with profane subjects." [29] It is more than thirty years since these admissions were made; since then the German works complained of have been more generally translated and widely read than before. Besides, since then, Renan has given his "_Origins of Christianity_" [30] to the world, and by his great learning, but more especially by the power and irresistible charm of his treatment of the subject, has popularized the conceptions of the Rationalists, until now the virus of their infidelity may be said to be poisoning all Protestant Christendom. What must ever be an occasion for chagrin, not to say humiliation, to orthodox Christendom, is, its inability to meet in any effectual way the assaults of this new criticism. In Germany they complain against Strauss for having written his "_Life of Jesus_" in the German language. If he must write such a book, so full of unbelief in the orthodox conception of Jesus, he ought at least to have had the grace to have written it in Latin! [31] For his rationalism Renan is driven out of the Church of Rome; but this only gives notoriety to his views, creates a desire to read his books and spreads abroad his unbelief. When the Presbyterian Church takes to task one of its most brilliant scholars [32] for accepting the results of the new criticism, he is sustained by the powerful Presbyterian Synod of New York and acquitted; and when an appeal is taken to the general assembly of the church and he is finally condemned, he is able to retort that while he was condemned by the general assembly, it was by numbers and not by intelligence that he was overcome; it was the less intelligent Presbyteries of the rural district that gave the necessary strength to his opponents. The better informed members--members from the cities and centers of education and enlightenment--were with him. [33] The defense commonly made for orthodox Christianity is an appeal to its antiquity and its past victories. Its defenders point with pride to the failure of the proud boast of Voltaire, who was foolish enough to say: "In twenty years Christianity will be no more. My single hand shall destroy the edifice it took twelve apostles to rear." "Some years after his death," say the orthodox, "his very printing press was employed in printing New Testaments, and thus spreading abroad the gospel." Gibbon with solemn sneer devoted his gorgeous history [34] to sarcasm upon Christ and his followers. "His estate," say the orthodox, "is now in the hands of one who devotes large sums to the propagation of the very truth Gibbon labored to sap." [35]