I too was impressed by Scaurus’s confession that he had somewhat changed his mind about the gospels in consequence of Paul’s epistles. It seemed to me to explain some inconsistencies in his letters. Also I noted that Paul’s phrase was “the solid phalanx _of your faith_,” and that perhaps “_faith_” explained “_phalanx_.” Scaurus now passed to the doctrine of New Birth. “I call it thus,” said he, “for brevity. Mark expresses it ambiguously, saying that no man can enter into the kingdom unless he receives it ‘as a little child.’ Now this might mean ‘as he receives a little child.’ And this interpretation is rather favoured by the fact that, somewhat earlier, Mark has a doctrine about ‘receiving one of such little children.’ I suspect some mystical doctrine is concealed in Mark. But Matthew has, ‘unless ye turn and become as little children.’ There is no mistaking that. Now I say, in the first place, this is impossible; in the second place, it is wrong. First, it is impossible. The Father of heaven, says Horace, may send fair weather to-day and foul tomorrow. But not even He— ‘⸺ diffinget infectumque reddet Quod fugiens simul hora vexit.’ You must agree with me. Jupiter cannot cause what has been done to have been not done. In the next place, it is wrong. A full-grown man has no right to divest himself of full-grown faculties. How much better is the doctrine of Epictetus, ‘My friend, you have fallen down. Get up. Try again.’ This is possible. This is encouraging. But tell the same man, ‘Become a little child,’ ‘Be born again’! He will think you are playing the fool with him.” I wondered why Scaurus did not see that here again he was inconsistent. He had forgotten the admissions he had made in view of Paul’s epistles. In the cities of Asia and Greece, some of the vilest among the vile had been told by Paul, “You must become new creatures in Christ,” “You must die to sin and rise again to righteousness.” They did not “think he was playing the fool.” They had (as Scaurus confessed) been morally “born again.” Moreover Paul had met his objection as to “full-grown faculties” by saying, “Be ye babes in respect of malice, but in understanding be full-grown men.” Still I was sorry that the gospels had expressed this obscurely. Neither of us had as yet read the fourth gospel. That makes the doctrine quite clear by shewing that what is needed is not to be “born over again”—for one might be “born over again” ten times worse than one was before—but to be “born _from above_.” This was quite different from “causing what has been done to have been not done.” It meant “created anew,” or “reshaped,” so that the Spirit of Christ, within the Christian, dominated the flesh. Both here and elsewhere, Scaurus’s criticisms would have been very different, if he had known the fourth gospel.