The Resurrection, we repeat, bars the way in M. Renan’s scheme for making an intelligible transition, from the life and character which he has sought to reproduce from the Gospels, to the first beginnings and preaching of Christianity.  The Teacher, he says, is unique in wisdom, in goodness, in the height of his own moral stature and the Divine elevation of his aims.  The religion is, with all abatements and imperfections, the only one known which could be the religion of humanity.  After his portraiture of the Teacher, follows, naturally enough, as the result of that Teacher’s influence and life, a religion of corresponding elevation and promise.  The passage from a teaching such as M. Renan supposes to a religion such as he allows Christianity to be may be reasonably understood as a natural consequence of well-known causes, but for one thing—­the interposition between the two of an alleged event which simply throws out all reasonings drawn from ordinary human experience.  From the teaching and life of Socrates follow, naturally enough, schools of philosophy, and an impulse which has affected scientific thought ever since.  From the preaching and life of Mahomet follows, equally naturally, the religion of Islam.  In each case the result is seen to be directly and distinctly linked on to the influences which gave it birth, and nothing more than these influences is wanted, or makes any claim, to account for it.  So M. Renan holds that all that is needed to account for Christianity is such a personality and such a career as he has described in his last volume.  But the facts will not bend to this.  Christianity hangs on to Christ not merely as to a Person who lived and taught and died, but as to a Person who rose again from death.  That is of the very essence of its alleged derivation from Christ.  It knows Christ only as Christ risen; the only reason of its own existence that it recognises is the Resurrection.  The only claim the Apostles set forth for preaching to the world is that their Master who was crucified was alive once more.  Every one knows that this was the burden of all their words, the corner-stone of all their work.  We may believe them or not.  We may take Christianity or leave it.  But we cannot derive Christianity from Christ, without meeting, as the bond which connects the two, the Resurrection.  But for the Resurrection, M. Renan’s scheme might be intelligible.  A Teacher unequalled for singleness of aim and nobleness of purpose lives and dies, and leaves the memory and the leaven of His teaching to disciples, who by them, even though in an ill-understood shape, and with incomparably inferior qualities themselves, purify and elevate the religious ideas and feelings of mankind.  If that were all, if there were nothing but the common halo of the miraculous which is apt to gather about great names, the interpretation might be said to be coherent.  But a theory of Christianity cannot neglect the most prominent fact connected with its beginning.  It is impossible to leave it out of the account, in judging both of the Founder and of those whom his influence moulded and inspired.