disposition to inquire into the causes of mental phenomena, of the conditions of society, and of the visible manifestations of nature. He was also much beloved for his PURE natural sympathy for all who were suffering afflictions either of a physical or mental character—It is true that at the age of twelve years he was admitted to the presence of the learned doctors. There he manifested some of his powers of discernment, interior and natural philosophy, unsophistocated love, simplicity of expression, kindness of disposition, and universal sympathy and benovolence. These he displayed with all the naturalness and spontaneousness resulting from the promptings of an uncorrupted and purely-organized spiritual principle."

Gregg, a Deist, says: "I value the religion of Jesus, as containing more truth, purer truth, higher truth, than has ever yet been given to man. Much of his teaching I unhesitatingly receive as, to the best of my judgment, unimprovable and unsurpassable—fitted, if obeyed, to make earth all that a finite and material scene can be, and man only a little lower than the angels. 'Not every one that saith unto me, Lord! Lord; * * * * * * but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.' 'By their fruits ye shall know them;' 'I will have mercy, and not sacrifice;' 'Be not a slothful hearer only, but a doer of the work;' 'Woe unto ye, Scribes and Pharisees, for ye pay tithes of mint, and anise and cummin, and neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and temperance, (faith left out.)'

"'The enforcement of purity of heart as the security for purity of life, and of the government of the thoughts, as the originators and forerunners of action.' 'He that looketh on a woman, to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart;' 'Out of the heart proceed murders, adulteries, thefts, false witness, blasphemies; these are the things which defile a man.'

"Universal good-will toward men.—'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;' 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, that do ye also unto them, for this is the law and the prophets.'

"Forgiveness of injuries.—'Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you, pray for them which dispitefully use you and persecute you;' 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us;' 'I say not unto thee, until seven times, but until seventy times seven;' 'If ye love them only that love you, what reward have ye? Do not even publicans the same?'

"The necessity of self-sacrifice in the cause of duty.—'Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake;' 'If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me;' 'If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee;' 'No man, having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.'

"Humility.—'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth;' 'He that humbleth himself shall be exalted;' 'He that is greatest among you, let him be your servant.'

"Genuine sincerity; being not seeming.—'Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them;' 'When thou prayest, enter into thy closet and shut thy door;' 'When thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast.' All these sublime precepts need no miracle, no voice from the clouds, to recommend them to our allegiance, or to assure us of their divinity; they command obedience by virtue of their inherit rectitude and beauty, and vindicate their author as himself the one towering perpetual miracle of history."—Creed of Christendom, pp. 318, 319.

"We hold that God has so arranged matters in this beautiful and well-ordered, but mysteriously-governed universe, that one great mind after another will arise from time to time, as such are needed, to discover and flash forth before the eyes of men the truths that are wanted, and the amount of truth that can be borne. We conceive that this is effected by endowing them, or by having arranged that nature and the course of events shall send them into the world endowed with that superior mental and moral organization in which grand truths, sublime gleams of spiritual light, will spontaneously and inevitably arise. Such a one we believe was Jesus of Nazareth, the most exalted religious genius whom God ever sent upon the earth; in himself an embodied revelation; humanity in its divinest phase, 'God manifest in the flesh,' according to eastern hyperbole; an exemplar given in an early age of the world to show what man may and should become in the course of ages; in his progress towards the realization of his destiny; an individual gifted with a grand, clear intellect, a noble soul, a fine organization, marvelous moral intuitions, and a perfectly balanced moral being; and who, by virtue of these endowments, saw further than all other men, 'Beyond the verge of that blue sky, where God's sublimest secrets lie.'"—Creed of Christendom, pp. 306, 307.

We regard him * * as the perfection of the spiritual character, as surpassing all men of all times in the closeness and depth of his communion with the Father. In reading his sayings, we feel that we are holding converse with the wisest, purest, noblest being that ever clothed thought in the poor language of humanity. In studying his life we feel that we are following the footsteps of the highest ideal yet presented to us upon earth.

By the very next sentence Gregg's eulogy upon Christ becomes an eulogy upon the Old Testament. He says the Old Testament contained his teaching; it was reserved for him to elicit, publish and enforce it.—Creed of Christendom, pp. 300, 310.

"But it must not be forgotten that though many of the Christian precepts were extant before the time of Jesus, yet it is to him that we owe them; to the energy, the beauty, the power of his teaching, and still more to the sublime life he led, which was a daily and hourly exposition and enforcement of his teaching."—Gregg, C.C.

Strauss allows that it was not possible that the early Christians should have looked upon Christ as their Redeemer and Mediator between God and men, if the apostles had not proclaimed this very doctrine; and the apostles could not have preached it if Jesus himself had not designated himself as the Redeemer from sin, guilt and death, and demanded faith in himself as a religious act. He asserts that the distinguishing features of the Christian church must be traced to Christ, his ministry and teachings about himself; that Christ claimed the power to secure peace to his followers. He also claims that the moral and religious character of Christ is above every suspicion, and unequaled in its kind. He says, "The purely spiritual and ethical conceptions of God as the 'only one,' he owed to his Jewish education, and, also the purity of his being. But the Greecian element in Jesus was his cheerfulness, arising from his unsullied mind." Again he says, Jesus, by cultivating a frame of mind that was cheerful, in union with God, and embracing all men as brethren, had realized the prophetic ideal of a New Covenant with the heart inscribed law; he had to speak with the poet, received God into his will; so that for him the Godhead had descended from its throne, the abyss was filled up, all fear was vanished. His beautifully organized nature had but to develop itself to be more fully and clearly confirmed in its consciousness of itself, but needed not to return to begin a new life.

Gregg, the Deist, after presenting Jesus as the "one towering, perpetual miracle of history," says, "Next in perfection come the views which Christianity unfolds to us of God in his relation to man, which