Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/23

Rh Renan has skilfully unpacked his heart of its treasure, and, by lure and wile, stolen its birthright, its title to divine heritage.

Immensely destructive is the usual commendation of this “Life.” Destructive to what? Can imagination and diction destroy reality, or, rather, can they destroy that faith by which the world lives, the faith in the reality of spiritual experience?

Now the simple gospel narrative tells a straight story of Jesus' life. It is not concerned to compare the subject of its text to other men of the times in order to prove his reality. It declares his acts as they were, whether raising Jairus' daughter, walking upon the Sea of Galilee, or feeding the multitude; it reveals him scourged, spat upon, and crucified, without comment, and without comment relates his resurrection and ascension. The gospel is there for all time. It was in no haste to win attention and therefore did not need coloring or tricking out in fancy. Yes, the gospel stands after all documentary investigation, after the best modern documentary and comparative criticism can do, even after Renan and Strauss.

I have a life story to relate and I plant myself unreservedly on the methods of St. Mark. St. Mark, I believe, was a scribe who related what he had been able to gather from witnesses in a direct and unvarnished way. Now I shall endeavor to do simply that. It is not for me to explain or to expound. The facts of this life shall be left to elucidate themselves when set in an orderly and unembellished array before the world; the import must carry to