Why should we contemptuously reject the tradition which arose in the mouths of the people? Should we be worse Christians if it were clearly and plainly demonstrated that we only possess popular traditions, out of which we must ourselves form a conception of the career and teaching of Christ? Is it not good for us, that we are free in many points to decide for ourselves what Jesus was and what he taught? And in a world in which everything develops, everything grows and changes, why should religion alone be an exception? Do we not all freely confess that certain precepts which are ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels are no longer adapted to our times and to our circumstances? Does any Christian turn his left cheek when he has been struck upon the right? Do we give our cloak when our coat has been taken from us? Do we hold everything that we possess in common as the first Christians did? Do we sell all that we have and give it to the poor (Matthew xix. 21)? It is quite true that under this method a certain personal freedom in the interpretation of the Gospels is unavoidable, but is not this freedom at the same time accompanied by a very important feeling of personal responsibility, which is of the utmost significance for every religious conviction? It cannot be denied, that this open and honest acknowledgment of the undeniable influence of popular tradition has far-reaching consequences, and will take from us much to which we are accustomed, and that has become near and dear, even sacred, to us. But it has this advantage, that we feel we are candid and honest in our faith, to which we may add that we are never forced in dealing with human hypotheses to give our assent blindly, but may follow our own judgment. We may adopt or reject the view that in the development of the gospel story much must be ascribed to popular tradition, and I can readily believe that many who do not know, either through the study of legends or their own experience, the transforming influence which school and family traditions exercise on the form of historical narratives, find it incredible that such a carbonising process could have taken place also in the evangelical tradition as related by the men of the next generation. They must then content themselves with the alternative, that the laws of nature, which they themselves ascribe to the Deity, must have been abrogated by their own founder in order that the truth of the teaching of Christ might gain a certain probability in the eyes of the people by so-called miracles.