around them, or a learned historian attacks them with a

sneer.

It is matter of good omen, then, when the ranks of the professed champions of Christianity are recruited by volunteers. Hardly any training can prepare one for more effectual service in this cause than the severe logic, the close examination of testimony, and the rigid application of principles, which are required in the practice of law. A well trained jurist cannot fail, at least, to place the subject in a new light, to detect the sophistry and artifices of those who would hide the truth, and to show the value of that testimony which he pronounces sufficient to satisfy a court of justice. All will hear with deference an appeal to this honored tribunal. Mr. Greenleaf appropriately dedicates his work to "the members of the legal profession." He invites them to pursue the inquiry by the light of the established maxims of the law, and urges this duty upon them as one for which they are strengthened by their previous habits, while it is a matter of as awful concern to them as to every other member of the human family. As a recognized teacher of jurisprudence, he offers to them his guidance for a part of the way, as if in the investigation of any legal subject, and challenges their attention to the witnesses whom he puts upon the stand, and to the array of evidence which he brings before them. We believe that his work will be found "profitable for instruction" not only to his professional brethren, but to many others, who will be glad to know the views of a sound lawyer upon this important subject.

The only fault that we have to find with Mr. Greenleaf's volume is that there is not enough of it. Though of quite respectable size, far the larger portion of the book is occupied with a Harmony of the Gospels, the system adopted being that of Archbishop Newcome, with some modifications by Professor Robinson. Brief notes are appended to it to explain most of the apparent discrepancies in the accounts of the four Evangelists, these being selected and abridged from the most approved commentators. The preliminary observations, occupying about fifty pages, and an appendix, the chief article in which is a legal view of the trial of Jesus, contain all that is entirely original in the volume. The writer's remarks, though concise, are clear, logical, and cogent; and on the whole, we do not know that they could have been amplified

without losing some of their force. The scope of the argument is necessarily limited by its legal character, as the witnesses are supposed to be produced, and the only question here treated relates to the credibility of their testimony. In other words, the genuineness of the gospels is taken for granted, or as fully sustained by proofs elsewhere adduced. Mr. Greenleaf's office is that of a lawyer, to comment upon the evidence already in possession of the court. We wish, however, that, instead of contenting himself with mere references to the works of those authors who have so satisfactorily established the genuineness of our Gospel records, he had favored us with a summary of the historical evidence upon this point, and then given a legal opinion of its credibility and sufficiency.

The work of Strauss is confined within similar limits. He also waives the question of the genuineness, or passes over it with a very brief and unsatisfactory view of the testimony adduced, and gives his whole attention to the internal marks of truth or falsity in the narrative. He admits that "it would most unquestionably be an argument of decisive weight in favor of the credibility of the Biblical history, could it indeed be shown that it was written by eyewitnesses, or even by persons nearly contemporaneous with the events narrated." But he coolly passes over this difficulty, though it applies, as we shall see hereafter, with especial force to the particular theory which he seeks to establish, so that even the lowest view that can be taken of the authorship of the Gospelswhat the most skeptical inquirers have been obliged to admit upon this point is absolutely fatal to his whole doctrine. Confining himself strictly, then, to an examination of the testimony as it is found upon the record, and putting aside the question who gave that testimony, the opinions which he maintains come directly in conflict with those of Mr. Greenleaf. The cool and clear-headed jurist and the German mystical doctor are brought face to face.

We shall not enter into any detailed examination of a work now so widely known as the Life of Jesus by Strauss. Criticisms upon it in his own country have been multiplied almost without end; replies and rejoinders have flown thick, and he who lists may read them. We have little taste for a controversy in which the opposing parties usually seem more anxious to display their own learning, ingenuity, and dialec

tical skill, than to establish or refute the great subject at issue. In this gladiatorial play, Strauss is a dexterous opponent. He has an abundant share of learning, great acuteness, can shift his ground skilfully, and weave strange theories out of air as cunningly as his neighbours. But he shows an utter lack of judgment, and of those clear and comprehensive views by which great minds detect almost by intuition the fallacy of a doctrine seemingly supported by an imposing array of arguments. He wastes great industry and erudition, and all the finer powers of his mind, in an attempt to support a hypothesis which the first glance of a sound thinker detects as utterly untenable. There is a crack somewhere; he who appears to the world as a scholar and a philosopher commits mistakes of judgment in which he may be corrected by a child. Ordinary people describe the case well, when they say that the person has genius, but no common sense. He may be a very agreeable speculatist, but is a most unsafe guide in the search after truth. Strauss has all the defects which are apt to belong to the recluse student of theology and metaphysics, and these are heightened and exaggerated by the theorizing tendency and the wildness of speculation so common among his countrymen. A plain and detailed statement of his doctrine is enough to confute it as the most improbable of infidel hypotheses. It may be opposed, if we mistake not, by fundamental objections in the outset, so as to render any regular examination of the tissue of arguments brought to support it quite unnecessary; though it is the length and particularity of these, and the perverse ingenuity and misapplied learning displayed in them, which have given the work its whole notoriety. It appears like a complex and curiously devised machine, which has no defect except that it will not work.

We shall gain a better view of the insuperable difficulties lying at the threshold of this theory, by attending first to some points suggested by the preliminary observations of Mr. Greenleaf. The first question is, Why skepticism is so much more busy with the gospel narrative than with all profane history, though the latter be of events contemporaneous with those recorded in that narrative, or even long anterior to them. What principle will enable us to reject the truth of the Gospels, considered merely as records of events,

which will not also require us to consider the annals of the world as one universal blank, down, at least, to the reign of Tiberius? If we will not believe Matthew and Luke, how can we trust Thucydides and Tacitus? No one will dare to say that these historians show more of honesty, candor, and an apparent disposition to tell the truth, than must be ascribed on the best internal evidence to the four Evangelists. Then why is the narrative of the deeds and the crucifixion of our Saviour unworthy of credit, if the story of the exploits and the assassination of Julius Cæsar be not also fabulous? The Christian may fearlessly invite the comparison of external testimony that is here indicated; and we dwell upon it the more readily, because it has been too much left out of sight by the particular class of scholars who have most considered this subject, and who have unwittingly contributed to making a useless and injurious separation of sacred from profane history. We pass over the theologian and the philosopher, therefore, to address this question_directly to the professed historian. Let him separate, if he can, the history of the origin of Christianity from that of the destruction of the Roman republic; that is, let him show sufficient difference in the external testimony for with this alone we are concerned at present-to be a valid reason for rejecting the one and accepting the other.

Let us look for a moment at the relative weight of proof in the two cases, confining our attention to a few centuries immediately preceding or following the commencement of the Christian era. How many events in the profane history of this period are now universally admitted on the testimony of a single historian, though he could not have been an eyewitness of a thousandth part of them; while, in the case of the gospel narrative, we find distinct and harmonious records by four individuals, each marked by striking peculiarities of style and manner, and all agreeing as to all essential points, two of them appearing to have been direct observers of the facts which they narrate, and all brought by irrefragable evidence within a very few years, at the utmost, of the time when these events occurred! Is it said that incidental allusions in the contemporaneous literature of the period confirm most of the facts mentioned by the profane historians? But the narratives of the Evangelists have also a great amount of collateral testimony, in the shape of numerous

epistles, written at the same period, addressed both to individuals and to large societies, making frequent allusion to these facts, even placing particular stress upon them, and betokening throughout a state of things which is totally inexplicable unless these facts did really occur. It will generally be admitted, we suppose, that Paul was a real, historical personage, quite as much so as Cicero. Not the most fanciful author of hypotheses, not even a German theorist upon history, has yet ventured to allegorize him into a mythical character. We are acquainted with all the chief incidents of his life, with the story of his conversion, his journeyings, his imprisonments, his shipwreck, the account of the latter being undoubtedly written, if internal evidence can decide any thing, by an eyewitness and fellow-sufferer with him. We study the development of his peculiar and strongly marked intellect and disposition in his numerous writings, and thereby gain as clear an idea of the individuality of his character, as distinct a portrait of him, as we have of any personage in all Greek and Roman history. He was a highly educated man, a lawyer, brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, an impetuous and eloquent orator, an acute and fervid reasoner, a person as little likely to be deceived by any vulgar rumors about marvellous events occurring in his own age and neighbourhood as a shrewd, honest, and able lawyer of our own day. He was a contemporary of the events in question, an intimate associate and friend of the disciples of our Lord, of the honest and impetuous Peter, and the meek, loving, and saint-like John, the very men before whose eyes these wonderful occurrences took place, who were even actors and participators in them, and who were now constantly suffering outrage and persecution, both from the government and the mob, because they steadfastly maintained the truth of their accounts. What motive had these men to deceive? and how likely was Paul, considering how he was related to them by his education, character, and previous pursuits, to be deceived by them? They were poor Jewish fishermen, quite unlearned according to the fashions of this world; and he was a man of education and acknowledged ability, of high repute and good station in the community, and employed in business of importance by the government. How often must he have talked over with them, as they journeyed and counselled together, the story