History reposes upon two foundations--positive written evidence as to facts and persons, and presumptive evidence resulting from the connection of facts and the action of persons. These two foundations are entirely lost sight of in the history of Jesus such as it is recounted, or rather constructed, in these days; it is, on the one hand, in evident and shocking contradiction with the testimony of the men who saw Jesus, or of the men who lived nearly in the time of those who had seen Him; on the other side, with the natural laws presiding over the actions of men and the course of events. {296} This does not deserve the name of historical criticism; it is a philosophical system and a romantic narrative substituted for the substantial proof and the circumstantial evidence; it is a Jesus false and impossible, made by the hand of man pretending to dethrone the real living Jesus--the Son of God. The choice lies between the system and the mystery; between the romance of man and the purpose of God. Even in revealing himself God still interposes veils, but these veils are no falsehoods. The Gospel history of Jesus shows us God acting in ways which are not his ways of every day. This special action of God characterises also many other facts in the history of the universe; amongst others, the great fact of the actual creation, where man, at his appearance upon earth, received the first divine revelation. The supernatural does not merely date from Jesus Christ; and if a man from this motive rejects the history of Jesus, he will have to deny also a far different thing. {297} To escape this fatal necessity, men of learning have recently striven to curtail indefinitely the proportion of the supernatural in the history of Jesus, and to explain by natural means, most of the acts and circumstances of his life. A puerile attempt, which has altogether failed in the details, still leaving untouched the substance of the problem. No better success will attend the new attempt that has in these days been made, and which consists in placing the Ideal in the place of the Supernatural, and in elevating religious sentiment upon the ruins of the Christian faith. This is doing either too much or too little. The human soul is not satisfied with these leavings, nor human pride with such refusals, When one is so hardy as to pretend, in the name of the science of man in this finite world, to determine the limits of the power of God, one must be still more hardy and--dethrone God himself. {298} {299} Note. I said (p. 145) that I would indicate some instances of grammatical faults to be met with in the Scriptures, to which the character of divine inspiration cannot be assigned. Upon the subject of the books of the Old Testament I have consulted my learned confrère, M. Munk; his reply is in the precise words which follow: