it, in all their preaching and conversation, so far as reported to us. How could they have been thus silent about so interesting an event, if they had known of it?

4. It is related in the books of Matthew and Luke entirely on hearsay, and without any reference to authenticate the report. If these evangelists wrote the tale, still they do not pretend to know anything about its truth.

5. But there is no positive evidence that they did write it nothing but the fact that it is prefixed to "the Gospel according to St. Matthew," and that according to St. Luke." These books are known to be copies of manuscripts which either perished or were destroyed centuries ago - copies, I mean only with such expurgations and interpolations as their editors were ecclesiastically authorized to make. The general history of the Church renders it extremely probable that this story was a matter of tra

dition, of uncertain date and origin, which gained credit in the age of pious frauds, and was foisted into its present place when the Bible was locked up in dead languages, and guarded by priestly hands, like the pot of manna among the Jews.

Finally, we ought to look at this subject in the light of Reason alone. The story is grossly absurd in itself, and every rational mind will cast it out as a worthless falsehood.

Where now is the supernatural character of Jesus? Like Noah's dove, it flies hither and yon, and finds no rest for the sole of its foot, till it return to the ark of faith. "Without controversy," says Paul, "great is the mystery of godliness-God manifest in the flesh;" and this celestial "treasure in earthen vessels" is like the bread of heaven in "the Wilderness of Sin," which would not keep except on the Sabbath. So very peculiar is this mystery, that we no sooner make up our minds not to believe without evidence, than the treasure spoils - the vision of glory fails the form of fancy vanishes, and leaves no vestige to eyes of common sense.

No truth in Nature is better established than that Jesus was a man, and nothing more. As such he must have come into this World by the door of natural parentage and birth, been nourished at the maternal breast and reared like other infants. In his

boyhood he was playful and childlike, acquired strength by growth, and the use of his faculties by experience, and put off gradually the indiscretions of youth. In manhood he must still have retained the natural habitudes of men, such as eating, drinking and sleeping, and in his waking hours interchanging labor with recreation, enjoying society as well as study, and blending grave thoughts with the smiles and pleasantries of good humor. I make these remarks to offset the quaintness of his portrait in the Scriptures. It is very probable that Joseph was his legitimate father, and quite certain that the Holy Ghost was not; and it derogates nothing from the respectability of his name and Character, to assert that he was a Divine being in no other sense than applies to all the rest of mankind.

SECTION II.

Jesus a Preeminent Example of Humanity.

There is abundant evidence of the superiority and excellence of Jesus as a man. His Sermon on the Mount is an ever-during monument to the praise of his moral genius. His Beatitudes are cherished, by the pure in heart, as the sweetest of all memorials and the richest of all legacies; and the adoration of

all Christendom is only an offset to the stupid malice of the Jews, who spit upon and crucified the best model of Virtue that the World has ever seen.

Jesus was an intelligent man. His sayings and teachings exhibit acuteness of intellect as well as goodness of purpose. See how in his ethics he discriminates between the formal and the essential, and instead of laboring for an outside morality as Moses did, applies all his precepts to the heart. I am aware that many of his maxims are so latently prudential, that the wisdom of this World has always set them at naught; but that only proves the greater thoroughness of his moral system, as the work of an abler Soul. To render good for evil, to judge not and condemn not, to love one's neighbor as oneself, and to do as we would be done by, are maxims of Interest as well as Duty; but it requires a keen rational eye to see thus; and the want of this conception is the sin of the World. Man, with eighteen hundred years to consider these precepts, is blind to their policy yet. How beautifully great in the contrast is Jesus, who untaught discerned it!

There is no sign of littleness in the mind of that Nazarene. If he had any foibles, they were shrouded from perception by the prepossessive sway of his Worth. In all his teachings there is no leaning to a stale authority, and no standing on prejudice. As a

Reformer, he was just never hurried by enthusiasm, never exceeding his purpose through excitement,

not overdoing his work. While rejecting the bloody rites of Moses as useless and wrongful, he still saw beauty and utility in the more civil enactments of the ancient legislator. "Think not I am come to destroy the law or the prophets," said he; "I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." What manly discretion is involved in this remark! He rejected nothing useful in the system of Moses, in which his countrymen had been nurtured: he conserved all that was good. The Jewish religion effected only abstinence from wrong: Jesus would fulfil or complete that by teaching positive Right. "Thou shalt not steal, nor covet anything that is thy neighbor's," was the law of Moses. "Hate not thy brother". "Love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy," was Hebrew patriotism and the policy of untutored Man : "But I say unto you, Love your enemies," suggested the Galilean preceptor, in the gentle spirit of his own excellent maxim. And what intellectual beauty in the original conception, that the whole of Duty, in perfectional harmony with Interest, is comprised in this single word, Love!

There is no room for doubt that Jesus was a good man. He made it the business of his life to teach