yet declares it founded
upon fraud and deception. We must therefore reject M. Renan.

The fine writing, the sentiment, the abundant 'sweetness' of the book
cannot make beautiful this monstrous perversion of reason, this
insidious attack on the very distinction between God and Satan.

Voltaire's theory is comparatively honest, healthy, moral. Paine's is
so. These men called things by their right names. They never undertook
to upset the human conscience. Ernest Renan's theory is thoroughly
_immoral_, and he only can accept it who denies that the world is
governed by moral laws at all.

We reject his Jesus as a delusion and a dream. God never created such a
creature. He exists nowhere save in M. Renan's pages.

In this blind, reeling world, in this weary, painful time, while the
sobs of a dumb creation break along the shores of heaven in prayer, we
cannot spare the real Jesus, the world's strong Deliverer, its
conquering Lord! The vision He exhibited, of a stainless humanity,
omnipotent in purity, loyalty, and truth, has flashed and flamed before
the eyes of men, through the long night of the ages, their beacon fire
of hope, their star of faith! We cannot spare Him _now_. In Him all is
consistent, all is reasonable, all is harmonious. The Divine Man
accounts for His wisdom, vindicates the origin of His power. In the
vision of His face, Christianity and all its results are the natural
works of His hand.

We turn to _His_ Life. We leave M. Renan's little novel, and turn to the
Godlike life of the typal Man, the Omnipotent and Eternal Man, who
redeemed humanity, and bought the world, and conquered hell and death:
we turn to _that_ life, that death, that awful resurrection, and take
heart and hope. No mere amiable, sentimental, 'beautiful,' or 'charming'
young man will do. The world cries for its Lord! The race He ransomed
looks to the 'Lion of Judah,' the 'Captain of the Lord's Host.' The mad,
half-despairing struggle we have waged all these long centuries, can
find only in 'the Son of Man,' in the omnipotent 'Son of God,' its
explanation and its end: 'God was manifest in the Flesh, reconciling the
World unto Himself!'

AENONE:

A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME.

CHAPTER VII.

For an instant only. When from AEnone's troubled gaze, the half-blinding
film which the agitation of her apprehensive mind had gathered there,
passed away, she no longer saw before her a proudly erect figure,
flashing out from dark, wil