Christendom came to be and exist. This is the explanation which a
great critical historian, fully acquainted with the history of other
religions, presents, as a satisfactory one, of a phenomenon so
astonishing and unique as that of a religion which has suited itself
with undiminished vitality to the changes, moral, social, and
political, which have marked the eighteen centuries of European
history. There have been other enthusiasts for goodness and truth, more
or less like the character which M. Renan draws in his book, but they
have never yet founded a universal religion, or one which had the
privilege of perpetual youth and unceasing self-renovation. There have
been other great and imposing religions, commanding the allegiance for
century after century of millions of men; but who will dare assert that
any of these religions, that of Sakya-Mouni, of Mahomet, or that of the
Vedas, could possibly be the religion, or satisfy the religious ideas
and needs, of the civilised West?

When M. Renan comes to detail he is as strangely insensible to what seem
at first sight the simplest demands of probability. As it were by a sort
of reaction to the minute realising of particulars which has been in
vogue among some Roman Catholic writers, M. Renan realises too--realises
with no less force and vividness, and, according to his point of view,
with no less affectionate and tender interest. He popularises the
Gospels; but not for a religious set of readers--nor, we must add, for
readers of thought and sense, whether interested for or against
Christianity, but for a public who study life in the subtle and highly
wrought novels of modern times. He appeals from what is probable to
those representations of human nature which aspire to pass beyond the
conventional and commonplace, and especially he dwells on neglected and
unnoticed examples of what is sweet and soft and winning. But it is hard
to recognise the picture he has drawn in the materials out of which he
has composed it. The world is tolerably familiar with them. If there is
a characteristic, consciously or unconsciously acknowledged in the
Gospel records, it is that of the gravity, the plain downright
seriousness, the laborious earnestness, impressed from first to last on
the story. When we turn from these to his pages it is difficult to
exaggerate the astounding impression which his epithets and descriptions
have on the mind. We are told that there is a broad distinction between