tete, de
traiter avec dedain les heros qui out accepte dans d'autres
conditions la lutte de la vie. Quand nous aurons fait avec nos
scrupules ce qu'ils firent avec leurs mensonges, nous aurons le
droit d'etre pour eux severes.

Now let M. Renan or any one else realise what is involved, on his
supposition, not merely, as he says, of "illusion or madness," but of
wilful deceit and falsehood, in the history of Lazarus, even according
to his lame and hesitating attempt to soften it down and extenuate it;
and then put side by side with it the terms in which M. Renan has
summed up the moral greatness of Him of whom he writes:--

La foi, l'enthousiasme, la constance de la premiere generation
chretienne ne s'expliquent qu'en supposant a l'origine de tout le
mouvement un homme de proportions colossales.... Cette sublime
personne, qui chaque jour preside encore au destin du monde, il
est permis de l'appeler divine, non en ce sens que Jesus ait
absorbe tout le divin, mais en ce sens que Jesus est l'individu
qui a fait faire a son espece le plus grand pas vers le divin....
Au milieu de cette uniforme vulgarite, des colonnes s'elevent vers
le ciel et attestent une plus noble destinee. Jesus est la plus
haute de ces colonnes qui montrent a l'homme d'ou il vient et ou
il doit tendre. En lui s'est condense tout ce qu'il y a de bon et
d'eleve dans notre nature.... Quels que puissent etre les
phenomenes inattendus de l'avenir, Jesus ne sera pas surpasse....
Tous les siecles proclameront qu'entre les fils des hommes il n'en
est pas ne de plus grand que Jesus.

And of such an one we are told that it is a natural and reasonable view
to take, not merely that He claimed a direct communication with God,
which disordered reason could alone excuse Him for claiming, but that
He based His whole mission on a pretension to such supernatural powers
as a man could not pretend to without being conscious that they were
delusions. The conscience of that age as to veracity or imposture was
quite clear on such a point. Jew and Greek and Roman would have
condemned as a deceiver one who, not having the power, took on him to
say that by the finger of God he could raise the dead. And yet to a
conscience immeasurably above his age, it seems, according to M. Renan,
that this might be done. It is absurd to say that we must not judge
such a proceeding by the ideas of our more exact and