My friend says, it is beyond all serious question _what_ Jesus _was_: but his disbelief of the narrative seems to be so much wider than mine, as to leave me more uncertain than ever about it.

If he will strike out of the gospels all that he disbelieves, and so enable me to understand _what_ is the Jesus whom he reveres, I have so deep a sense of his moral and critical powers, that I am fully prepared to expect that he may remove many of my prejudices and relieve my objections: but I cannot honestly say that I see the least probability of his altering my conviction, that in _consistency_ of goodness Jesus fell far below vast numbers of his unhonoured disciples.
[Footnote 1: I have by accident just taken up the "British Quarterly," and alighted upon the following sentence concerning Madame Roland:--"_To say that she was without fault, would be to say that she was not human_." This so entirely expresses and concludes all that I have to say, that I feel surprise at my needing at all to write such a chapter as the present.] [Footnote 2: I am acquainted with the interpretation, that the word More is not here Greek, _i.e., fool_, but is Hebrew, and means _rebel_, which is stronger than Raca, _silly fellow_.

This gives partial, but only partial relief.] [Footnote 3: Indeed we have in Luke vi.

20-24, a version of the Beatitudes so much in harmony with this lower doctrine, as to make it an open question, whether the version in Matth.v.is not an improvement upon Jesus, introduced by the purer sense of the collective church.

In Luke, he does not bless the poor _in spirit_, and those who hunger _after righteousness_, but absolutely the "poor" and the "hungry," and all who honour _Him_; and in contrast, curses _the rich_ and those who are full.] [Footnote 4: At the close, is the parable about the absent master of a house; and Peter asks, "Lord?
(Sir ?) speakest thou this parable unto _us_, or also unto _all_ ?" Who would not have hoped an ingenuous reply, "To you only," or, "To everybody"?
Instead of which, so inveterate is his tendency to muffle up the simplest things in mystery, he replies, "Who then is that faithful and wise steward," &c., &c., and entirely evades reply to the very natural question.] [Footnote 5: This implied that Judas, as one of the twelve, had earned the heavenly throne by the price of earthly goods.] [Footnote 6: If the account in John is not wholly false, I think the reply in every case discreditable.