imentalism of "popular"
and "advanced" Christianity is turning Jesus Christ into a hero of
romance. He is taking the place of King Arthur, of blameless memory;
and we shall soon see the Apostles take the place of the Knights of the
Round Table. Rancid orators and flatulent poets are gathering to the
festival Jesus Christ will make a fine speech for the one set, and fine
copy for the other. The professional biographers will cut in for a share
in the spoil, and the brains of impudence will be ransacked to eke out
the stories of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Lives of Christ are becoming quite fashionable. Fleetwood's honest but
prosaic book had fallen into-neglect. The very maulers of old bookstalls
thrust out their tongues at at. The still older book of Jeremy Taylor--a
work of real genius and golden eloquence--was too stiff reading for an
idle generation. Just in the nick of time the English translation
of Kenan appeared. The first edition was less scientific than the
thirteenth. Kenan had only just broken away from the Catholic Church;
he was also under the influence of his visit to Palestine; his _Vie
de Jesus_ was therefore a sentimental Parisian romance; the smell of
patchouli was on every page. Yet here and there the quick reader caught
the laugh of Voltaire.

Kenan's book set a new vogue. The severe, critical Strauss was laid
aside in England, and "the Savior's" life was "cultivated on new
principles." By and bye the writers and publishers found there was
"money in it." Jesus Christ could be made to pay. Dr. Farrar made
thousands out of his trashy volumes, and his publishers netted a
fortune. Mr. Haweis has done the same trick with four volumes. Ward
Beecher spent his last days on a Life of Christ. Talmage is occupied
on the same labor of love--and profit. Even the Catholic Church is not
behindhand. Pere Didon has put forth _his_ Life of Christ in two fat
volumes as an antidote to the poison of Kenan. And the end is not yet.
Nevertheless we see the beginning of the end. It was bound to come.
After the prose writers prance the versifiers, and Sir Edward Arnold is
first in the motley procession.

Sir Edward Arnold's _Light of Asia_ was a fairly good piece of work. He
had caught the trick of Tennysonian blank-verse, and he put some of the
best features of Buddhism before the English public in a manner that
commanded attention. Standing aloof from Buddhism himself, though
sympathising with it, he was able to keep