The exasperation which he had succeeded in kindling led to his cruel death; and when men's minds had cooled, natural horror possessed them for such a retribution on such a man.

His _words_ had been met with _deeds_: the provocation he had given was unfelt to those beyond the limits of Jerusalem; and to the Jews who assembled from distant parts at the feast of Pentecost he was nothing but the image of a sainted martyr.
I have given more than enough indications of points in which the conduct of Jesus does not seem to me to have been that of a perfect man: how any one can think him a Universal Model, is to me still less intelligible.

I might say much more on this subject.

But I will merely add, that when my friend gives the weight of his noble testimony to the Perfection of Jesus, I think it is due to himself and to us that he should make clear what he means by this word "Jesus." He ought to publish--( I say it in deep seriousness, not sarcastically)--an expurgated gospel; for in truth I do not know how much of what I have now adduced from the gospel as _fact_, he will admit to be fact.

I neglect, he tells me, "a higher moral criticism," which, if I rightly understand, would explode, as evidently unworthy of Jesus, many of the representations pervading the gospels: as, that Jesus claimed to be an oracular teacher, and attached spiritual life or death to belief or disbelief in this claim.