weight.

"Still, the question as to authenticity in details of the Bible is truly
singular. What is genuine but the really excellent, which harmonises
with the purest reason and nature, and even now ministers to our highest
development? What is spurious but the absurd, hollow, and stupid, which
brings no worthy fruit? If the authenticity of a Biblical writing
depends on the question whether something true throughout has been
handed down to us, we might on some points doubt the genuineness of the
Gospels, of which Mark and Luke were not written from immediate presence
and experience, but long afterwards from oral tradition. And the last,
by the disciple John, was written in his old age.

"Yet I hold all four evangelists as thoroughly genuine, for there is in
them the reflection of a greatness which emanated from the person of
Jesus, such as only once has appeared on earth. If anyone asks whether
it is in my nature to pay Him devout reverence, I say--'Surely, yes!' I
bow before Him as the divine revelation of the highest principle of
morality. If I am asked whether it is in my nature to revere the sun,
again I say--'Surely, yes!' For the sun is also a manifestation of the
highest, and, indeed, the mightiest which we children of earth are
allowed to behold. But if I am asked whether I am inclined to bow before
a thumb-bone of the apostle Peter or Paul, I say, 'Spare me, and stand
off with your absurdities!'

"Says the apostle, 'Quench not the spirit.' The high and richly-endowed
clergy fear nothing so much as the enlightenment of the lower orders.
They withheld the Bible from them as long as possible. What can a poor
member of the Christian church think of the princely pomp of a richly
endowed bishop, when against this he sees in the Gospels the poverty of
Christ, travelling humbly on foot with His disciples, while the princely
bishop drives along in a carriage drawn by six horses!

"We do not at all know," continued Goethe, "all that we owe to Luther
and the Reformation generally. We are emancipated from the fetters of
spiritual narrowness. In consequence of our increasing culture, we have
become capable of reverting to the fountain-head, and of comprehending
Christianity in its purity. We have again the courage to stand with firm
feet upon God's earth, and to realise our divinely endowed human nature.
Let spiritual culture ever go on advancing, let the natural sciences go
on ever gaining in breadth and depth, and let