leaving chapel, we fell on our knees, and besought pardon for our
sins. Most of the prisoners received this advice with a grin, for their
cell-floors were black-leaded, and practising genuflexions in their
"little-rooms" gave too much kneecap to their trousers.

At six o'clock I had my third instalment of Christmas fare, consisting
of another eight ounces of bread and three quarters of a pint of tea.
The last mouthfuls were consumed to the accompaniment of church bells.
The neighboring gospel-shops were announcing their evening performance,
and the sound penetrated into my cell through the open ventilator. The
true believers were wending their way to God's house, and the heretic,
who had dared to deride their creed and denounce their hypocrisy,
was regaling himself on dry bread and warm water in one of their
prison-cells. And the bells rang out against each other from the many
steeples with a wild glee as I paced up and down my narrow dungeon. They
seemed mad with the intoxication of victory; they mocked me with their
bacchanalian frenzy of triumph. But I smiled grimly, for their clamor
was no more than the ancient fool's-shout, "Great is Diana of the
Ephesians." Great Christ has had his day since, but he in turn is dead;
dead in man's intellect, dead in man's heart, dead in man's life; a mere
phantom, flitting about the aisles of churches where priestly mummers go
through the rites of a phantom creed.

I took my Bible and read the story of Christ's birth in Matthew and
Luke. What an incongruous jumble of absurdities! A poor fairy tale
of the world's childhood, utterly insignificant beside the stupendous
wonders which science has revealed to its manhood. From the fanciful
little story of the Magi following a star, to Shelley's "Worlds on
worlds are rolling ever," what an advance! As I retired to sleep upon
my plank-bed my mind was full of these reflections. And when the gas was
turned out, and I was left alone in darkness and silence, I felt serene
and almost happy.

WHO KILLED CHRIST?

Without committing ourselves to a full acceptance of the Gospel story of
Christ's death, with all its monstrous miracles and absurd defiance of
Roman and Jewish legal procedure, we propose to take the story as it
stands for the purpose of discussing the question at the top of this
article.

The ordinary Christian will exclaim that Jesus was murdered by those
infernal Jews. Ever since they had the power of persecuting the
Jews