as historical?
I say that we have no surety that these stories have come down to us as
they were originally compiled, and we have strong reasons for concluding
that these stories are mythical.

Some two or three years ago the Rev. R. Horton said: "Either Christ
was the Son of God, and one with God, or He was a bad man, or a madman.
There is no fourth alternative possible." That is a strange statement
to make, but it is an example of the shifts to which apologists are
frequently reduced. No fourth alternative possible! Indeed there is; and
a fifth!

If a man came forward to-day, and said he was the Son of God, and one
with God, we should conclude that he was an impostor or a lunatic.

But if a man told us that another man had said he was a god, we should
have what Mr. Horton calls a "fourth alternative" open to us. For
we might say that the person who reported his speech to us had
misunderstood him, which would be a "fourth alternative"; or that
the person had wilfully misrepresented him, which would be a fifth
alternative.

So in the Gospels. Nowhere have we a single word of Christ's own
writing. His sayings come to us through several hands, and through more
than one translation. It is folly, then, to assert that Christ was God,
or that He was mad, or an impostor.

So in the case of the Gospel stories of the Crucifixion, the
Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ. Many worthy people may suppose
that in denying the facts stated in the Gospels we are accusing St.
Matthew and St. John of falsehood.

But there is no certainty who St. Matthew and the others were. There is
no certainty that they wrote these stories. Even if they did write them,
they probably accepted them at second or third hand. With the best faith
in the world, they may not have been competent judges of evidence. And
after they had done their best their testimony may have been added to or
perverted by editors and translators.

Looking at the Gospels, then, as we should look at any other ancient
documents, what internal evidence do they afford in support of the
suspicion that they are mythical?

In the first place, the whole Gospel story teems with miracles. Now, as
Matthew Arnold said, miracles never happen. Science has made the belief
in miracles impossible. When we speak of the antagonism between religion
and science, it is this fact which we have in our mind: that science has
killed the belief in miracles, and, as all religions are built up upon