It had been contended for many years that no one could pass judgment on the veracity of the Scriptures who did not understand Hebrew. This position was perfectly absurd. No man needs to be a student of Hebrew to know that the shadow on the dial did not go back several degrees to convince a petty king that a boil was not to be fatal. Renan, however, filled the requirement. He was an excellent Hebrew scholar. This was a fortunate circumstance, because it answered a very old objection. The founder of Christianity was, for his own sake, taken from the divine pedestal and allowed to stand like other men on the earth, to be judged by what he said and did, by his theories, by his philosophy, by his spirit. No matter whether Renan came to a correct conclusion or not, his work did a vast deal of good. He convinced many that implicit reliance could not be placed upon the gospels, that the gospels themselves are of unequal worth; that they were deformed by ignorance and falsehood, or, at least, by mistake; that if they wished to save the reputation of Christ they must not rely wholly on the gospels, or on what is found in the New Testament, but they must go farther and examine all legends touching him. Not only so, but they must throw away the miraculous, the impossible and the absurd. He also has shown that the early followers of Christ endeavored to add to the reputation of their Master by attributing to him the miraculous and the foolish; that while these stories added to his reputation at that time, since the world has advanced they must be cast aside or the reputation of the Master must suffer. It will not do now to say that Christ himself pretended to do miracles. This would establish the fact at least that he was mistaken. But we are compelled to say that his disciples insisted that he was a worker of miracles. This shows, either that they were mistaken or untruthful. We all know that a sleight-of-hand performer could gain a greater reputation among savages than Darwin or Humboldt; and we know that the world in the time of Christ was filled with barbarians, with people who demanded the miraculous, who expected it; with people, in fact, who had a stronger belief in the supernatural than in the natural; people who never thought it worth while to record facts. The hero of such people, the Christ of such people, with his miracles, cannot be the Christ of the thoughtful and scientific. Renan was a man of most excellent temper; candid; not striving for victory, but for truth; conquering, as far as he could, the old superstitions; not entirely free, it may be, but believing himself to be so. He did great good. He has helped to destroy the fictions of faith. He has helped to rescue man from the prison of superstition, and this is the greatest benefit that man can bestow on man.