s and
state what they have gathered as to the history and views and character
of Christ.

THE GOSPELS NOW UNINTELLIGIBLE TO NOVICES.

But it will not do to read the gospels with a mind furnished only for
the reception of, say, a biography of Goethe. You will not make sense of
them, nor even be able without impatient weariness to persevere in the
task of going steadily through them, unless you know something of the
history of the human imagination as applied to religion. Not long ago I
asked a writer of distinguished intellectual competence whether he had
made a study of the gospels since his childhood. His reply was that he
had lately tried, but "found it all such nonsense that I could not stick
it." As I do not want to send anyone to the gospels with this result,
I had better here give a brief exposition of how much of the history of
religion is needed to make the gospels and the conduct and ultimate fate
of Jesus intelligible and interesting.

WORLDLINESS OF THE MAJORITY.

The first common mistake to get rid of is that mankind consists of a
great mass of religious people and a few eccentric atheists. It consists
of a huge mass of worldly people, and a small percentage of persons
deeply interested in religion and concerned about their own souls
and other peoples'; and this section consists mostly of those who
are passionately affirming the established religion and those who are
passionately attacking it, the genuine philosophers being very few. Thus
you never have a nation of millions of Wesleys and one Tom Paine.
You have a million Mr. Worldly Wisemans, one Wesley, with his small
congregation, and one Tom Paine, with his smaller congregation.
The passionately religious are a people apart; and if they were not
hopelessly outnumbered by the worldly, they would turn the world upside
down, as St. Paul was reproached, quite justly, for wanting to do. Few
people can number among their personal acquaintances a single atheist or
a single Plymouth Brother. Unless a religious turn in ourselves has led
us to seek the little Societies to which these rare birds belong, we
pass our lives among people who, whatever creeds they may repeat, and
in whatever temples they may avouch their respectability and wear their
Sunday clothes, have robust consciences, and hunger and thirst, not for
righteousness, but for rich feeding and comfort and social position and
attractive mates and ease and pleasure and respect and consider