I have not sufficient space to exhibit adequately the argument for the credibility of the New Testament witnesses. I must, however, observe that the force has not departed from the old-fashioned method of stating the case, namely, that you must accept them as competent and satisfactory; or you must believe either that they were dishonest men, intending to deceive, or that they were dupes of their own or of other people's fancies. I am disposed to extend the dilemma, and to say, that there is a third supposition, growing out of the junction of these two, the supposition (according to a not uncommon occurrence in the mysteries of human nature) that the witnesses might be partly the victims of delusion, and partly the inventors of fiction, that credulity and imagination might be both at work, the result being a fabrication of miracles, having no basis, or but an exceedingly slender one, in facts occurring before men's eyes. With these alternatives under our view, the inquiry is, Which shall we apply to the witnesses of the miracles of Christ? Rénan has applied the composite supposition to the witnesses of the resurrection. "On the Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene first came very early to the tomb. The stone was displaced from the opening, and the body was no longer in the place where they had laid it. At the same time the strangest rumours were spread in the Christian community. The cry, 'He is risen,' quickly spread amongst the disciples. Love caused it to find ready credence everywhere." "Such was the impression He had left in the hearts of His disciples, and of a few devoted women, that during some weeks more, it was as if He were living and consoling them. Had His body been taken away, or did enthusiasm, always credulous, create afterwards the group of narratives by which it was sought to establish faith in the resurrection? In the absence of opposing documents this can never be ascertained. Let us say, however, that the strong imagination of Mary Magdalene played an important part in this circumstance. Divine power of love! Sacred moments in which the passion of one possessed gave to the world a resuscitated God!" No one is more ready than I am to do justice to the extraordinary literary merits of the "_Vie de Jésus_," its lucid style, its descriptive power, its manifold charms; but I cannot conceal my amazement that the author, with his exquisite genius, should adopt such a travestied rendering of the noblest of Bible stories. There are no documents, as he confesses, to work upon but the four Gospels; and from these Gospels it distinctly appears that, so far from the witnesses produced being of the character he indicates, so far from their love snatching at anything within reach, however airy, out of which to weave a web of wonders, there were men amongst them slow of heart to believe what the prophets had written, and what Jesus had said about the resurrection; men who counted the report of that resurrection, when they first heard