vm AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 285 



the Passion was more valorous than discreet. 

 After all this discussion, I am still at the agnostic 

 point. Tell me, first, what Jesus can be proved 

 to have been, said, and done, and I will say 

 whether I believe him, or in him, 1 or not. As Dr. 

 Wace admits that I have dissipated his lingering 

 shade of unbelief about the bedevilment of the 

 Gadarene pigs, he might have done something to 

 help mine. Instead of that, he manifests a total 

 want of conception of the nature of the obstacles 

 which impede the conversion of his " infidels." 



The truth I believe to be, that the difficulties 

 in the way of arriving at a sure conclusion as to 

 these matters, from the Sermon on the Mount, 

 the Lord's Prayer, or any other data offered by 

 the Synoptic gospels (and d fortiori from the 

 fourth gospel), are insuperable. Every one of 

 these records is coloured by the prepossessions of 

 those among whom the primitive traditions arose, 

 and of those by whom they were collected and 

 edited : and the difficulty of making allowance for 

 these prepossessions is enhanced by our ignorance 

 of the exact dates at which the documents wero 

 first put together; of the extent to which they 



1 I am very sorry for the interpolated " in," because citation 

 ought to be accurate in small things as in great. But what 

 difference it makes whether one "believes Jesus" or "believes 

 in Jesus" much thought has not enabled me to discover. If 

 you "believe him" you must believe him to be what he pro- 

 fessed to be that is, "believe in him;" and if you "believe 

 in him" you must necessarily " believe him." 



