he says. But perhaps the main direct effect produced by his work has resulted from its treating all those facts in which our happiness and virtue are most interested, - those facts which address themselves to our noblest sympathies and sentiments, which, even if they were divested of reality, would remain the most glorious of imaginations, from its treating those facts in the driest manner, on the narrowest basis of thought, and with a heartless disregard of the associations connected with them in the mind of a religious man, and of the bearing of the discussion on the essential interests of humanity. This is the characteristic tone of his book; and it may be difficult for one who undertakes the task of reading it through to escape the infection of it. There is danger that his feelings may be so degraded, his views so contracted, and, I may add, his reasoning powers so confused, as to leave his mind in a proper state for the reception of German mysticism and infidelity. If one were to submit to hear the character and conduct of his most intimate friend canvassed and questioned at great length, in the manner in which Strauss discusses the history of our Lord, he might find it difficult to feel for him the same confidence and respect as before.

CHAPTER IV.

ON SOME IMPORTANT CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GOSPELS.

BEFORE leaving the subject of the criticism of the Gospels, we will advert to some general facts concerning them, which should be kept in mind by him who would read them intelligently.

I have repeatedly had occasion to speak of, or to refer to, their character. As literary compositions they are among the most imperfect of histories. Either individually or collectively, they present only a brief narrative of some of the most striking events in our Lord's ministry, and these told by the writers, with the exception of John, for the most part nakedly and in few words. John's narratives of particular events form an exception to this remark; but the incompleteness of his history, taken as a whole, is even more remarkable than that of the other Gospels. No skill is shown by any one of the Evangelists in connecting his relations together, so as to form a proper con

tinuous history, however brief. No explanations are given, except a few which are parenthetical and unimportant. With the exception of some passages in John's Gospel, there is no comment on anything told which discovers the writer's feelings or state of mind. It is with astonishment that we recognize the fact, when our attention is directed to it, that a writer wholly uninterested in the events related could not have recorded them more dryly than do the first three Evangelists; that the whole effect on our minds of what is told is due to its intrinsic character. I may turn aside for a moment to observe, that, among the overwhelming evidences of the genuineness and authenticity of the Gospels, this is one among the many of those which we may speak of as the most decisive. Such works could not have been written with the purpose of deception; - but the notion of intentional deception in their writers is now, I suppose, universally regarded as foolish and obsolete. It is equally clear that they could not have been written by weak-minded and fanatical individuals, whose imaginations had been strongly excited by some extraordinary delusion. No writings can present a stronger contrast than do the Gospels to what might be expected from fanatics.

As I have said, the Gospels are not proper histories. They are very far from being such works as might furnish an intelligible and satisfactory account of the ministry of Jesus, of its character and purpose, to one previously unacquainted with the essential facts concerning it.

Let us imagine them to be put without explanation into the hands of a very intelligent heathen contemporary of their authors, but one as imperfectly informed as were the generality of Heathens of the condition and history of the Jewish nation, and having only those imperfect notions and that hesitating belief of the great truths of religion which appear even in the writings of Cicero. Supposing him to read them through with attention, what ideas of their meaning and bearing would he have been able to form, corresponding to those of an enlightened Christian? The conceptions of the character and purpose of the ministry of Christ, entertained by different Christians of the present day, are very unlike one another; and if our own be correct, they must be the result of much thought and reasoning, and derived in part directly and in part by clear inference from many other sources of information beside the Gospels, especially from the history of the Apostles given by Luke, and the

Epistles of St. Paul. I do not say that every intelligent and rational Christian must for himself have gone through the process requisite to acquire the knowledge necessary in order to understand the Gospels; but if he have not done so, he must be indebted for it to the labors of others.

The Gospels imply throughout, that the great outlines of the ministry of Jesus, together with the condition and character of the Jews among whom he appeared, and the more striking immediate results of what he did and taught, were already known to their readers. They suppose, in like manner, their readers to be already acquainted with many circumstances attending particular events and discourses of our Lord, which circumstances are not brought into view in their narratives. A knowledge of circumstances which the Evangelists do not directly state is, as I have said, the main key to the understanding of the character and bearing of what they relate, the great source of

illustration for the Gospels.

I will give a single example of the manner in which the Evangelists relied on the previous knowledge of their readers, or rather, as one may say, of their unconscious assumption of the existence of such knowledge. The example is, perhaps,