Strauss allows that it was not possible that the early Christians should have looked upon Christ as their Redeemer and Mediator between God and men, if the apostles had not proclaimed this very doctrine; and the apostles could not have preached it if Jesus himself had not designated himself as the Redeemer from sin, guilt and death, and demanded faith in himself as a religious act. He asserts that the distinguishing features of the Christian church must be traced to Christ, his ministry and teachings about himself; that Christ claimed the power to secure peace to his followers. He also claims that the moral and religious character of Christ is above every suspicion, and unequaled in its kind. He says, "The purely spiritual and ethical conceptions of God as the '_only one_,' he owed to his Jewish education, and, also the purity of his being. But the Greecian element in Jesus was his cheerfulness, arising from his _unsullied mind_." Again he says, Jesus, by cultivating a frame of mind that was cheerful, in union with God, and embracing all men as brethren, had realized the prophetic ideal of a New Covenant with the heart inscribed law; he had to speak with the poet, received God into his will; so that for him the Godhead had descended from its throne, the abyss was filled up, all fear was vanished. His beautifully organized nature had but to develop itself to be more fully and clearly confirmed in its consciousness of itself, but needed not to return to begin a new life. Gregg, the Deist, after presenting Jesus as the "one towering, perpetual miracle of history," says, "Next in perfection come the views which Christianity unfolds to us of God in his relation to man, which were probably as near the truth as the minds of men could in that age receive. God is represented as our Father in heaven, to be whose especial children is the best reward of the peace-makers, to see whose face is the highest hope of the pure in heart, who is ever at hand to strengthen his true worshipers, to whom is due our heartiest love, our humblest submission, whose most acceptable worship is righteous conduct and a holy heart, in whose constant presence our life is passed, to whose merciful disposal we are resigned by death. His relation to us is alone insisted on. All that is needed for our consolation, our strength, our guidance, is assured to us. The purely speculative is passed over and ignored." It may be that the prospect of an "exceeding, even an eternal weight of glory" may be needed to support our frail purposes under the crushing afflictions of our mortal lot. It may be that, by the perfect arrangements of Omnipotence, the sufferings of all may be made to work out the ultimate and supreme good of each. He next makes this grand concession: To the orthodox Christian, who fully believes all he professes, cheerful resignation to the divine will is comparatively a _natural_, _an easy_, _a simple thing_. To the religious philosopher