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T the beginning of this century the question of the authenticity of the Gospels was one which, if mooted at all, was reserved for scholars and theologians. People in general might believe or disbelieve, on philosophical grounds, the story contained in them, but they rarely troubled themselves to examine the historical evidence on either side; and if scholars discussed it, their labors attracted as little public attention as if they were dealing with Homer or Tacitus. The present generation has seen a great change in this attitude. Articles in magazines; lectures in our public parks and halls; successful novels, such as "Robert Elsmere;" popular handbooks for and against Christianity, have familiarized most educated persons with the fact that there is and, for some time has been, an active controversy as to the historical character of the Gospels. Whether the knowledge of the general reader goes much deeper than this may be doubted, but it is a common practice with those who impugn the truth of the Christian story to speak as though the weight of independent and scholarly opinion were incontestably on their side; and since a novel or a magazine article seldom admits of more than a superficial handling of so large a subject, an impression that this assumption is true remains in the minds of many who have neither the leisure nor the training to test it for themselves. The citation of a string of German names of which the reader naturally knows nothing has an imposing effect, and may cover a plentiful want of argument. On the other hand, any argument on the opposite side, from a person holding office in the church, is discounted on the ground that the writer's opinion is unconsciously biased by his interests; as though German scholars did not depend for their professional advancement on making a name for themselves and could not do so most easily by the maintenance of novel and unorthodox opinions.

Under these circumstances it seems not unreasonable to try to state for the readers of a popular magazine, who are not specialists, the general course and drift of criticism upon this subject during the present generation, which will show how far such assumptions as those which have just been mentioned are justified. The best test of a theory is to see how it has borne the ordeal of time—how researches and discoveries since the time of its promulgation have affected it; whether it still holds its own, or has suffered much change and modification. It is so that we judge of the Copernican theory of the universe, the Newtonian theory of gravitation, the Darwinian theory of evolution; and it is a fair test to apply also to the theories that have been propounded with respect to the origin and authenticity of the Gospels. No one will question the vital importance of the problem. Our life and society, our highest hopes and aspirations in this nineteenth century, are bound up with the truth of those events which the Gospels relate as having happened in the generation from which our era is dated.

The life of Christ is the center alike of our history in the past and our hopes for the future; and our knowledge of it rests mainly upon the evidence of the four Gospels. If they can be shown to be unhistorical, there is little left out of which the story of that life can be put together. It is upon this issue that the controversy of the present generation turns and with which we are now concerned. Let us see, then, upon what grounds we believe them to be historical and on what lines the attack upon their authenticity has been based.

The proof is twofold. On the one hand, the language, the composition, the statements of the books themselves can be examined and tested. We can see