most remarkable thing, perhaps, about the vast body
of Christian theology which has been developed during
the eighteen centuries which have elapsed since Christ
was in the flesh, is, that it is occupied so largely, it might almost
be said, exclusively, with what Christ and his disciples TAUGHT,
and with fierce discussions about the manifold meanings which have been
ingeniously extorted from the imperfect RECORD of what he taught.
British museum libraries of polemics have been written in defence
of what Christ himself would have been indifferent to,
and written with an animosity towards opponents which has been
crystallized in a phrase now applied in a general way
to any intense hate--ODIUM THEOLOGICUM.

If the significance of Christ's mission, or a large part of it,
is to be estimated by his teachings, from those teachings
important deductions must be made, as many of them had been delivered
long before his time.

Browning has something to say on this point, in this same poem
of `Christmas Eve':--

"Truth's atmosphere may grow mephitic
When Papist struggles with Dissenter,
Impregnating its pristine clarity,
--One, by his daily fare's vulgarity,
Its gust of broken meat and garlic;
--One, by his soul's too-much presuming
To turn the frankincense's fuming
An vapors of the candle starlike
Into the cloud her wings she buoys on.
Each that thus sets the pure air seething,
May poison it for healthy breathing--
But the Critic leaves no air to poison;
Pumps out by a ruthless ingenuity
Atom by atom, and leaves you--vacuity.
Thus much of Christ, does he reject?
And what retain? His intellect?
What is it I must reverence duly?
Poor intellect for worship, truly,
Which tells me simply what was told
(If mere morality, bereft
Of the God in Christ, be all that's left)
Elsewhere by voices manifold;
With this advantage, that the stater
Made nowise the important stumble
Of adding, he, the sage and humble,
Was also one with the Creator."

Browning's poetry is instinct with the essence of Christianity--
the LIFE of Christ. There is no other poetry, there is no writing
of any form, in this age, which so emphasizes the fact
(and it's the most consoling of all facts connected with
the Christian religion), that the Personality, Jesus Christ,
is the impregnable fortress of Christianity. Whatever assaults
and inroads may be made upon the original records by
Goettingen professors,