that the writers put into his mouth. Compare today the
memory of any individual as to the exact details of some event, even
that he personally witnessed, fifty years ago; especially as to the
exact words used on any particular occasion, and we will have more than
a fair example of the imperfection of human memory. Add to this the
fact that this was in a very superstitious age, when every wonder was
translated into a supernatural miracle, and our perplexity only becomes
the greater. The doctrine of infallible guidance by divine inspiration
is out of the question. If there was no other evidence against such an
idea, the internal contents of these books themselves would forever
destroy it.

Then, what do we _know_ about Jesus? Very little. I do not accuse
these writers of any deliberate misrepresentation, conscious fraud or
forgery. They undoubtedly wrote what they honestly and sincerely
believed at the time to be the truth. But they wrote simply as
fallible men like ourselves. Their means of information in many cases
was doubtless very meager and uncertain. They doubtless did the best
they could under the circumstances. They wrote the truth as they
understood it to be truth, just as any other historian or biographer
would do today.

And what they wrote is all we know. It is the only basis we have upon
which we can form any judgment as to who or what Jesus of Nazareth was.
What Paul may have thought of him, and the system of theology he built
thereon, is of but little value. What the Church Fathers may have
thought, in the light of the age in which they lived, and their own
standard of intellectual attainments, is of less. We have got to fall
back upon the four gospels, and interpret them, not in the light of the
superstitious age in which they were written; not assuming them to be
exact truth; for in view of the fact of their own contradictions of
each other on material and vital points this is impossible; but in the
full light of this age of science and exact knowledge; of a more highly
developed intelligence, and a deeper and more accurate reasoning power.
With these records as a basis, or starting point, we must work out the
problem for ourselves: Who and what was Jesus?

First, he was a Jew,--born, lived and died a Jew. There is no evidence
that he ever rejected, or abrogated the religion of his fathers. That
he tried to reform it, inject into it a deeper spiritual life, a more
rational and higher