dismisses it. His teaching on this point seems to me the result of
his theory of Christianity. If one seeks to rid Christianity of the
supernatural, here is the place to begin.

[Sidenote: Dignity of the Story.]

[Sidenote: A Greater Puzzle.]

But who will not feel the force of the position that, granted God was to
be incarnate, the story of Christ's incarnation is the noblest and most
probable? He is not born of a man's lust nor of a woman's desire--but of
the submission of untainted womanhood to the direct creative power of
God. The alternative to this is the Divinest man in all the world born
of sinning and not yet married parents. If the new doctrine of heredity
be true that men may inherit good as well as evil, we still have an
astounding fact to account for; namely, the birth of such a child from
such conditions, that is, with all the good kept in and all the bad left
out.

[Sidenote: Parthenogenesis a Fact.]

When men speak of a virgin birth as incredible and impossible and as the
weakest of all Christian doctrine, do they know or have they forgotten
that parthenogenesis (virgin birth) is a fact in nature; existing, for
example, in as highly organized insects as the honey bee? There are
other insects which are parthenogenetic at one time and sexually
productive at another. There are also hints of it in human life known to
anatomists which can not be fully discussed here.

[Sidenote: Among the Bees.]

[Sidenote: A Small Departure from Nature.]

The virgin queen bee produces males in abundance, but can not produce
females until she has made her nuptial flight and met her mate in an
embrace invariably fatal to him. Nor does she ever need to meet
another. From that time on, she is the fruitful mother of every kind of
bee life the hive needs; the undeveloped females called neuters and
those who become queens by being fed on royal food. Virgin birth is
therefore imbedded in nature's order. To occur in the human species
nature need call in no novelty. Christ, if born of a virgin, was born
with the smallest possible departure from the order of nature. A process
known in a lower form of life was carried into the higher to produce the
unique being called for by the spiritual needs of mankind.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The Historical Statement.]

Passing over the historical assertions which follow the doctrine of the
virgin birth, "suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead,