ons
at all was somewhat surprising, and possible only in a land of polygamy;
but to keep none back in obscurity (as was done in cases where the funds
of the family would not allow of giving to each his separate
establishment) argued a condition of unusual opulence. That it was
surprising is very true. But as therefore involving any argument against
its truth, the writer would justly deny by pleading--for that very
reason, _because_ it was surprising, did I tell the story. In a train of
1,500 years naturally there must happen many wonderful things, both as
to events and persons. Were these crowded together in time or locally,
these indeed we should incredulously reject. But when we understand the
vast remoteness from each other in time or in place, we freely admit the
tendency lies the other way; the wonder would be if there were _not_
many coincidences that each for itself separately might be looked upon
as strange. And as the surgeon had set himself to collect certain cases
for the very reason that they were so unaccountably fatal, with a
purpose therefore of including all that did _not_ terminate fatally, so
we should remember that generally historians (although less so if a
Jewish historian, because he had a far nobler chain of wonders to
record) do not feel themselves open to the objection of romancing if
they report something out of the ordinary track, since exactly that sort
of matter is their object, and it cannot but be found in a considerable
proportion when their course travels over a vast range of successive
generations. It would be a marvellous thing indeed if every one of five
hundred men whom an author had chosen to record biographically should
have for his baptismal name--Francis. But if you found that this was the
very reason for his admitting the man into his series, that, however
strange a reason, it had in fact governed him in selecting his subjects,
you would no longer see anything to startle your belief.

But let me give an interesting case partly illustrating this principle.
Once I was present on an occasion where, of two young men, one very
young and very clever was suggesting infidel scruples, and the other, so
much older as to be entering on a professional career with considerable
distinction, was on the very point of drinking-in all that his companion
urged as so much weighty objection that could not be answered. The
younger man (in fact, a boy) had just used a passage from the Bible, in
which