om the ridiculous attempt
of some imbecile Christian to interpolate in Josephus's History a
passage favourable to Christ, it is clear that no adequate idea
prevailed of his intense hatred to the new sect of Nazarenes and
Galilaeans. In our own days we have a lively illustration of the use
which may be extracted from the Essenes by sceptics, and an indirect
confirmation of my own allegation, against them, in Dr. Strauss (_Leben
Jesu_). The moment that his attention was directed to that fact of the
Essenes being utterly ignored in the New Testament (a fact so easily
explained by _my_ theory, a fact so _utterly_ unaccountable to _his_) he
conceived an affection for them. Had they been mentioned by St. John,
there was an end to the dislike; but Josephus had, even with this modern
sceptical Biblical critic, done his work and done it well.

_XVII. CHRISTIANITY AS THE RESULT OF PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY._

If you are one that upon meditative grounds have come sincerely to
perceive the philosophic value of this faith; if you have become
sensible that as yet Christianity is but in its infant stages--after
eighteen centuries is but beginning to unfold its adaptations to the
long series of human situations, slowly unfolding as time and change
move onwards; and that these self-adapting relations of the religion to
human necessities, this conformity to unforeseen developments, argues a
Leibnitzian pre-establishment of this great system as though it had from
the first been a mysterious substratum laid under 'the dark foundations'
of human nature; holding or admitting such views of the progress
awaiting Christianity--you will thank us for what we are going to say.
You may, possibly for yourself, when reviewing the past history of man,
have chanced to perceive the same--we are not jealous of participation
in a field so ample--but even in such a case, if the remark (on which we
are now going to throw a ray of light) should appeal to you in
particular, with less of absolute novelty, not the less you will feel
thankful to be confirmed in your views by independent testimony. We, for
ourselves, offer the remark as new; but, in an age teeming with so much
agility of thought, it is rare that any remark can have absolutely
evaded all partial glimpses or stray notices of others, even when _aliud
agentes_, men stumble upon truths, to which they are not entitled by any
meritorious or direct studies. However, whether absolutely original or