statement of this, and the rest of the Pauline argument, we may refer again to the Bampton Lectures of 1877.

S. R.' is fully aware of the value of the Pauline testimony, and has done his best to weaken its force; for discredit it he cannot. His reasonings here are thoroughly partial, without the smallest attempt to balance evidence-a character which must be attributed to large portions of his work. They consist in carefully stating all that is probable, or even possible, on his own side of the question, and in keeping in the background all the great points of evidence which have been adduced by those who take the contrary view. Space will only allow two illustrations of his mode of reasoning. The object of 'S. R.' is to discredit S. Paul's testimony on the ground that he did not trouble himself to investigate facts. He cites the following words of the Apostle: 'Then, after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Peter, and abode with him fifteen days; but other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother. Then after fourteen years, I went up to Jerusalem'—(Gal. i. 16, 18, 21.) reasoning on them, as given in vol. iii. p. 494, is as follows:

His

'On which occasion we know his business was not of a nature to allow us to suppose that he obtained much information regarding the Resurrection. Now, we may ask, is there that thirst for information regarding the facts and doctrines of Christianity displayed here, which entitles us to suppose that Paul eagerly and minutely investigated the evidence for them? We think not. Paul made up his mind in his own way; and having waited three years without asking a question, it is not probable that the questions that he then asked were of a searching nature. The protest that he saw none of the Apostles may prove his independence; but it certainly does not show his anxiety for information. . . . We should not, however, be justified in affirming that the conversation between the two great Apostles never turned on the subject of the Resurrection; but we think that it is obvious that Paul's visit was not in the least one of investigation.'

It is perfectly true that S. Paul assigns other reasons for his two visits than a set purpose of investigating the facts of Christianity. He had had ample opportunities of doing this, when a persecutor, and his attempt to destroy the Church rendered it absolutely incumbent on him to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the important points of the controversy. All this, however, 'S. R.' leaves entirely unnoticed, and he has so put the case, by the aid of a set of probabilities and innuendoes, as to produce the impression on the reader's mind, that S. Paul was absolutely careless about

ascertaining the truth of facts, and this is insinuated throughout his entire argument. The answer to this shall be brief. The idea that Paul, once the persecutor, now become an ardent believer in the Resurrection, and inflamed with the deepest love for his risen Master, during a visit to Peter of fitteen days' duration, only three years after his conversion, did not earnestly converse with him about his alleged interviews with Jesus, is to invite us to accept as true a thing which contradicts the deepest impulses of the human mind, and is utterly inconsistent with the profound earnestness of his character. But further, S. Paul informs us (in 1 Cor. xv. 5), that our Lord made an appearance to Peter separately from the other Apostles. The only other authority for this fact is an indirect reference to it in the third Gospel. What can be more probable than that Paul learned this incident from the lips of Peter himself? He also tells us of a separate appearance made to James. What more likely than that he heard it from James himself, with whom he tells us he had interviews, for of this appearance S. Paul is our sole informant? The truth is, that if the writers of the New Testament had complied with all the requisitions made on them by 'S. R.,' the Epistles would have been expanded into volumes, and the whole book would have approached the size of the Mishna.

No less than 320 pages of the third volume are directed to a minute criticism of the Acts of the Apostles, for the purpose of proving that scarcely an incident recorded in its pages rests on an historical foundation. As a specimen of the kind of reasoning which satisfies S. R.,' the following very singular passage may be quoted from vol. iii. p. 81. is labouring to prove that none of the discourses in the Acts are genuine; but that all were composed by the author :

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"The favourite formula with which all the speeches open is Men (and) Brethren" (årdpes ädeλøoi or ävdpes), united with some other term, as Men (and) Israelites” (ἄνδρες Ισραηλεῖται), or simply ἄνδρες without addition. The words avèpes adeλpor occur no less than thirteen times. The angels at the Ascension address the disciples as "Men (and) Galileans” (ävèpeç Fadıλaño). Peter makes use of ἄνδρες Ισραηλεῖται twice, and it is likewise employed by Paul, by Gamaliel, and by the Jews of Ásia. Peter addresses those assembled at the Pentecost as ἄνδρες Ἰουδαῖοι. Paul opens his Athenian speech with ἄνδρες Αθηναῖοι, and the town clerk begins his short appeal to the craftsmen at Ephesus, ἄνδρες Ἐφέσιοι. The simple ἄνδρες is used indifferently by different persons. There can be no doubt that the common use of these expressions by all the speakers in the Acts betrays the hand of the same composer throughout.'

But can there be no reasonable doubt on this point?

How stand the facts? The term avopes, when addressed to a Greek audience, conveyed much the same idea as the word 'gentlemen' does to an English one; and was in equally general use. As an illustration of this, the satirist Lucian, with bitter irony, represents Jupiter as addressing an assembly of the gods with the words & avdpes Oéo (literally, men gods, but really meaning sirs, or gentlemen gods). "Avopes 'Aonvaio was the term habitually used by an Athenian orator when he addressed a public assembly of the citizens. "Avdpɛs Epéotor would be no less appropriate at Ephesus; and avopes, with the addition of the name of the people of the place, at any other city. To this an exception must be made. It would have been incorrect if placed in the mouth of a Roman speaker in an address professing to have been delivered to a body of assembled citizens. Thus we require no other reason for being assured that the speech of Antonius in the play of Julius Cæsar is the composition of Shakspeare, and not of Antonius, than the fact that the latter is made to address a body of Roman citizens with the words, 'Friends, Romans, countrymen.' Again, Jews and Christians viewed one another as brethren; therefore the words avspes adeλpo, either by themselves, or with additions, are exactly the expressions which a Jewish or Christian speaker would naturally employ. The inference, therefore, which the use of these terms suggests may not inaptly be expressed in ‘S. R.'s' own words slightly altered: 'There can be no doubt that the common use of these expressions by all the speakers of the Acts affords a strong indication that the author of the work has incorporated many of their real utterances into these discourses.' Equally valid with the reasoning of 'S. R.' would it be to argue, that because the addresses of English public speakers for the most part commence with the words Sir, or Gentlemen, 'that this betrays the hand of the same composer throughout.' Probably 'S. R.' has a little private theory of his own, that Lucian, to whom the word ävồpes must have been an extremely favourite expression, as is proved by his putting such words as & avopes Oéo into the mouth of Jupiter, when addressing an assembly of gods, assisted the author of the Acts in the composition of the discourses.

The few remaining remarks must be on the subject of the Resurrection. 'S. R.'s' mode of treating this subject need not detain us long. While he does his utmost to detract from the value of the testimony to its truth which is afforded by the Pauline Epistles, he passes over without notice those points which render their testimony in an historical point of

view of pre-eminent value, and which are fully set forth in the Bampton Lectures already referred to. But after all his reasonings, 'S. R.' apparently admits the only point, the proof of which is absolutely necessary to the validity of the Christian argument, viz., that the belief in the Resurrection was general among the followers of Jesus, and that the Church was reconstructed after His crucifixion on the basis of His supposed resurrection. Now, it cannot be denied that Christianity and the Society in which it has been embodied have formed the mightiest force which has acted on civilised man during eighteen centuries of history, and that the Church came into existence at a well-known period of time. This Society has always affirmed that it was reconstructed in the firm persuasion of His followers that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. If that belief is true, it furnishes a rational account of the origin of the Church, and the mighty influence which has been exerted by the Galilean peasant on the history of the past which satisfies the demands of a sound philosophy. But, if the Founder of the Church never rose from the dead, then this great institution, and the influence which its Founder, Jesus Christ, has exerted on the long course of history, have been based on the delusions of a body of credulous fanatics, who mistook a set of visionary appearances and conversations with the departed Jesus, the creations of their own distempered imaginations, for objective facts, even while His body was at hand corrupting in its grave; and, in the firm conviction that this delusion was a reality, proceeded to reconstruct the Church in the face of the opposition of a hostile world. If, therefore, it is affirmed that the belief in the Resurrection was a delusion, those who affirm it are bound to offer an explanation of the great facts of history which shall be consistent with such a theory; to prove such a delusion to be consistent with the facts of human nature; and to explain how it has come to pass that a baseless delusion has proved the mightiest moral and spiritual power which has ever been brought to bear on the human mind.

On this point 'S. R.' has little fresh to offer. He falls back on the theory of visions as affording a philosophical explanation of the belief in the Resurrection. This theory, as has been hinted above, affirms that the credulous, superstitious, and enthusiastic followers of Jesus took to seeing visions of their departed Master, in which they fancied that they saw Him alive, and held conversations with Him after His crucifixion, and that they mistook these for objective realities, and not only so, but in the fulness of their convictions,

and in the face of every opposition, that they proceeded to lay deep the foundations of that great institution which has indelibly stamped its impress on the forms of thought, the customs, the arts, the legislation, in a word, on the entire civilisation of all the progressive nations of mankind. This theory our author is ready to supplement, if necessary, by the additional one, that Jesus did not die from the effects of the Crucifixion, but that He recovered, and retired from the public view; and that His credulous followers, aided by a set of visions, mistook this for a resurrection and an ascension into heaven. Both these theories, as has been pointed out elsewhere, if they are veritable explanations of the historic facts, only succeed in substituting a different set of miraculous occurrences in the place of those recorded in the Gospels.

The only novelty in 'S. R.'s' treatment of this subject is the use which he makes of the three principles laid down by Dr. Carpenter in his work on Mental Psychology, viz. Prepossession, Fixed Idea, and Expectancy,' as affording a rational account of the origin of numerous delusions, and among them those of modern spiritualism. 'S. R.' is of opinion that these three principles will afford considerable assistance in accounting for the delusions on the part of the followers of Jesus, to which reference has been already made. He is probably not aware that Dr. Carpenter, about a year and a half since, read a paper entitled The Fallacies of Testimony before a considerable body of clergy assembled at Sion College, which he afterwards published as an article in the Contemporary Review. In this paper Dr. Carpenter propounds these and other similar principles as affording a philosophical account of the origin of the belief in the miracles which are recorded in both the Old and the New Testaments; but it should be added that in the discussion which followed Dr. Carpenter was understood to admit that these three principles were inadequate to explain the origin of the belief in the Resurrection. If so, we lament that this admission was not repeated in the article in the Contemporary; for it is certain that, as far as the ordinary reader is concerned, it can produce no other impression than that the writer regards belief in the Resurrection as one which can be explained by the aid of the three principles in question.

But whatever Dr. Carpenter's views may be on this subject, it is evident, of the origin of whatever delusions these three principles may form a philosophical explanation, they utterly fail to account for the belief in the Resurrection. The prepossessions of the followers of Jesus were, no doubt, great and