auss
present, as we have before intimated, the most complete portrait of the
career of the Messiah ever drawn by uninspired authority. The symmetry,
scope, power, and sympathy which revealed themselves through his entire
ministry are so described by Neander, and those in harmony with him,
that their representation of the Messiah must ever perform an invaluable
service in theological literature. Had the attack never been made we
would not now enjoy the benefit resulting from the counter-blow. "These
replies," says Schwarz, "constitute an important literature of
themselves, in which scarcely any theological name of importance is
absent, and in which many obscure pastors from all parts of Germany have
brought the fire-bucket of their knowledge in order to extinguish the
flame that threatened to consume them and their village-churches
together with the historical basis of Christianity.... Concerning the
theological discussion originated by Strauss, our attention is turned
toward those works which undertake to answer specifically the critical
questions under consideration. His celebrated work was the signal for a
totally new gospel criticism. A succession of works appeared at but
brief intervals that discussed in a far more thorough method than
Strauss had done those important questions concerning the relations of
the gospels to each other, their signification, age, and
authenticity."[287]

So, too, has the criticism of the apostolic age by the Tuebingen school
aroused the friends of evangelical Christianity to inquire into the same
period, and see whether their own ground was really defensible. It was a
fortunate day for them when their attention was directed thither. For
the church enjoys thereby a much clearer conception of all those great
movements that had their origin in the time of the apostles, of the
relations in which those men stood to the Divine Founder, of the gradual
dissemination of the gospel, of the general condition of the infant
church, and of its interpretation of the doctrines promulgated by
Christ, than could have been acquired by all the ordinary methods of
investigation.

Taking the past as a present instructor, we fear no permanent evil
results from the recent popular Lives of Jesus by Renan and Strauss.
These men have written for the masses, and their appeal is to the plain
mind. They would portray Christ in such a light that even the least
intelligent mind might be brought into living sympathy wi