ime, and that the notion of a national God was the
source of all the evil in Judea. After long meditation they decided that
Jesus must be the Messiah; and John found the part of a precursor fixed
for himself. Christ, partly from his power of attraction, and partly
from the hope of future power, made his disciples depend blindly on him.
It was only with great caution that he could undertake his great work of
destroying the priests. The people were divided into sects; and the
characteristics of his plan were, his choice of the lowest people, and
his withdrawing himself frequently from public view, that the priests
might not nip his plan in the bud. As all the prophets had worked
miracles, and many were expected from the Messiah, he too was obliged,
according to Becker, to undertake them or renounce his hopes. No doubt
he performed miracles; for the power of the mind on the body is such
that we need not doubt his curing the melancholy and the nervous. As to
the miraculous meals, raising the dead, curing the blind and deaf, these
things must be attributed to the calculation of his historians; and we
need not hesitate to do so after observing such tangible fabrications as
Christ's walking on the sea, his blasting the fig tree, devils driven
into the swine, and virtue going out of himself. In the story of Lazarus
we cannot help suspecting some secret concert. Christ did perform some
uncontested miracles, however and there was in his manner that
inexpressible something which makes greatness irresistible. The mystic
obscurity thrown over his future kingdom, the many parables he used, and
his assured manner of speaking of future things, begot reverence. The
prudence of his judgment and the strictness of his life are
praiseworthy. He could pursue the destruction of old usages but very
slowly; first he allowed the neglect of the Sabbath, and at last made
open war with the priests, "_on whom, he lanced all the thunder of a
Ciceronian eloquence_."

"John's death," continues this model writer for youth, "made Christ very
timid. He got away into the desert and ordered his followers not to call
him Messiah in public. In his last journey to Jerusalem, the multitude
protected him by day, and he escaped by night. His answers, made to
several questions at this time, for example, John viii. 3, are still
admired. He had always suspected Judas; and as he had a presentiment
that he would come to a bad end, he became very uneasy, and yet was abl