In any case, we are to understand that the Apostles were inspired by the Holy Ghost, so that they might be able to work miracles and be witnesses unto Christ, even to the utmost parts of the earth. Surely, then, they could and should have been enlightened for their mission work up to the level, say, of some of our twentieth-century theologians? The miracle of an intelligence and knowledge equal to that of the average modern apologist is not, after all, so very inconceivable, and it would, at least, have been more useful than miracle-working in a miracle-believing age. Christians, who glibly admit that Jesus had only the knowledge of His age, cannot, I think, fully realise the force of such an admission. One reason for this may be that their own knowledge is not completely up to date. That Jesus had no knowledge of nature's inviolable laws and shared many of the gross superstitions prevalent around Him; that He accepted the Scriptures as literally true, and not in the sense now attributed to them by the Higher Critics; that He believed that He would come again "in the clouds of heaven with power and great might," and that the generation in which He lived would not pass away till this had been fulfilled--of all this they may be dimly conscious; but what remain still to be studied by them are the startling disclosures of Comparative Mythology, and of the now fully-established theory of Evolution, and their bearing upon the Christian Faith. The matter is one of the utmost importance, as will be seen by a perusal of the following chapters. COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY Chapter IV. THE GRAVE SUSPICIONS AROUSED BY THE STUDY OF ANCIENT BELIEFS § 1. The New Theological Theory of a Progressive Revelation.