them and
to consider whether He of Whom such men speak in such terms is to be so
lightly set aside as you have fancied.

II

It will be strange if, accepting even that scanty creed, we do not find
ourselves speedily accepting much more. When it is heartily
acknowledged that Jesus of Nazareth lived and died, and that His first
followers found strength and irresistible power in the conviction that
He had conquered death and the grave, it is of necessity that we go
further. The extreme sceptics who maintain that He never existed are,
for the purpose of controversy, wise in their generation, for, once His
existence is admitted, His mysterious power begins to tell. We are
confronted {184} with an Influence by which, consciously or
unconsciously, we must be affected, a knowledge which we must acquire,
an Authority to which we must bow. Let us not think merely of those
who have, in utter devotion, yielded their hearts and souls to Him
through all the centuries, of the institutions and customs which owe
their existence directly to Him; let us think of the manifestations
which are so often visible in those who do not suspect whence the
manifestations come, let us think of the tributes of affection, of
homage, of devotion which are paid by those to whom the ancient faith
in His Divinity appears to be an illusion or an impossible exaggeration.

Scarcely any critic of recent years has been regarded as more
destructive than Professor Schmiedel. Indignant attack after indignant
attack has been made upon him for arguing that only nine sayings
attributed to our Lord can be accepted as genuine, that {185} all else
is involved in suspicion. What Schmiedel really does maintain is that
these nine sayings must of necessity be accepted as genuine, cannot be
rejected by any sane canon of criticism, and that the acceptance of
these nine sayings, these 'foundation-pillars,' compels the acceptance
of a great deal besides. '_What then have I gained in these nine
foundation pillars_? You will perhaps say "Very little": I reply, "I
have gained just enough." Having them, I know that Jesus must really
have come forward in the way He is said to have done.... In a word, I
know, on the one hand, that His Person cannot be referred to the region
of myth; on the other hand, that He was man in the full sense of the
term, and that, without of course denying that the Divine character was
in Him, this could be found only in the shape in which it