tality!_

M. Renan here is just _disgusting_. There are a few things in this world
that do not mix. Right and wrong have something of a ditch between them.
A lie is not own brother to the truth. If he thinks it worth while to
write the life of an impostor, very well; only, when he has declared him
so, and insisted on his being so, we humbly beg he will not turn round
and insist on it that the religion _he_ taught is divine!

If the credulity of believers is great, what shall we say of the
credulity of Messieurs the philosophers, the unbelievers? But what shall
we say of their _morality_?

But if this new theory fails to account for Christianity as a _true_
system of religion, what shall we say of its coherence with
Christianity as a _successful_ system in action? This sentimental
impostor conquers the civilized world. This 'charming' worker of sham
wonders becomes a GOD to the millions who to-day lead mankind!

Here is where M. Renan's theory utterly breaks down, where it becomes
not only utterly illogical and incoherent, but where it becomes too
gross for any mortal credulity, and too blasphemously wicked for any
ordinary sinfulness.

It is utterly incoherent, for it requires us to believe that a system,
begun in fraud and deception, has proved itself the truest and most
beneficent and sacred treasure to the world. M. Renan insists on both.
From such a premise he drags such a conclusion.

Is there any plain Christian who dreads a sneer at Christian credulity?
Let him be comforted. What credulity is like this? What miracle in the
'Four Gospels' begins to be wonderful compared with this miracle of the
modern thaumaturge? The religion which has taught men truth--above all
things, _truth_--which teaches utter horror of a lie, which insists on
the bare, bald reality in heaven and earth, which has taught men hatred
of the false as the meanest and most unmanly thing existing--this
religion took its rise in claptrap miracles, was puffed into popularity
by boasting pretensions, was born in trickery and nurtured by
legerdemain! Its loftiest hopes, its deepest consolations are the
offspring of clumsy jugglery and cheap prestidigitation!

But more: this religion, so born and nurtured, becomes the mistress of
the earth. It is of no consequence that only a minority of men accept
it. That minority hold the world in their hands. In fact, it seems from
history, that any number of men, with this religion in their hearts,
become