ext morning. To some
remark of his, Harrington replied thus:--

"Assuming with you, that Strauss has really cast suspicion on the
historic character of the bulk of the transactions recorded in the
New Testament, I must suspect that there is not an event in history,
if at all remote, which, arguing exactly on the same principles, may
not be made doubtful; and that is--"

"Why, now," replied the other, "do you think it possible that the events
of the present year" (referring to the Papal Aggression), "which are
making such a prodigious noise in England, will ever stand a chance
of being similarly treated some centuries hence?"

"If they are ever treated at all," said Harrington; "but you must
have observed that it is the tendency of man to make ridiculous
miss-estimates of the importance of the transactions of his own age,
and to imagine that posterity will have nothing to do but to recount
them. He is much mistaken; they forget or care not a doit for nine
tenths of what he does; and misrepresent the tenth," continued
he, laughing.

"Well, then, upon the supposition that Pio Nono and Cardinal Wiseman
are of sufficient importance to be remembered at all eighteen hundred
and fifty years hence, that is, in the year 3700 of the Christian era,
--though in all probability some new and more rational epoch will have
jostled out both the Christian era the Mahometan hegira by that time--"

"Pray be sure," interrupted I, "before you predict a new epoch, that
it will be wanted; that Christianity is really dead before you bury
her. You will please remember that the experiment was tried in France
with much formality, but somehow came to a speedy ignominious conclusion;
the new era did not survive infancy. As Paulus thinks that Christ was
only in a trance when he seemed to be dead, so it certainly often
is (figuratively speaking) with his religion: it seems to be dead when
it is only in a trance. It is apt to rise again, and be more active
than ever; and never more so than when, as in the middle of the last
century, our infidel undertakers were providing for its funeral. But I
beg your pardon for interrupting your conversation; you were saying--"

"I was saying," said Robinson, "that I doubt whether Cardinal Wiseman
and his doings, eighteen hundred and fifty years hence, could be as
much the subject of doubt and controversy (if remembered at all) as
the events which Strauss has shown to be unhistorical. I think the
press alone, w