still investigating the claim of the remnant
under reprieve. Nor is the judgment on the gospels less decisive. The
Court has decided that they were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John. Who wrote them, when they were written, or where, is left to the
Day of Judgment.

Unfortunately the press has given little attention to the proceedings in
this Court of Commission. Its reports are published in expensive volumes
for scholars and gentlemen of means and leisure. Some of the results,
indeed, are given in a few journals written for the people; but these
journals are boycotted as vulgar, unless they go too far, when they are
prosecuted for blasphemy. Yet the truth is gradually leaking out. People
shake their heads ominously, especially when there is anything in them;
and parsons are looked upon with a growing suspicion. They look
bland, they assume the most virtuous airs, and sometimes they affect a
preternatural goodness. But in all this they are excelled by the noble
Pigott, whose bald head, venerable beard, and benevolent appearance,
qualified him to sit for a portrait of God the Father. Gentlemen, it
won't do. You will have to bolt or confess. The documents you have
palmed off on the world are the products of unadulterated Pigottism. You
know it, we know it, and by and bye everyone will know it.

JESUS AT THE DERBY. *

* June, 1890.

This is the age of advertisement. Look at the street-hoardings, look at
the newspapers, look at our actor-managers, look at Barnum. Scream from
the housetops or you stand no chance. If you cannot attract attention
in any other way, stand on your head. Get talked about somehow. The only
hell is obscurity, and notoriety is the seventh heaven. If you cannot
make a fortune, spend one. Run through a quarter of a million in three
years, be the fool of every knave, and though you are as commonplace as
a wet day in London, you shall find a host of envious admirers.

Should the worst come to the worst, you can defy obscurity by committing
a judiciously villainous murder. Perhaps Jack the Ripper had a passion
for publicity, and liked to see his name in the papers; until he grew
_blase_ and retired upon his laurels.

Yes, it is an advertising age, and an advertising age is a sensational
age. Religion itself--the staid, the demure--shares in the general
tendency. She preaches in the style of the auction room, she beats drums
and shakes tambourines in the streets, she affects cri