Perhaps the most striking apparent similarity to Jesus is found in the man described in such beautiful language by an unknown prophet in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. But these words could hardly be applied to him by the Jews; in the first place, because they would not be construed to refer to him until after his crucifixion, seeing that they describe oppression, prison, judgment, and execution; in the second place, because there was no reason to believe that he bore their diseases, and took their sorrows upon him. And although the familiar words—doubly familiar from the glorious music of Handel,—"He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," may seem to us, who know his end, to describe him perfectly, they could hardly describe him to the Jews, who saw him in his daily life. In that, at least, there was nothing peculiarly unhappy. Failing the prophecies, which were plainly two-edged swords, Jesus could appeal to his remarkable miracles. He and his disciples evidently thought them demonstrations of a divine commission. But, in the first place, it is clear that the evidence of the most wonderful of these consisted only of the rumors circulating among ignorant peasants, which the more instructed portion of the nation very properly disregarded. Their demand for a sign (Mt. xii. 38) proves that they were not satisfied by these popular reports, if they had ever heard them. And in the second place, those miracles which were better attested were not convincing from the fact that others could perform them. Jesus, charged with casting out devils by Baäl-zebub, the prince of devils, adroitly retorted on the Pharisees by asking, if that were so, by whom their sons cast them out? (Mk. iii. 22; Mt. xii. 24-30; Lu. xi. 14-24). But thus he admitted that he was not singular in his profession. Miracles, in short, were not regarded by the Jews as any proof of Messiahship. Their own prophets had performed them. Their own disciples now performed them. Others might possibly perform them by diabolic agency. The Egyptian magicians had been very clever in their contest with Moses, though Moses had beaten them, and had performed far more amazing wonders than those of Jesus, in so far as these latter were known to the Pharisees.