a Christian,--none more
so,--only he will reject all the peculiar doctrines and all the
supernatural narratives of the New Testament; another declares that
miracles are impossible and "incredible, per se"; a third thinks
they are neither the one nor the other, though it is
true that probably a comparatively small portion of those narrated in
the "book" are established by such evidence as to be worthy of credit.
Pray use your pleasure in the selection; and the more freely, as a
fourth is of opinion that, however true, they are really of little
consequence. While many extol in vague terms of admiration the deep
"spiritual insight" of the founders of Christianity, they do not trouble
themselves to explain how it is that this exquisite illumination left
them to concoct that huge mass of legendary follies and mystical
doctrines which constitute, according to the modern "spiritualism,"
the bulk of the records of the New Testament, and by which its authors
have managed to mislead the world; nor how we are to avoid regarding
them either as superstitious and fanatical fools or artful and
designing knaves, if nine tenths, or seven tenths, of what they record
is all to be rejected; nor, if it be affirmed that they never did
record it, but that somebody else has put these matters into their
mouths, how we can be sure that any thing whatever of the small
remainder ever came out of their mouths. All this, ever, is of the
less consequence, as these gentlemen descend to tell us how we are
to separate the "spiritual" gold which faintly streaks the huge mass
of impure ore of fable, legend, and mysticism. Each man, it seems
has his own particular spade and mattock in his "spiritual faculty";
so off with you to the diggings in these spiritual mines of Ophir. You
will say, Why not stay at home, and be content at once, with the
advocates of the absolute sufficiency of the internal oracle, listen to
its responses exclusively? Ask these men--for I am sure I do not know;
I only know that the results are very different--whether the
possessor of "insight" listens to its own rare voice, or puts on
spectacles and reads aloud from the New Testament. Generally, as I
say, these good folks are resolved that all that is supernatural
and specially inspired in sacred volume is to be rejected; and as
to the rest, which by the way might be conveniently published as
the "Spiritualists' Bible" (in two or three sheets, 48mo, say),
that would still require a c