to them!  I said nothing of the unlikelihood of the instruments—­Galilean Jews—­whom the theory invests with such superhuman powers of deception; or of the prodigious intellect and lofty ambition with which it also so liberally endows these obscure vagabonds, who not only conceived, in spite of their narrow-hearted Jewish bigotry, such a system as Christianity, but proclaimed their audacious resolve of establishing it on the ruins of every other religion,—­Jewish or Heathen.  I said nothing of the still stranger moral attributes with which it invests them, (in spite of their being such odious tricksters, in spite of all their grovelling notions and exclusive prejudices,) as the teachers of a singularly elevated and catholic morality; what is still stranger as suffering for it,—­strangest of all, as apparently practising it.  I said nothing of what is still more wonderful, their acting this inconsistent part from motives we cannot assign or even imagine; their encountering obloquy, persecution, death, in the prosecution of their object, whatever it was.  I said nothing of the innumerable and one would think inimitable, traits of nature and sincerity in the narrative of those who record these miracles, and which, if simulated by such liars, would be almost a miracle itself; a narrative, in which majestic indifference to human criticism is everywhere exhibited; in which are no apologies for the extraordinary stories told, no attempt to conciliate prejudice, no embellishment, no invectives (as Pascal says) against the persecutors of Christ himself;—­they are simple witnesses, and nothing more, and are seemingly indifferent whether men despise them or not.  I repeat, I said nothing of all these paradoxes; I insisted that the mere fact of the successful machination of false miracles, of such a nature, at so many points, in open day, in defiance of every motive and prejudice which must have prompted the world to unmask the cheat,—­of a conspiracy successfully prosecuted, not by one, but by many conspirators, whose fortitude, obstinacy, and circumspection, both when acting together and acting alone, never allowed them to betray themselves,—­was, per se, incredible; “and yet,” said I to my friend, “you ask me to believe it?”

“I ask you to believe it?” cried he, in surprise which equalled my own.  “I am not fool enough ask you to believe any thing of the kind:  and they are fools who do.  The miracles fraudulent machinations! no, no, it was, as you say, evidently impossible.  And where shall we look for marks of simplicity and truthfulness, if not in the records which contain them.  The fact is.” said he (I should mention that it was just about the time that the system of “naturalism” was culminating under the auspices of Paulus of Heidelberg, from whom, at second hand, my infidel friend borrowed as much as he wanted),—­“the fact is, that the compilers of the New Testament were pious, simple-minded, excellent enthusiasts, who sincerely, but not the