must express ourselves in our own way, and we most be excused if we laugh at what seems ludicrous or absurd. We may be accused of a want of reverence, but we cannot feel reverence for what does not excite that feeling in us. These pages are not critical--they do not pretend to be learned--they do not seek to explain away anything on the score of "forgeries" or "interpolations." They are based upon the supposition that the _Four_ Gospels are each and collectively true, and without contradiction. No attempt is made to reconcile contradictions by rejecting all that does not harmonise. The Churches do not do so--they cling to all within the two covers of the "sacred book," and of course take the responsibility. Nothing will be here set down that Jesus did not utter; no meaning will be put upon his words that they will not legitimately bear; we have judged of him as we find him in the general actions of his life. A devout believer will exclaim, with uplifted hands and eyes--"Oh, this is blasphemy; it is revolting to the moral sense; Christ was the Son of God, and therefore perfect. He could not be what you have represented him to be, or people long ago would have ceased to worship him. He is the one sublime character whose image fills the world, and before whom millions bow the head in reverent humility." Just so; that is where the delusion arises. Men have been taught that they must not think--that they must not doubt--that they must not examine the grounds of their faith--they must _believe_, and that the sin of unbelief is everlasting perdition. A halo of sanctity is thrown around this distorted image--there is a sacred mystery, a "holy of holies" into which common sense must not enter; and so devotees fall down at the threshold and worship, where they should stand erect in reliance on their own reason and judgment, and examine fearlessly for themselves into those doctrines on a belief in which their everlasting salvation is said to depend. Jesus, the son of Mary, but not the son of Joseph, Mary's husband, was, according to his biographers, an illegitimate child--at least, his birth seems to have been brought about in a most illegitimate way. One Matthew, who pretends to know a great deal about this child, even before it was born, wishes his readers to infer that Jesus was descended in a direct line from that worthy man and favourite of God, King David, through exactly twenty-eight generations; that is, down to Joseph, who was not the father of Jesus at all. He was the son of the Holy Ghost, but who or what that was no man knows, and no one has been able to comprehend unto this day. Another biographer named Luke, more sensible than Matthew, like a modern Welshman traces Jesus's descent direct from Adam, who, being the first man, _was_ probably a very distant relative of his.