uttered such words, then it was his duty to deny
them, and not remain dumb like a sheep before its shearers.

After he had confirmed by his silence the belief that he had used
a dishonest evasion indicative of consciousness that he was no real
Messiah, he suddenly burst out with a full reply to the High Priest's
question; and avowed that he _was_ the Messiah, the Son of God; and
that they should hereafter see him sitting on the right-hand of power,
and coming in the clouds of heaven,--of course to enter into judgment
on them all. I am the less surprized that this precipitated his
condemnation, since he himself seems to have designed precisely that
result. The exasperation which he had succeeded in kindling led to his
cruel death; and when men's minds had cooled, natural horror possessed
them for such a retribution on such a man. His _words_ had been met
with _deeds_: the provocation he had given was unfelt to those beyond
the limits of Jerusalem; and to the Jews who assembled from distant
parts at the feast of Pentecost he was nothing but the image of a
sainted martyr.

I have given more than enough indications of points in which the
conduct of Jesus does not seem to me to have been that of a perfect
man: how any one can think him a Universal Model, is to me still less
intelligible. I might say much more on this subject. But I will merely
add, that when my friend gives the weight of his noble testimony to
the Perfection of Jesus, I think it is due to himself and to us that
he should make clear what he means by this word "Jesus." He ought
to publish--(I say it in deep seriousness, not sarcastically)--an
expurgated gospel; for in truth I do not know how much of what I have
now adduced from the gospel as _fact_, he will admit to be fact. I
neglect, he tells me, "a higher moral criticism," which, if I rightly
understand, would explode, as evidently unworthy of Jesus, many of the
representations pervading the gospels: as, that Jesus claimed to be
an oracular teacher, and attached spiritual life or death to belief
or disbelief in this claim. My friend says, it is beyond all serious
question _what_ Jesus _was_: but his disbelief of the narrative seems
to be so much wider than mine, as to leave me more uncertain than
ever about it. If he will strike out of the gospels all that he
disbelieves, and so enable me to understand _what_ is the Jesus whom
he reveres, I have so deep a sense of his moral and critical powers,
that I am