words have no reference whatever to Jesus, and that, therefore, either the tale of the flight is invented as a fulfilment of the prophecy, or the prophecy manufactured to support the tale of the flight. The Jesus of Luke never went into Egypt at all in his childhood. Directly after the birth of the child his parents instead of flying away because of persecution into Egypt, went peacefully up to Jerusalem to fulfil all things according to the law, returned thence to Nazareth, and apparently dwelt there, going up to Jerusalem every year until Jesus was twelve years of age.

In Matthew ii., 15, we are told that Jesus remained in Egypt, "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son." In Hosea ii., 1, we read, "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt." In no other prophet is there any similar text. This not only is not a prophecy of Jesus, but is, on the contrary, a reference to the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. Is the prophecy manufactured to give an air of credibility to the Gospel history, or how will the Religions Tract Society explain it? The Gospel writings betray either a want of good faith, or great incapacity on the part of their authors in the mode adopted of distorting quotations from the Old Testament?

When Jesus began to be about thirty years of age he was baptised by John in the river Jordan. John, who, according to Matthew, knew him, forbade him directly he saw him; but, acccording to the writer of the fourth Gospel, he knew him not, and had, therefore, no occasion to forbid him. God is an "invisible" "spirit," whom no man hath seen (John i., 18), or can see (Exodus xxxiii., 20); but the man John saw the spirit of God descending like a dove. God is everywhere, but at that time was in heaven, from whence he said, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." Although John heard this from God's own mouth, he some time after sent two of his disciples to Jesus to inquire if he were really the Christ (Matthew xi., 2, 3). Yet it is upon the credibility of this story, says Dr. Teschendorf, that Christianity rests like a building on its foundations.

It is utterly impossible John could have known and not have known Jesus at the same time. And if, as the New Testament states, God is infinite and invisible, it is incredible that as Jesus stood in the river to be baptised, the Holy Ghost was seen as it descended on his head as a dove, and that God from heaven said, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." Was the indivisible and invisible spirit of God separated in three distinct and two separately visible persons? How do the Religious Tract Society reconcile this with the Athanasian Creed?

The baptism narrative is rendered doubtful by the language used as to John, who baptised Jesus. It is said, "This is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." Isaiah xl., 1—5, is, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed." These verses have not the most remote relation to John? And this manufacture of prophecies for the purpose of bolstering up a tale, serves to prove that the writer of the Gospel tries by these to impart an air of credibility to an otherwise incredible story.

Immediately after the baptism, Jesus is led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil. There he fasts forty days and forty nights.

John says, in chapter i., 35, "Again, the next day after, John stood and two of his disciples; and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he said, behold the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus." Then, at the 43rd verse, he says, "The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, follow me." And in chapter ii., 1, he says, "And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; and both Jesus was called and his disciples unto the marriage." According to Matthew, there can be no doubt that immediately after the baptism Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil. And we are to believe that Jesus was tempted of the Devil and fasting in the wilderness, and at the same time feasting at marriage in Cana of Galilee? Is it possible to believe that Jesus actually did fast forty days and forty nights? If Jesus did not fast in his capacity as man, in what capacity did he fast? And if Jesus fasted, being God, the fast would be a mockery; and the account that he became a hungered must be wrong. It is barely possible that in some very abnormal condition or cataleptic state, or state of trance, a man might exist, with very slight nourishment or without food, but that a man could walk about, speak, and act, and, doing this, live forty days and nights without food is simply an impossibility.

Is the story that the Devil tempted Jesus credible? If Jesus be God, can the Devil tempt God? A clergyman of the Church of England writing on this says: "That the Devil should appear personally to the Son of God is certainly not more wonderful than that he should, in a more remote age, have appeared among the sons of God, in the presence of God himself, to torment the righteous Job. But that Satan should carry Jesus bodily and literally through the air, first to the top of a high mountain, and then to the topmost pinnacle of the temple, is wholly inadmissable, it is an insult to our understanding, and an affront to our great creator and redeemer." Supposing, despite the monstrosity of such a supposition, an actual Devil—and this involves the dilemma that the Devil must either be God-created, or God's co-eternal rival; the first supposition being inconsistent with God's goodness, and the second being inconsistent with his power; but supposing such a Devil, is it credible that the Devil should tempt the Almighty maker of the universe with "all these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me?"

In the very names of the twelve Apostles there is an uncertainty as to one, whose name was either Lebbæus, Thaddæus, or Judas. It is in Matthew x., 3, alone that the name of Lebbæus is mentioned, thus—"Lebbæus, whose surname was Thaddæus." We are told, on this point, by certain: Biblicists, that some early MSS. have not the words "whose surname was Thaddæus," and that these words have probably been inserted to reconcile the Gospel according to Matthew with that attributed to Mark. In the English version of the Rheims Testament used in this country by our Roman Catholic brethren, the reconciliation between Matthew and Mark is completed by omitting the words-"Lebbæus whose surname was," leaving only the name "Thaddæus" in Matthew's text. The revised version of the New Testament now agrees with the Rheims version, and the omission will probably meet with the entire concurrence of Dr. Tischendorf and the Religious Tract Society, now they boast autograph letters of approval from the infallible head of the Catholic Church. If Matthew x., 3, and Mark hi., 18, be passed as reconciled, although the first calls the twelfth disciple Lebbæus, and the second gives him the name Thaddæus; there is yet the difficulty that in Luke vi., 16, corroborated by John xiv., 22, there is a disciple spoken of as "Judas, not Iscariot," "Judas, the brother of James." Commentators have endeavored to clear away this last difficulty by declaring that Thaddæus is a Syriac word, having much the same meaning as Judas. This has been answered by the objection