no founder of any religion ever appears to have felt the necessity of
leaving anything in his own writing either to his contemporaries or to
posterity. No one has ever attempted to prove that Moses wrote books, nor
has it ever been said of Christ that he composed a book (John vii. 15).
The same is true of Buddha, in spite of the legend of the alphabets; and
of Mohammed we know from himself that he could neither read nor write.
What we possess, therefore, in the way of holy Scriptures is always the
product of a later generation, and subject to all the hazards involved in
oral tradition. This was not to be avoided, and ought not to surprise us.
If we attempt ourselves to write down without the aid of books or
memoranda, occurrences or conversations of which we were witnesses fifty
years ago, we shall see how difficult it is, and how untrustworthy is our
memory. We may be entirely veracious, but it by no means follows that we
are also true and trustworthy. Let any one try to describe the incidents
of the Austro-Prussian War without referring to books, and he will see
how, with the best intentions, names and dates will waver and reel. When
did the German National Assembly elect the German Emperor? Who were the
members of the regency? Who was Henry Simon, and were there one or more
Simons, like the nine Simons in the New Testament? Who can answer these
questions now without newspapers, and yet these are matters only fifty
years old, and at the time were well known to all of us. Was it different
with the Christians in the year 50 A.D.? It was therefore very natural
that a certain inspiration or preeminent endowment should be demanded for
the authors of the Gospels; if some do so still, it is on their own
responsibility, just as if we demanded for the mother of Mary the same
immaculate birth as for Mary herself, _et sic ad infinitum_. These are for
the most part merely excuses for human unbelief. Nothing proves the
veracity of the authors of the Gospels so clearly as the natural, often
derogatory words which they use of themselves, or even more of the
apostles. These did not understand, as they say, the simplest parables or
teachings; they were jealous of one another; Peter even denied the Lord;
in short, the authors of the Gospels cannot be credited with sinlessness
and infallibility, supposing that they were really the apostles.

If they were not, then all these difficulties of our own making disappear.
We then find in the Go