man who had died for an idea. Thousands, tens of thousands
of Jews, Christians, Mohammedans and Heathens, have died for ideas, and
some of them were very foolish. But Jesus did not die for an idea. He
never advanced anything new, that we know of, to die for. He was not
accused of saying or teaching anything _original_. Nobody has ever been
able to discover anything new and original in the Gospels. He evidently
died to save the lives of his friends, and this is much more meritorious
than if he had died for a questionable idea. But then the whole fabric
of vicarious atonement is demolished, and modern theology cannot get
over the absurdity that the Almighty Lord of the Universe, the infinite
and eternal cause of all causes, had to kill some innocent person in
order to be reconciled to the human race. However abstractly they
speculate and subtilize, there is always an undigested bone of man-god,
god-man, and vicarious atonement in the theological stomach. Therefore
theology appears so ridiculous in the eyes of modern philosophy. The
theological speculation cannot go far enough to hold pace with modern
astronomy. However nicely the idea may be dressed, the great God of the
immense universe looks too small upon the cross of Calvary; and the
human family is too large, has too numerous virtues and vices, to be
perfectly represented by, and dependent on, one Rabbi of Galilee.
Speculate as they may, one way or another, they must connect the Eternal
and the fate of the human family with the person and fate of Jesus. That
is the very thing which deprives Jesus of his crown of martyrdom, and
brings religion in perpetual conflict with philosophy. It was not the
religious idea which was crucified in Jesus and resurrected with him, as
with all its martyrs; although his belief in immortality may have
strengthened him in the agony of death. It was the idea of duty to his
disciples and friends which led him to the realms of death. This
deserves admiration, but no more. It demonstrates the nobility of human
nature, but proves nothing in regard to providence, or the providential
scheme of government.

The Christian story, _as the Gospels narrate it_, cannot stand the test
of criticism. You approach it critically and it falls. _Dogmatic
Christology_ built upon it, has, therefore, a very frail foundation.
Most so-called lives of Christ, or biographies of Jesus, are works of
fiction, erected by imagination on the shifting foundation of meagre