Leaving aside the thoroughly unreliable nature of the Bible accounts of the Ascension, consider how easy it is for the superstitious, through optical illusions or subjective visions (or whatever name it may please the neologist to give to these "experiences"), to be honestly convinced of the occurrence of a supernatural event, and to take care that it should lose nothing of its marvellous character in the telling. Only the other day the good people of Sudja saw a mighty iris-coloured cross appear over the cathedral during divine service, and regarded the phenomenon as a sign of heaven's resolve to bestow victory upon Christian Russia. This "miracle" was witnessed by all the notabilities of the city, who forwarded a description to General Kuropatkin in a document duly attested with their signatures. For the stupendous and absurdly impossible miracle of the Ascension we have not even got a satisfactory description, much less an attested document. Is it not time that we should ask ourselves the plain question, Do we really believe that an extraordinary levitation occurred, and that Jesus Christ was seen to be rising in the air until some passing clouds concealed Him from view? If we do not so believe, why do we say we do when we repeat the Creed? Why do we pretend we do when we sit in church and listen to the account of the Ascension, and perhaps to a sermon on it? Why do we allow our friends to think that we do so believe? Why is Ascension Day one of our Holy Days? And, finally, why do we teach, or allow others to teach, our children what we know to be untrue? Surely these are serious questions to ask ourselves. THE INCARNATION. There remains the miracle of the Virgin-birth. That this is under dispute among Christian theologians is notorious, and the controversy has but served to show with ever-increasing clearness how untrustworthy is the evidence for this miracle. Christian Biblical experts inform us that it belongs to the latest strata of the New Testament tradition, and that no trace of the story can be found before 120 A.D. In other words, that it is an obvious interpolation in St. Matthew and St. Luke. Adolf Harnack, the learned Professor of Church History in the University of Berlin, is looked upon, even by the orthodox, as one of our greatest living Biblical scholars, and we learn from him that we must disregard the history of Jesus' birth given in these two Gospels; for not only is it untrustworthy, but "the evangelists themselves never refer to it, nor make Jesus Himself refer to His antecedents. On the contrary, they tell us that Jesus' mother and His brethren were completely surprised at His coming forward, and did not know what to make of it. Paul, too, is silent; so that we can be sure that the oldest tradition knew nothing of any stories of Jesus' birth." [49]