fully prepared to expect that he may remove many of my
prejudices and relieve my objections: but I cannot honestly say that
I see the least probability of his altering my conviction, that in
_consistency_ of goodness Jesus fell far below vast numbers of his
unhonoured disciples.

[Footnote 1: I have by accident just taken up the "British
Quarterly," and alighted upon the following sentence concerning Madame
Roland:--"_To say that she was without fault, would be to say that she
was not human_." This so entirely expresses and concludes all that I
have to say, that I feel surprise at my needing at all to write such a
chapter as the present.]

[Footnote 2: I am acquainted with the interpretation, that the
word More is not here Greek, _i.e., fool_, but is Hebrew, and means
_rebel_, which is stronger than Raca, _silly fellow_. This gives
partial, but only partial relief.]

[Footnote 3: Indeed we have in Luke vi. 20-24, a version of the
Beatitudes so much in harmony with this lower doctrine, as to make
it an open question, whether the version in Matth. v. is not
an improvement upon Jesus, introduced by the purer sense of the
collective church. In Luke, he does not bless the poor _in spirit_,
and those who hunger _after righteousness_, but absolutely the "poor"
and the "hungry," and all who honour _Him_; and in contrast, curses
_the rich_ and those who are full.]

[Footnote 4: At the close, is the parable about the absent master of
a house; and Peter asks, "Lord? (Sir?) speakest thou this parable
unto _us_, or also unto _all_?" Who would not have hoped an ingenuous
reply, "To you only," or, "To everybody"? Instead of which, so
inveterate is his tendency to muffle up the simplest things in
mystery, he replies, "Who then is that faithful and wise steward,"
&c., &c., and entirely evades reply to the very natural question.]

[Footnote 5: This implied that Judas, as one of the twelve, had earned
the heavenly throne by the price of earthly goods.]

[Footnote 6: If the account in John is not wholly false, I think the
reply in every case discreditable. If literal, it all but indicates
wilful imposture. If mystical, it is disingenuously evasive; and it
tended, not to instruct, but to irritate, and to move suspicion
and contempt. Is this the course for a religious teacher?--to speak
darkly, so as to mislead and prejudice; and this, when he represents
it as a matter of spiritual life and death to accept his teaching and
his supr