for Christianity: it is simply a satire upon God and the condition
of the human creatures he has made!"

"Well, let that pass," said Fellowes; "I was going to say further,
that it is not so clear to every one that Christ is so very wonderful
an ideal of humanity. Do you remember that Mr. Newman says in his
'Phases,' that, when he was a boy, he read Benson's Life of
Fletcher of Madely, and thought Fletcher a more perfect man than
Jesus Christ? and he also says that he imagines, if he were to read
the book again, he would think the same. Have you nothing to say
to that?"

"NOTHING," said I, "except to point you to the infinitely different
estimates of Christ formed by other men who yet think of historical
Christianity much as you do. How differently do such writers as
Mr. Greg and Mr. Parker speak! How do they almost exhaust the
resources of language to express their sentiments of this wonderful
character! As to Mr. Newman's impression, I do not think it worth
an answer. When a man so far forgets himself as to say what he can
hardly help knowing will be unspeakably painful to multitudes of his
fellow-creatures, on the strength of boyish impressions,--not even
thinking it worth while to verify those impressions, and see whether,
after thirty or forty years, he is not something more than a boy,--I
think it is scarcely worth while to reply. Christianity is willing to
consider the arguments of men, but not the impressions of boys."

"But we must not be too hard." said Harrington, "upon Mr. Newman; it
is evident, from his Hebrew Monarchy, that, as he takes a benevolent
pleasure in defending those whom nobody else will defend,--in petting
Ahab, whom he pronounces rather weak than wicked, and palliating Jezebel,
whose character was, it seems, grievously deteriorated by contact with
the 'prophets of Jehovah,'--so he has a chivalrous habit of depressing
those who have been particularly the objects of veneration. Elisha,
Samuel, and David are all brought down a great many degrees in the moral
scale. He has simply done the same with Christ."

"Well," said Fellowes, "I cannot help agreeing with Mr. Newman in
thinking that, when one hears men made the objects of extravagant eulogy,
it almost 'tempts one, even though a stranger to their very name,
to "pick holes," as the saying is.'"

"It may be so," said I; "but it is a tendency against which we should
guard. It would lead us, like him of Athens, to ostracize Aristides: we
shou