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but with a vigour and power unknown to its earlier phase — 
onward till it embraces peoples and kings, and is established 
in the high places of the earth ; onward to this hour, ever 
expanding, ever deepening and strengthening, victorious over 
every adversary, undaunted, majestic, defiant — “fair as the 
moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners/'’ 
The alleged solution of all this is simply that the leader was 
the embodiment of what prophets had foretold — was the 
Messiah of Israel, incarnate God; and that, raised from the 
dead, He had once more rallied these men around Him, and 
endowed them with superhuman strength for their work ; in 
one word, that these Galilean peasants, be they illiterate 
fishermen or contemned publicans, were God-appointed 
servants — were the prime agents for enacting the Masters 
will — were the master-builders of the promised Church. 
History affords no parallel to this. History speaks of several 
who advanced equally high, yea, the very same pretensions, 
and grounded them upon the same alleged manifestations. 
Pseudo-Messiahs many, pretenders to thaumaturgy, sur- 
rounding themselves with followers, challenging the national 
mind, awakening the national prejudices, endangering the 
national peace. And where are they, one and all ? “ Nube- 
cula est transibit/' (Ephemeral impostors, they passed awa}r, 
and for ever.) We know their names and their crimes ; they 
have no other memorial. 
Other pretensions also have been advanced, and other pre- 
tenders have come upon the world's stage. He, emphatically 
called the false prophet, Mahomet, and his system survives. 
But neither here is there any real parallel. The characters of 
the respective founders ; the systems they founded ; the prin- 
ciples, morals, maxims, motives, hopes, and ends, are not only 
diverse, but antagonistic. The one is only a second form or 
religious development of a purely secular polity ; the other, a 
kingdom not of this world : the one has not only inherent 
elements of dissolution, but is already tottering to its fall ; 
the other rests on nothing short of a purely spiritual basis, 
which time itself cannot overthrow, and no earthly power or 
event can weaken. 
Those who reject our Sacred Books will, of course, protest 
against any reference to the revealed accounts of these several 
examples as unphilosophical. I ask such, is it philosophical 
to accept existing phenomena and to rest content without any 
sufficient solution ? Eliminate the revealed element, and you 
have an existing institution for which you can assign no 
adequate origin. Assume, if you will, in the founder, the en- 
thusiasm, nay, the ecstasy of humanity — invest every Apostle 
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