Such a 'world-historical' event (if I may for the moment borrow an expressive Germanism) as the founding of Christianity cannot be thrown into a merely forensic form.
Considerations of this kind may indeed enter in, but to suppose that they can be justly estimated by themselves alone is an error.
And it is still more an error to suppose that the riddle of the universe, or rather that part of the riddle which to us is most important, the religious nature of man and, the objective facts and relations that correspond to it, can all be reduced to some four or five simple propositions which admit of being proved or disproved by a short and easy Q.E.D.
It would have been a far more profitable enquiry if the author had asked himself, What is Revelation?
The time has come when this should be asked and an attempt to obtain a more scientific definition should be made.

The comparative study of religions has gone far enough to admit of a comparison between the Ethnic religions and that which had its birth in Palestine--the religion of the Jews and Christians.

Obviously, at the first blush, there is a difference: and that difference constitutes what we mean by Revelation.

Let us have this as yet very imperfectly known quantity scientifically ascertained, without any attempt either to minimise or to exaggerate.

I mean, let the field which Mr.Matthew Arnold has lately been traversing with much of his usual insight but in a light and popular manner, be seriously mapped out and explored.