one of the princes."
*

* Jesus himself had refered to that psalm (LXXII) in which
men who have judged unjustly and accepted the persons of the
wicked (including by anticipation practically all the white
inhabitants of the British Isles and the North American
continent, to mention no other places) are condemned in the
words, "I have said, ye are gods; and all of ye are children
of the Most High; but ye shall die like men, and fall like
one of the princes."

The consensus on this point is important, because it proves the absolute
sincerity of Jesus's declaration that he was a god. No impostor would
have accepted such dreadful consequences without an effort to save
himself. No impostor would have been nerved to endure them by the
conviction that he would rise from the grave and live again after three
days. If we accept the story at all, we must believe this, and believe
also that his promise to return in glory and establish his kingdom on
earth within the lifetime of men then living, was one which he believed
that he could, and indeed must fulfil. Two evangelists declare that in
his last agony he despaired, and reproached God for forsaking him. The
other two represent him as dying in unshaken conviction and charity with
the simple remark that the ordeal was finished. But all four testify
that his faith was not deceived, and that he actually rose again after
three days. And I think it unreasonable to doubt that all four wrote
their narratives in full faith that the other promise would be fulfilled
too, and that they themselves might live to witness the Second Coming.

CREDIBILITY OF THE GOSPELS.

It will be noted by the older among my readers, who are sure to be
obsessed more or less by elderly wrangles as to whether the gospels are
credible as matter-of-fact narratives, that I have hardly raised this
question, and have accepted the credible and incredible with equal
complacency. I have done this because credibility is a subjective
condition, as the evolution of religious belief clearly shows. Belief is
not dependent on evidence and reason. There is as much evidence that
the miracles occurred as that the battle of Waterloo occurred, or that a
large body of Russian troops passed through England in 1914 to take part
in the war on the western front. The reasons for believing in the murder
of Pompey are the same as the reasons for believing in the raising
of Lazarus. Bo