Was Jesus Christ a man? If limited for our answer to the mere Gospel Jesus—surely not. His whole career is, on any literal reading, simply a series of improbabilities or contradictions. Who was Christ? born of a virgin, and of divine parentage? So too were many of the mythic Sungods and so was Krishna, whose story, similar in many respects with that of Jesus, was current long prior to the Christian era. Was Jesus Christ man or myth? His story being fable, is the hero a reality? That a man named Jesus really lived and performed some special actions attracting popular attention, and thus became the centre for a hundred myths may well be true, but beyond this what is there of solid fact? WHAT DID JESUS TEACH? THE language in which Jesus taught, has not been preserved to us. Who recorded his actual words, or if any real record ever existed, is all matter of guess. Who translated the words of Jesus into the Greek no one knows. In the compass of four pamphlets, attributed to four persons, of whose connexion with the Gospels, as we have them, little or nothing whatever can be ascertained, we have what are, by the orthodox, supposed to be the words in which Jesus actually taught. What did he teach? Manly, self-reliant resistance of wrong, and practice of right? No; the key-stone of his whole teaching may be found in the text: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew v, 3) Is poverty of spirit the chief amongst virtues, that Jesus gives it prime place in his teachings? Is it even a virtue at all? Surely not. Manliness of spirit, honesty of spirit, fulness of rightful purpose, these are virtues; poverty of spirit is a crime. When men are poor in spirit, then the proud and haughty in spirit oppress them. When men are true in spirit and determined (as true men should be) to resist, and as far as possible, prevent wrong, then is there greater opportunity for present happiness, and, as even Christians ought to admit, no lesser fitness for the enjoyment of further happiness, in some may-be heaven. Are you poor in spirit, and are you smitten; in such case what did Jesus teach?—“Unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other.” (Luke, vi, 29) Surely better to teach that “he who courts oppression shares the crime;” and, if smitten once to take careful measure to prevent a future smiting. Jesus teaches actual invitation of injury. Shelley breathed higher humanity: “Stand ye calm and resolute, Like a forest close and mute, With folded arms and looks, which are Weapons of an unvanquished war.” There is a wide distinction between passive resistance to wrong, and courting further injury at the hands of the wrongdoer.