between two great enthusiasms, one, for the redemption of the slave from his bondage; the other, to redeem the character of Jesus from the unworthy representations that have disfigured it for so many centuries. In his own life, these two enthusiasms cannot have been separated; and, in his previous works, they often touch upon each other. But in Schenkel's "Character of Jesus" he found them melted into one. In his sympathy with the common people, Schenkel finds the root of Jesus' consecration, the key of his divinest purposes. It was probably this feature of his book that attracted Dr. Furness, and induced him, in spite of much with which he did not sympathize, to undertake the task that he has performed so handsomely. If we are not mistaken, Schenkel will find this English rendering of his book more fine and crisp than the original. We can scarcely imagine a greater contrast than between the muddy current of Strauss's "New Life of Jesus," in its English form, and the transparent clearness of Dr. Furness's translation. And yet we cannot but think that Strauss's stream bears costlier freights upon its bosom, and escapes at length into a deeper sea.

But so free is Dr. Furness to differ from the author he translates, that these volumes should be carefully avoided by that class of persons whose opinions are invariably those of the last book which they have read; for they would be sure to breed confusion in their tender minds. They should, at least, wait a week or two after reading Dr. Schenkel's Essay before reading the Introduction and the Notes, so that they may accept, successively, entirely different views, and not be pained by an attempt to judge between them. But the man who thinks for himself, and tries to form his own opinions, will rejoice at such a fund of provocation as awaits him here. Upon the very threshold of the discussion, Dr. Schenkel is opposed by his translator. When and by whom the Gospels were written is the first consideration. To Schenkel it is allimportant. For the most part, Dr. Furness goes with him in his investigations. But, when the work of destruction is completed, and the Gospels have been assigned to a late period, and in but one case out of four-and then only in

part, and doubtfully at that to a disciple of Jesus, is he alarmed at the result? Not in the least. For he has a touchstone of his own by which to try the various accounts that criticism has left not one upon another, and discover whether they were ever parts of the great living temple of the Galilean's soul. The nature of this touchstone is thus indicated in the closing paragraph of the book:

"In concluding a labor which he has found full of interest, and which he trusts is to serve the truth, the translator is free to confess, that, with great respect for the learning and industry of German critics and commentators, he is struck with the fact, that these eminent and laborious scholars appear never to perceive that the records owe their existence to the reality of the facts recorded” (vol. ii. p. 359).

"They look everywhere," he says (these German critics), "but directly at the facts, to solve the secret of their having passed into history." But Dr. Furness looks "directly at the facts," and nowhere else. They are sufficient for his purposes. They bear upon their faces the proofs that they are genuine. But he cannot help seeing that there were many reasons why they should not have been reported by the immediate followers of Jesus. These men lived not in the past, but in the future. The Jesus of their meditations was not a Jesus of the past, but of the future. He was not so much a glorious memory to his disciples as a glorious hope. Nothing that he had said or done was of account, in comparison with what he would say or do when he should come again in the glory of his Father with all his holy angels. What mattered it if words and deeds were not recorded, that were so soon to be eclipsed? Why be so careful to report the beauty of a few violets and anemones that had been nipped by not un. timely frost, when, in a little while, the Messianic summer was to burst in a great tide of fragrant beauty over all the land? It was not to be expected, therefore, that these men would go about to write biographies of Jesus as soon as he was dead. If, then, these facts must be reported, who should report them? Dr. Furness's answer is original. The first records of Christianity, he suggests, were written by half-con

verts, half-followers of Jesus, lukewarm disciples, men of the Nicodemus sort, "neutral and uncommitted lookers-on." But, if any thing is certain, is it not that neither the Gospels as they now stand, nor the first memoranda from which they were compiled, were written by members of this class? Every line, every word of them, is written con amore. Whoever wrote them, whoever cherished the remembrances out of which they were written, must have been adoring followers of Jesus, undoubted converts to his teachings, in so far as they could understand them.

But this unique hypothesis, convenient as it would be, does not begin to be so sweeping as the principle, that "the records owe their existence to the reality of the facts recorded." But can this be allowed? Does the existence of these records imply the certainty that these events took place? Is it not possible to conceive of the genesis of these accounts from any womb but that of sober fact? Does not Dr. Furness allow, that Strauss is right in supposing that some of these accounts are mythical? If it was thought that the Messiah would do certain things, and if it was also thought that Jesus was the Messiah, was it not natural that those things that were expected of the Messiah should be ascribed to him? If part of the record can be thus accounted for, cannot another part be credited, as M. Renan supposes, to the play of highly wrought imaginations? How can the "naturalness" of any statement concerning Jesus attest its authenticity, until we know enough about him to determine. what is "natural"? What is natural to one man is not natural to another. How shall we know that it was natural for Jesus to arouse the dead and rise from his own grave, until it has been proved that he did so? It certainly is not natural for other men, however good, to do such things. Dr. Furness says, "the manner in which they are told" proves that these stories are trustworthy. But, however fresh and simple and artless an account may be, if it involves the preternatural it is much easier to believe that we are dealing with a legend, notwithstanding all these traits, than that any thing so exceptional ever happened. Indeed, it is notorious that the popu

lar imagination can invest a fiction with all the outward semblance of a fact. A village rumor, utterly without foundation, is thrice as natural in its form, as the most careful phrases of the historian. "Can a great man be concealed?" said Plato. But allow that great events must be recorded, and it does not follow that what claims to be the record of a great event, however natural, is strictly true. And hence, when Dr. Furness tells us that we ought to look "directly at the facts," he takes for granted every thing that criticism has been trying to discover for the last fifty years; viz., What are the facts? And, until we know more of this matter than we do at present, it is of the first importance to know when and by whom the first reports of Jesus and his work were writ

ten.

And to this part of his labors Dr. Schenkel has applied himself with a great deal of fairness and ability. His result is not very different from that of M. Renan, except that he assigns the fourth Gospel to a much lower rank of authenticity. Our nearest approach to Jesus is the "primitive Mark," of which the present Gospel by that name is an enlargement and exaggeration. This opinion is supported by various reasons, the most prominent of which, after the external testimony, are, that it has no literary aim, has much less of the legendary and miraculous, contains no fabled infancy, and no appearance after death. The estimate of Matthew is very similar to that of Renan and Réville. It is made up, principally, from the primitive Mark and the rà Aópa spoken of by Papias. It shows, unmistakably, a literary purpose. Its object is to prove the Messianic dignity of Jesus. His life is viewed as something fixed beforehand, from the beginning to the end. It addresses itself, throughout, to Jewish prejudices. Jesus acts in one way rather than in another, not from internal desire, but from external necessity, in order that some prophecy of the Old Testament may be fulfilled. The literary aim in the third Gospel is even more apparent than in the first. It leans as far from the historic perpendicular in favor of the Gentiles as the first in favor of the Jews. It gives us the various legends in their latest, and hence gross

est, form. It is much more miraculous than the first Gospel, vastly more than the second. The legends of the infancy and the resurrection here assume their baldest form. The extra-Jewish features in the ministry of Jesus are much magnified, and the universal significance of his teachings everywhere made prominent. The arguments by which Dr. Schenkel seeks to prove that John did not write the fourth Gospel are the most masterly portions of his book. We should do injustice to their fulness and ability by attempting a synopsis of them. His own conviction on this point is complete; and he abides by it throughout his work, instead of using the fourth Gospel as if it were authentic, after having proved that it is not. The blunder of Renan is here continually before him. He fully realizes the impossibility of a consistent life of Jesus, that does not leave this Gospel out of the account. And, although his consequent success is far from complete, it is so much greater than it would otherwise have been, that we lament afresh that Renan did not feel at liberty to build with the material furnished by the first three Gospels; for, had he done so, the life of Jesus would have been written, as now we fear it will not be for many years to come.

And what is the conception of Jesus that Dr. Schenkel has discovered in the Synoptic Gospels? Certainly, it is a conception very different from that which the fourth Gospel has enshrined, and Christendom has always cherished. According to the fourth Gospel, there is no development of his religious or Messianic self-consciousness, no growth of his ideas. He is already at the first what he continues to be to the end. But the conception of the Synoptic Gospels involves the idea of development. By degrees, it is borne in upon his mind that he is the Messiah; not the Messiah of the Old Testament, not the Messiah that the Pharisees were looking for, but the Messiah, in a moral and spiritual sense, that was but barely hinted at in prophecy. By degrees, also, he widens the circle of his activity,- comes to the conclusion that it was not only "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" that he must try to save. And, when the idea of his work is fully formed in his own mind, it is only by degrees that he imparts