"Supernatural Religion" says: "The whole of the evidence for the Resurrection reduces itself to an undefined belief on the part of a few persons, in a notoriously superstitious age, that after Jesus had died and been buried they had seen him alive. These visions, it is admitted, occurred at a time of the most intense religious excitement, and under circumstances of wholly exceptional mental agitation and distress. The wildest alternations of fear, doubt, hope and indefinite expectation, added their effects to oriental imaginations already excited by indignation at the fate of their Master, and sorrow or despair at such a dissipation of their Messianic dreams. There was present every element of intellectual and moral disturbance. Now must we seriously ask again whether this bare and wholly unjustified belief can be accepted as satisfactory evidence for so astounding a miracle as the Resurrection? Can the belief of such men, in such an age, establish the reality of a phenomenon which is contradicted by universal experience? We have no evidence as to what actually occurred. We do not even know the facts upon which they based their inferences. We only know that they thought they had seen Jesus and that they, therefore, concluded that he had risen from the dead. It comes to us as bare belief from the Age of Miracles, unsupported by facts, uncorroborated by evidence, unaccompanied by proof of investigation, and unprovided with material for examination. What is such belief worth? We have no hesitation in saying that it is absolutely worth nothing" (pp. 1048, 1049). The Rev. Dr. Phillip Schaff, one of the most eminent evangelical Christian scholars of this country, in his "History of the Christian Church," makes this candid admission regarding the resurrection and ascension of Christ: "Truth compels us to admit that there are serious difficulties in harmonizing the accounts of the Evangelists, and in forming a consistent conception of Christ's resurrection body hovering as it were between heaven and earth, and a supernatural state, of a body clothed with flesh and blood and bearing the wound prints, and yet so spiritual as to appear and disappear through closed doors and to ascend visibly to heaven." CHAPTER VIII. CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS. 470 Who was Jesus Christ? Mark: He was the son of man. Matthew and Luke: He was the Son of God. John: He was God himself. In the Four Gospels are presented three entirely different conceptions of the Christ. In Mark he is represented as the son of human parents--the Messiah--but simply a man. In Matthew and Luke we have the story of the miraculous conception--he is represented as the Son of God. In John he is declared to be God himself. "In the beginning was the Word [Christ], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (i, 1). According to Mark Christ is a man; according to Matthew and Luke, a demi-god; according to John, a God.