The figure of Christ stands as the centre of certain axioms professedly conducive to a right understanding of life and the right conduct of men, and He drew to Himself as supporters of His doctrine all sorts and conditions of men who became more or less imbued with the ideas of their Master. The accounts of His three years' mission which have come down to us in the present forms of the Gospels may or may not truly report His actual sayings and doings, and may or may not contain doctrine actually taught by Him. What is written, or by whom written, matters less than an assurance of its intrinsic truth when such is interpreted as doctrine applicable to the spiritual needs of men to-day. All that is true in the writings connected with the mission of Christ requires no miraculous accompaniment to demonstrate its truth: the only requisite[16] standard by which its verity should be tested is that afforded from generation to generation by the current standard of knowledge. Is not the application of scientific methods of criticism to that grand conception of life and its responsibilities which we associate with the name of Christ, the highest compliment we can pay to His memory? For whether He really spoke certain words, did certain deeds, and taught certain doctrines, as in the Gospels He is reported to have done; whether He shared the errors of His age and is directly responsible for the introduction of teaching that is incompatible with known scientific facts; or whether He has not, perhaps, been made the scapegoat for the ignorance of those who came after Him—are questions of insignificant importance compared with the necessity for eliminating falsehood, by whomsoever spoken or written, from doctrine put forth as spiritual truth for thinking men of to-day.