be 'reasonable,' they 'explain' everything.

They therefore challenge the trial. If they fail to be 'reasonable,' or
if they can only be reasonable at the expense of some of the facts--that
is to say, if they find no place for some of the authentic facts, and so
have to explain them away; or if, on the whole, they make too large
drafts on our credulity, and demand too great a power of faith--we have
the logical right to dismiss them out of our presence with scant
courtesy, and are bound to hold by the old explanation still.

The last man who has come forward with his theory of Christanity is
Monsieur Ernest Renan, a Frenchman, a member of the Institute, and a
Semitic scholar of some considerable pretensions. He broaches his theory
in a book, which he calls 'The Life of Jesus.' He offers it to the
world, through that book, as an improvement on the accepted one. We
propose here to look at M. Renan's theory, and see whether it has any
advantages to offer over that usually taught in churches in America, and
which the present writer learned, some _lustra_ ago, while catechized at
the chancel veil, and which his children are learning now.

It makes the examination easier that M. Renan freely and fully admits
the achievements of Christianity. Indeed he glories over them. The
beneficence of Christianity, its hallowing and elevating power in the
history of the world, its wondrous blessedness among men, the glory it
has cast over human life and human aims, the nobleness it has conferred
on human character, all these he takes a pride in confessing and
appreciating. He will not be a whit behind the stanchest believer in
acknowledging the power of these, or in the capacity of prizing these.

But he cannot accept the explanation Christianity gives of itself. He
proposes another of his own. We may take his theory as the fruit and
flower of all 'liberal' thought. Here, at last, is what unbelieving
learning and philosophy have to offer in lieu of the divine origin of
Christianity. After a good deal of loud boasting, after a large amount
of supercilious sneering, we have here the result of that 'profound
criticism' and that 'careful scholarship' which have been laboring for
years, in Europe, to destroy the supernatural bases of faith. We are
justified, from M. Renan's position and character, in taking it for
granted, that his book is the best that modern unbelief has to offer,
his theory the most satisfactory that the deniers of the d