“Assuming with you, that Strauss has really cast suspicion on the historic character of the bulk of the transactions recorded in the New Testament, I must suspect that there is not an event in history, if at all remote, which, arguing exactly on the same principles, may not be made doubtful; and that is—­”

“Why, now,” replied the other, “do you think it possible that the events of the present year” (referring to the Papal Aggression), “which are making such a prodigious noise in England, will ever stand a chance of being similarly treated some centuries hence?”

“If they are ever treated at all,” said Harrington; “but you must have observed that it is the tendency of man to make ridiculous miss-estimates of the importance of the transactions of his own age, and to imagine that posterity will have nothing to do but to recount them.  He is much mistaken; they forget or care not a doit for nine tenths of what he does; and misrepresent the tenth,” continued he, laughing.

“Well, then, upon the supposition that Pio Nono and Cardinal Wiseman are of sufficient importance to be remembered at all eighteen hundred and fifty years hence, that is, in the year 3700 of the Christian era, —­though in all probability some new and more rational epoch will have jostled out both the Christian era the Mahometan hegira by that time—­”

“Pray be sure,” interrupted I, “before you predict a new epoch, that it will be wanted; that Christianity is really dead before you bury her.  You will please remember that the experiment was tried in France with much formality, but somehow came to a speedy ignominious conclusion; the new era did not survive infancy.  As Paulus thinks that Christ was only in a trance when he seemed to be dead, so it certainly often is (figuratively speaking) with his religion:  it seems to be dead when it is only in a trance.  It is apt to rise again, and be more active than ever; and never more so than when, as in the middle of the last century, our infidel undertakers were providing for its funeral.  But I beg your pardon for interrupting your conversation; you were saying—­”

“I was saying,” said Robinson, “that I doubt whether Cardinal Wiseman and his doings, eighteen hundred and fifty years hence, could be as much the subject of doubt and controversy (if remembered at all) as the events which Strauss has shown to be unhistorical.  I think the press alone, with its diffusion and multiplication ’of the sources of knowledge, will alone prevent in the future the doubts which gather over the past.  There will never again be the same dearth of historic materials.”

“In spite of all that,” replied Harrington, “I suspect it will be very possible for men to entertain the same doubts about many events of our time, eighteen hundred and fifty years hence, as they entertain of many which happened eighteen hundred and fifty years ago.”

“I can hardly imagine this to be possible.”