s coming to men
through closed doors, and talking with them,--just as in our time the
"mediums" say the soul of Dr. Franklin, or Dr. Channing, or some great
man comes and makes "spiritual communication." They say, that at last,
he "was parted from them, and carried up into heaven," and "sat on the
right hand of God."

His friends and followers went about from place to place, and preached
his doctrines; but gradually added many more of their own. They said
that he was the Anointed, the Messiah, the Christ, who was foretold in
the Old Testament, and that did strange things called Miracles; that at
a marriage feast, where wine was wanted, he changed several barrels of
water into wine of excellent quality; that he fed five thousand men with
five loaves, walked on the water, opened the eyes, ears, and mouths of
men born blind, deaf, and dumb, and at a touch or a word brought back
a maimed limb. They called him a SAVIOUR, sent from God to redeem the
Jews, and them only, from eternal damnation; next, said that he was the
Saviour of all mankind,--Jews and Gentiles too; that he was a Sacrifice
offered to appease the wrath of God, who had become so angry with his
children that he intended to torment them all forever in hell. By and by
his followers were called CHRISTIANS,--that is, men who took Jesus for
the Christ of the Old Testament; and in their preaching they did not
make much account of the noble ideas Jesus taught about man, God, and
religion, or of his own great manly life; but they thought his DEATH
was the great thing,--and that was the means to save men from eternal
torment. Then they went further, and declared that Jesus was not the
son of Joseph and Mary, but THE SON OF GOD and Mary,--miraculously born;
next, that he was GOD'S ONLY SON, who had never had any child before,
and never would have another; again, that he was a GOD who had lived
long before Jesus was born, but for the then first time took the human
form; and at last, that he was THE ONLY GOD, the Creator and Providence
of all the universe; but was man also, the GOD-MAN. Thus, gradually,
the actual facts of his history were lost out of sight, overgrown with
a great mass of fictions, poetic and other stories, which make him a
mythological character; the Jesus of fact was well-nigh forgot,--the
Christ of fiction took his place.

Well, after the death of Jesus, his followers went from town to town,
from country to country, preaching "Christ and him crucified;