“Now if I could believe Paul, I should have a ‘gospel.’ For then the spirit of Jesus, having risen from the dead, would be travelling about the world everywhere at hand to strengthen His disciples, and to comfort their hearts, and to assure them that all will be well in the end. ‘I have prevailed over death’—so His Spirit would say to us—‘I will always help the poor and oppressed. I will never forsake them till I have made them sharers in my eternal kingdom.’ This it would say to each one of us, ‘You, Gaius, or you, Marcus, I will be with you always. I will never forsake you.’ But how can I believe these beautiful assurances, when I find Mark declaring (and Matthew agreeing with him) that Christ’s last articulate utterance was, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ How can I assure my friend that God never forsakes the oppressed, if He forsook His own Son? And how can I deny that ‘forsaking,’ when the Son Himself says, _Why hast thou forsaken?_? Epictetus forbade us to admit that we are ever alone. ‘God,’ said he, ‘is always within you.’ Is not that the better and nobler doctrine? If the better and nobler doctrine is not true, does it not follow that the truth is bad and ignoble, and that, in real truth, there is no good and noble power controlling the world? Which of the two is right, Epictetus or Christ?” “Both, I think,” said Clemens. He had been listening with attention and manifest sympathy, but without any change in that steadfast look of peace and trust which his face habitually wore. I seemed to read in his countenance at once pain and faith, pain for my burden, faith that he could help me to bear it or to cast it away. Presently he added, “Do not suppose that by answering so briefly and quickly I wished to cut short your objection or to deny the difficulty. Far from it. You have asked, I think, one of the hardest questions, perhaps the very hardest, that could be put to a worshipper of Christ. Often have I thought of it, and I should not like to answer it hastily. You know perhaps that Luke omits these words, and that he mentions, instead, something about the ‘sun’?” “Yes,” said I, “but that seemed to me only to shew that Luke was willing to accept a version that removed the difficulty in the original.” “I agree with you,” said Clemens, “and, if so, that indicates that the difficulty was recognised before Luke compiled his gospel. Certainly, certainly, those wonderful words were really uttered.”