“Just as yours, we may say, of an indefectible wisdom on one point is a supposition on your part.  I think in that respect that you are both well matched.  But I freely confess that I think their supposition more plausible than yours; and, if I were an advocate for Christianity, I should certainly rather suppose with them than suppose with you; that is, I should think it more credible, if God interposed with such stupendous instruments as miracles, inspiration, and prophecy at all, he would endow the men thus favored (not with all knowledge, indeed, but) with whatever was necessary to prevent their encountering a certainty of vitiating their testimony.”

“But how would their testimony be liable to be vitiated?  I am supposing them to be absolutely free from error as regards the religious clement, which they deliver pure.”

’We shall see in a minute whether their testimony was liable to be vitiated or not, and whether the separation for which you contend be conceivable, or even possible.  I fear that you have no winnowing-fan which will separate the chaff from the wheat.”

“To me, nothing seems more easy than the supposition I have made.”

“Few things are more easy than to make suppositions; but let us see.  I am sure you will answer as fairly as I shall ask questions.  To do otherwise would be to separate the ‘moral element’ from the ‘logical,’ whatever the New Testament writers may have done.  You believe, you say, in the resurrection of Christ?”

“I do.”

“As a fact or doctrine?”

“Both as a fact and doctrine.”

“For it is both, if true,” said Harrington; “and so, I apprehend, it will be found with the other doctrines of Christianity.  Whether, in your particular latitude of Rationalism, you believe many or few of them, still, if true at all (which we at present take for granted), they are both facts and doctrines, from the Incarnation to the Resurrection.  But to confine ourselves to one,—­that of the Resurrection,—­for one will answer my purpose as well as a thousand; —­that, you say, is a fact,—­a fact of history?”

“It is.”

“It is, then, conveyed to us as such?”

“Certainly.”

“Were the recorders of that fact liable to error in conveying it to us?  In other words, might they so blunder in conveying that fact (as we know the unaided historian may, and often does) as to leave us in doubt whether it ever took place or not?”

“Well,” said the youth, “and you know they have exhibited it in such a way as to suggest many apparent discrepancies, and those very difficult to be reconciled.”

“I am aware of it, and for that very reason selected this particular fact.  In my judgment, there are no passages which more exercise the ingenuity of the harmonists than those which record the transactions connected with the resurrection.  But still, in spite of them all, I presume that you do not think that those discrepancies really call the fact in question, else you would not continue to believe it.  I should then suddenly find myself arguing with a very different person.”