After the party had broken up, and we were left alone, Mr. Fellows, turning to me, said, "You lay great stress on the origination of such a character as Christ. But can we make its reality a literary problem? May it not have been imaginary? As Mr. Newman says, Human nature is often portrayed in superhuman dignity; Why not in superhuman goodness?
"That the origination;" said I, "of such a Moral Ideal, in so peculiar a form, by such men as Galilean Jews, is unaccountable enough, I fancy all will admit; but it is, you observe, only one of the numberless points which are unaccountable; neither do I make this one feature, or any of the other singular characteristics of the New Testament, merely a literary problem. The whole, you see, is a vast literary, moral, intellectual, spiritual, and historical problem. But it is too much the way with you objectors to say, 'This may, perhaps, be got over,' and 'That may be got over'; the question is, as Bishop Butler says, whether all can be got over; for if all the arguments for it be not false, Christianity is true.
"You charge us with the very conduct," retorted Fellowes, "which Mr. Newman objects to Christians. They, says he, affirm that this objection is of little weight, and that is of little weight; whereas altogether they amount to considerable weight."
"I admit it," said I; "and those are very unfair who deny it. But still, since there are these things of weight on both sides, the argument returns, on which side does the balance on the sum-total of evidence lie?"
"But," said Fellowes, "how few are competent to compute that!"
"You are really pleasant, Mr. Fellowes," I replied; "I thought the question we were arguing was as to the truth or the falsehood of Christianity, not whether the bulk of mankind are fully competent to form an independent and profound judgment on its evidences: very few are competent to do so either on this or any other complex subject; certainly not (as our differences show) on the subject of your 'spiritualism.' But the incompetency of the great bulk of mankind to deal with complicated evidence makes a thing neither true nor false; perhaps on this, as on so many other subjects, the few must thoroughly sift the matter for the many. If your present objection were of force, what would become of truth in politics, law, medicine, in all which the great majority must trust much to the conclusions of their wiser fellow-creatures? Your observation is no confutation of the evidences for Christianity: it is simply a satire upon God and the condition of the human creatures he has made!"
"Well, let that pass," said Fellowes; "I was going to say further, that it is not so clear to every one that Christ is so very wonderful an ideal of humanity. Do you remember that Mr. Newman says in his 'Phases,' that, when he was a boy, he read Benson's Life of Fletcher of Madely, and thought Fletcher a more perfect man than Jesus Christ? and he also says that he imagines, if he were to read the book again, he would think the same. Have you nothing to say to that?"
"NOTHING," said I, "except to point you to the infinitely different estimates of Christ formed by other men who yet think of historical Christianity much as you do. How differently do such writers as Mr. Greg and Mr. Parker speak! How do they almost exhaust the resources of language to express their sentiments of this wonderful character! As to Mr. Newman's impression, I do not think it worth an answer. When a man so far forgets himself as to say what he can hardly help knowing will be unspeakably painful to multitudes of his fellow-creatures, on the strength of boyish impressions,—not even thinking it worth while to verify those impressions, and see whether, after thirty or forty years, he is not something more than a boy,—I think it is scarcely worth while to reply. Christianity is willing to consider the arguments of men, but not the impressions of boys."
"But we must not be too hard." said Harrington, "upon Mr. Newman; it is evident, from his Hebrew Monarchy, that, as he takes a benevolent pleasure in defending those whom nobody else will defend,—in petting Ahab, whom he pronounces rather weak than wicked, and palliating Jezebel, whose character was, it seems, grievously deteriorated by contact with the 'prophets of Jehovah,'—so he has a chivalrous habit of depressing those who have been particularly the objects of veneration. Elisha, Samuel, and David are all brought down a great many degrees in the moral scale. He has simply done the same with Christ."
"Well," said Fellowes, "I cannot help agreeing with Mr. Newman in thinking that, when one hears men made the objects of extravagant eulogy, it almost 'tempts one, even though a stranger to their very name, to "pick holes," as the saying is.'"