ransfiguration as a sceptic who says "Lord, I believe: help thou mine
unbelief." He tells the story of the widow's mite, omitted by Matthew.
He explains that Barabbas was "lying bound with them that made
insurrection, men who in the insurrection had committed murder." Joseph
of Arimathea, who buried Jesus in his own tomb, and who is described by
Matthew as a disciple, is described by Mark as "one who also himself
was looking for the kingdom of God," which suggests that he was an
independent seeker. Mark earns our gratitude by making no mention of the
old prophecies, and thereby not only saves time, but avoids the absurd
implication that Christ was merely going through a predetermined ritual,
like the works of a clock, instead of living. Finally Mark reports
Christ as saying, after his resurrection, that those who believe in
him will be saved and those who do not, damned; but it is impossible
to discover whether he means anything by a state of damnation beyond a
state of error. The paleographers regard this passage as tacked on by a
later scribe. On the whole Mark leaves the modern reader where Matthew
left him.

LUKE.

LUKE THE LITERARY ARTIST.

When we come to Luke, we come to a later storyteller, and one with a
stronger natural gift for his art. Before you have read twenty lines
of Luke's gospel you are aware that you have passed from the chronicler
writing for the sake of recording important facts, to the artist,
telling the story for the sake of telling it. At the very outset he
achieves the most charming idyll in the Bible: the story of Mary crowded
out of the inn into the stable and laying her newly-born son in the
manger, and of the shepherds abiding in the field keeping watch over
their flocks by night, and how the angel of the Lord came upon them, and
the glory of the Lord shone around them, and suddenly there was with the
angel a multitude of the heavenly host. These shepherds go to the stable
and take the place of the kings in Matthew's chronicle. So completely
has this story conquered and fascinated our imagination that most of us
suppose all the gospels to contain it; but it is Luke's story and his
alone: none of the others have the smallest hint of it.

THE CHARM OF LUKE'S NARRATIVE.

Luke gives the charm of sentimental romance to every incident. The
Annunciation, as described by Matthew, is made to Joseph, and is simply
a warning to him not to divorce his wife for misconduct. In L