"One evening at St. Helena," says M. Beauterne, "the conversation was animated. The subject treated of was an exalted one; it was the divinity of Jesus Christ. Napoleon defended the truth of this doctrine with the arguments and eloquence of a man of genius, with something also of the native faith of the Corsican and the Italian. To the objections of one of the interlocutors, who seemed to see in the Saviour but a sage, an illustrious philosopher, a great man, the Emperor replied:-- "'I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man. "'Superficial minds may see some resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires, the conquerors, and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. "'I see in Lycurgus, Numa, Confucius, and Mahomet merely legislators; but nothing which reveals the Deity. On the contrary, I see numerous relations between them and myself. I make out resemblances, weaknesses, and common errors which assimilate them to myself and humanity. Their faculties are those which I possess. But it is different with Christ. Everything about Him astonishes me; His spirit surprises me, and His will confounds me. Between Him and anything of this world there is no possible comparison. He is really a Being apart. "'The nearer I approach Him and the more clearly I examine Him, the more everything seems above me; everything continues great with a greatness that crushes me. "'His religion is a secret belonging to Himself alone, and proceeds from an intelligence which assuredly is not the intelligence of man. There is in Him a profound originality which creates a series of sayings and maxims hitherto unknown. "'Christ expects everything from His death. Is that the invention of a man? On the contrary, it is a strange course of procedure, a superhuman confidence, an inexplicable reality. In every other existence than that of Christ, what imperfections, what changes! I defy you to cite any existence, other than that of Christ, exempt from the least vacillation, free from all such blemishes and changes. From the first day to the last He is the same, always the same, majestic and simple, infinitely severe, and infinitely gentle. "'How the horizon of His empire extends, and prolongs itself into infinitude! Christ reigns beyond life and beyond death. The past and the future are alike to Him; the kingdom of the truth has, and in effect can have, no other limit than the false. Jesus has taken possession of the human race; He has made of it a single nationality, the nationality of upright men, whom He calls to a perfect life. "'The existence of Christ from beginning to end is a tissue entirely mysterious, I admit; but that mystery meets difficulties which are in all existences. Reject it, the world is an enigma; accept it, and we have an admirable solution of the history of man.