To do unbelievers justice, they have not been slow to recognize the fact that if they reject the account which the Church has given of its origin, they are bound to give us a rational one of how Christianity came into existence. Accordingly, theory after theory has been propounded on this subject. No intellectual exertion has been spared to point out how Christianity and the Church have succeeded in getting into existence, and in effecting their religious and moral conquests, by forces purely human, and without the aid of any supernatural intervention. One thing respecting these theories is worthy of particular attention. No unbeliever has as yet been able to suggest one which has succeeded in commanding, I will not say the universal, but even the general assent of the unbelieving world. Theory after theory has been propounded and abandoned. It is therefore clear that the difficulty of accounting for the origin of Christianity and the Church through the action of the ordinary forces that operate on the human mind, is extreme. There is no analogous case in the whole history of man. Let me briefly enumerate the chief principles which have been invoked to aid in the solution of this problem. First, it has been attempted to get rid of the supernatural elements contained in the Gospels by representing them as distorted representations of real facts. This has been justly abandoned as childish. Then came the mythic and legendary theories. These, having been found inadequate, have been supplemented by various theories of development of ideas; and the supposition of a violent party spirit existing in the Church, which under the influence of a spirit of accommodation produced various compromises; a mass of varied and often contending opinions seething in the bosom of a society continually threatened with disruption, until they somehow succeeded in welding themselves together; enthusiasm, fanaticism, boundless credulity, aided by a prodigious power of mythic and legendary invention, and whenever occasion so required, the presence of a moral atmosphere, which on great emergencies did not shrink from deliberate imposture. All these, in ever varying degrees and proportions, have been pressed into the service of creating the Church, the ideal Christ, and the Christianity of the New Testament. It is impossible in a work like the present to examine these various theories, and show their inadequacy as philosophical explanations of the fact. This I have already done in a former work,(5) to which I must refer the reader for their refutation. A few observations only will be necessary in this place.