Page:The kernel and the husk (Abbott, 1886).djvu/158

142 XIV

——,

Your last letter now comes to the point which I have been long anticipating, or rather it recurs to the point from which our correspondence started—the credibility of the miracles attributed to Christ. You tell me that during the long vacation you have been rapidly reviewing my letters and attempting to enter into my views. There is much, you say, that is new, and there is something that improves on acquaintance, in this form of "Christian Positivism" as you call it; its intellectual security has attractions for you, and it seems to you to satisfy at once the aspirations of those who are drawn to worship humanity, and of those who are drawn to worship something above humanity. All this looks very well on paper, you say; but when you take up the Gospels, it seems to fade away into a mere student's dream: and you state the objection thus: "For our knowledge of Christ, we depend almost entirely upon the New Testament; now the New Testament contains accounts of miracles; these miracles we are unable to accept as historical; consequently the New Testament must be regarded as non-historical, and the whole story of Christ becomes a myth."

In return for this argument about the New Testament let me supply you with a similarly sceptical one about the Old Testament, and ask you whether you are prepared