method for its hero. It would fail in naturalness, unless we assume that the incarnation was a reality. It is only through the sublime truth that the great Teacher in the Gospel was the second person of the Trinity, that we can divest his mode of teaching of its seeming incongruities. With the eye of faith steadfastly bent upon the incarnation, we may indeed perceive that although Jesus Christ spake as never man spake, yet that he nevertheless taught and commanded just as it became a Deity clothed in manhood, to teach and to command. It was to be expected that the eternal Word made flesh would address his creatures, as he had addressed them at Sinai, in terms brief, sententious, imperative; resting for authority, not on elaborate ratiocination, but upon his own ineffable majesty. The teaching of Jesus was in strict concord with the attributes of his complex being. It was a fitting part of one harmonious whole. To believe that stupendous whole the creation of unlettered peasants, would require a stronger faith than to believe it a revelation from God.

Fictitious writings live upon the breath of popular applause. It is the element of their vitality; and if it is withdrawn, they die and become the food of worms. Imaginative authors, whether in

prose or verse, accommodate their fictions to the principles and passions of our common nature. Universal applause is the idol of their worship. The conquest of a world is as dear to them as it ever was to a martial hero. They follow public taste as the needle turns to the pole. Their plot with its episodes, their machinery, their artifices of arrangement and ornaments of diction, are all for effect. Even the epic muse bends her majestic form to the prejudices of ages and of climes. Her varied lore and her magic spells are all combined to win for herself an immortality of fame. imaginative writer can ever aspire to renown without copious oblations upon the altars of the gods of this world.

No

Of fame the "meek and lowly" Jesus was not a follower; at the shrine of that goddess he offered no incense; he stooped to none of fiction's arts to beguile attention and seduce belief. Instead of conciliating the pride of the heart, he declared it the sink of sin; instead of expatiating upon the dignity of human nature, he pronounced it so fallen, corrupt, and degraded as to require for its cleansing the tears of repentance and the blood of God. The flight of time never beheld a production so utterly opposed to every passion and preju

dice of humanity as was the Gospel of the crucified Redeemer. Nothing but the power of truth could have achieved its glorious triumphs.

There are omissions in the evangelical accounts of Jesus Christ which would not have befallen works of romance. Fiction is wont to depict the features and mien of its hero. Reserve upon these attractive themes would essentially impair its chance for popular favor. Of the personal appearance of the Son of God the Gospel is silent. For eighteen centuries his outward man has been a subject of almost painful inquisitiveness. What would not pious wealth have given for a statue or a painting of the Saviour of the world, wronght from scriptural materials by the hand of a master! The Gospel affords no such materials. It contains exhaustless food for the immortal mind; not a tittle of aliment for idle curiosity. Even upon its heaven and its hell, it maintains a sublime reserve. It powerfully, yet dimly, shadows them forth to the awe-stricken imagination, without detailing the enjoyments of the blest, or the secrets of the great prison-house of despair. This is a peculiarity which distinguishes the religion of the cross from all impostures.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

Trial of Jesus Christ-His grandeur and humility-Incidents of his trial-Conduct of Judas-No other traitor ever induced by compunctious visitings to commit suicide-His remorse and self murder were dying confessions of the innocency and godhead of his Master-Fall and penitence of Peter-Conduct of Pontius Pilate―The crucifixion of Jesus Christ-He spoke seven times from the cross-And as man never spoke-Bad men could not have forged the character of Jesus Christ if they would—And good men would not have forged it if they could-Extract from Rousseau.

THE trial of the Son of God detailed in the Sacred Record, constitutes one of the most stupendous scenes in the drama of salvation. Such a scene could not have been delineated by the unaided efforts of the fishermen of Galilee. How artless is the evangelical representation, surpassing in simplicity childhood's most guileless tale! Yet how sublimely magnificent the conception bodied forth! The Majesty of the heaven of heavens, clothed in manhood, stands a submissive captive at the bar of an earthly tribunal! How could the human mind of itself have imagined the words and acts befitting a Being so humbled, so transcendently august?

Yet reason itself, enlightened by the Gospel, perceives, and is obliged to admit that the words and acts ascribed to the incarnate Deity were in exact accordance with the complex character he had condescended to assume.

The grandeur and meekness of the Prisoner of Pilate were mingled in ineffable harmony. He miraculously prostrated to the ground those who came to seize him. He restored the severed ear of the servant of the high priest. He announced himself to be the King of the Jews, the predicted Messiah, the Son of God, the Judge of earth. Yet was he "brought as a lamb to the slaughter." Though he wielded the thunders of omnipotence, he permitted his oppressors to spit on him in the face; they buffeted him; they smote him with the palms of their hands; they scourged him; they gave him to drink vinegar mingled with gall; they contemptuously clothed him in a purple robe, and placed on his head a crown of thorns, and bowed the knee before him in mock adoration.

It was not in humanity, with the utmost fortitude pertaining to its sphere, to have borne with unrepining patience the mockings, the scourgings, the spittings, endured by the incarnate God. The delineation of his trial, if regarded as the imperso