the character of Jesus were offered to
me, I would not have it; its very clearness would be, in my opinion, the
best proof of its insufficiency." His friends may with perfect justice
rejoin that at the sight of the Holy Land, and of the actual scene of
the Gospel story, all the current of M. Renan's thoughts may have
naturally changed, and a new casting of that story irresistibly
suggested itself to him; and that this is just a case for applying
Cicero's maxim: Change of mind is not inconsistency--_nemo doctus unquam
mutationem consilii inconstantiam dixit esse_.[57] Nevertheless, for
criticism, M. Renan's first thought must still be the truer one, as long
as his new casting so fails more fully to commend itself, more fully (to
use Coleridge's happy phrase[58] about the Bible) to _find_ us. Still M.
Renan's attempt is, for criticism, of the most real interest and
importance, since, with all its difficulty, a fresh synthesis of the New
Testament _data_--not a making war on them, in Voltaire's fashion, not a
leaving them out of mind, in the world's fashion, but the putting a new
construction upon them, the taking them from under the old, traditional,
conventional point of view and placing them under a new one--is the very
essence of the religious problem, as now presented; and only by efforts
in this direction can it receive a solution.

Again, in the same spirit in which she judges Bishop Colenso, Miss
Cobbe, like so many earnest liberals of our practical race, both here
and in America, herself sets vigorously about a positive reconstruction
of religion, about making a religion of the future out of hand, or at
least setting about making it. We must not rest, she and they are always
thinking and saying, in negative criticism, we must be creative and
constructive; hence we have such works as her recent _Religious Duty_,
and works still more considerable, perhaps, by others, which will be in
every one's mind. These works often have much ability; they often spring
out of sincere convictions, and a sincere wish to do good; and they
sometimes, perhaps, do good. Their fault is (if I may be permitted to
say so) one which they have in common with the British College of
Health, in the New Road. Every one knows the British College of Health;
it is that building with the lion and the statue of the Goddess Hygeia
before it; at least I am sure about the lion, though I am not absolutely
certain about the Goddess Hygeia. This building d