week before this vision. They came to strengthen and prepare him for his passion and death,' say some commentators. But what strength or preparation did he receive from them, if the recital of the agony in Gethsemane's garden be true?

3. The Voice out of the bright cloud (the Schekinah undoubtedly was in the mind of the writer) reminds us of the same incident in the narrative of the Baptism. But again our reason is revolted at the anthropomorphic or human likeness this gives us of the Divine Being. Real, human accents, audible, man's speech!-how this jars with our conceptions of the Infinite!

In both ancient and modern times, be it observed, attempts have been made to take the Transfiguration, more or less, out of the region of reality. Tertullian, at the end of the second century, pleads that it should be regarded as a vision, as the fruit of ecstasy, in Jesus and his disciples. But the word opaua-vision, in Matthew, is often used in an external sense, in the New Testament. Some divines have regarded the narrative as the relation of a dream, since Luke the disciples says were heavy with sleep." But during the Gethsemane passion the disciples are also asleep. That feature in the two narratives seems only intended to heighten Christ's portrait by a display of his exemption from the ordinary weakness of humanity, either in glorification or suffering. Others have proposed to consider the whole narrative as susceptible of a natural interpretation: there was a flash of lightning, say they, there was a peal of thunder ;-or, two men (Essenes, says Venturini) his secret allies, were talking with Jesus while the disciples were asleep, they saw them just when they were awaking, the first rays of the morning sun fell on Jesus, and the bright cloud or mist fell on the two Essenes, who, as they went down from the mountain top, pronounced the words This is my beloved Son,' &c. Such modes of interpretation, we may say with Strauss, have justly lost all repute: it is time they were done away with, and that we should proceed to investigate the records of the supernatural and miraculous in the New Testament, with the same spirit of philosophic criticism that we bring to bear on any other ancient records.

In what class of narrative, then, will philosophic criticism direct us to place this of the Transfiguration? We have seen that its supernatural features are répugnant to reason. The witnesses for the entire occurrence as an historic fact where are they? We cannot forget that the real authorship of the Gospels has never been established. And, if it had, the three Gospel writers who record the Transfiguration do not tell us how the circumstances were made known to them. None of them are named as witnessing the Transfiguration; and-strangely enough-John, who is one of the three disciples named as witnesses of it, and is also said to be the author of the fourth Gospel,-does not say a word about it!

I do

Excuse me, one moment, when I say to you that I wonder how any man can hold by orthodoxy when he has once dared to think for himself. not wonder, while he has not dared to think, or while he represses the struggling desire to begin to think. I know what that state of mind is, by wellremembered experience. But how can reason reconcile these difficulties which perpetually start before us in the Gospels? Is it possible that this can be the Revelation, made in compassion to His lost and fallen creatures, by the God of Goodness? Is it possible that He would have puzzled us over and over again, while proclaiming that He was directing us? Have left us with all this web of difficulty to unravel? John, a witness of the Transfiguration, saying not a word of it; and Matthew, Mark, and Luke never

informing us how the circumstances came to their knowledge! John, on the contrary, detailing the most striking miracle that could be performed before men's eyes-the resuscitation of a man from the grave; and yet the other three evangelists neglecting to say one syllable of such a miracle, although manifesting diligence in the record of numerous acts of Christ comparatively unimportant! I need not go on to name, over again, these difficulties. Why, if Four Gospels were written by inspiration,' to strengthen the testimony for us that we might be left without excuse if we did not receive it, why do not the writers confirm each others' accounts? Answer us, orthodox bishop, priest, or curate!—on the peril of your soul, and on the peril of ours, if your doctrine be true,-answer us! We speak the language of passion, now, in the deep earnestness of our hearts; and since you do not answer us―never have answered us, except with quibbles,—we resort again to that guide which, you say, we ought to distrust though God gave it us; and which we have ever found our best director-Reason. This guide enables us to detect the sure mark of Legend in this narrative of the Transfiguration, namely,-disagreement with itself. "Tell no man

66

till the Son of Man be risen again from the dead," Christ is represented to say. Why then say the Scribes that Elias must first come?" say the disciples. "Elias truly shall first come"-is the commencement of the reply put into the mouth of Christ. How could the disciples ask that question, if they had just seen Elias ? Are we to conceive of them, here again, as being the most stupid lumps of clay Christ could find in the country? But how, again, could Jesus have answered them as he is said to have done, if they had just seen Elias talking' with him? Legend forgets itself. Men of the nineteenth century need but this answer.

But, in a book of Legends, one story will be sure to give contradiction to another. This mark of Legend is also detected here. "Elias truly shall first come," says Jesus, according to Matthew (ch. 17. v: v. 11, 12, 13,) "and restore all things. But I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed! Likewise shall also the Son of Man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist." Yet, John the Baptist, according to John, (ch. 1. v. 21.) said he was not Elias!

We are told the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and that early. Is it not more likely that not one of them is the work of one writer only-but that they have received accretions at different dates, according as the spirit of Legend developed itself? Thus the Jew regarded the closing words of Malachi as a prophecy, and the words found in the first verse of our 3rd chapter of Malachi also as applicable to Elijah. The earliest writers in the Gospels, confident that all the prophecies concerning Messiah must have been fulfilled in the history of Jesus, pourtrayed John the Baptist as the figurative Elias, warning the people to prepare the way' for Messiah. But, in aftertime it would not be deemed sufficient that Elias had appeared figuratively; and then the story of his appearance at the Transfiguration was formed. Thus Legend piles up her wonders,- -never pausing to correct herself-never reflecting how one part of her store of marvels contradicts another.

The Mythical origin of the Transfiguration story is evident. Messiah must fulfil his types. Moses was illuminated from Sinai-Jesus on à mountain. Moses took three friends with him, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu -Jesus has three disciples, Peter, James, and John. Moses and his

friends went up that they might worship-Jesus and his disciples that they might pray. When Moses went up with Joshua, the glory of the Lord covered the mountain as a cloud, until at length Moses enters the cloud-so a bright cloud overshadows Jesus, Moses, and Elias, there is a voice out of the cloud, and (in Luke) an entering into the cloud. Six days the cloud covered the mountain, and Moses was called_to Jehovah—and in Matthew and Mark it is, after six days' that Jesus takes his disciples with him to witness the Transfiguration. Independent of the passage in Malachi, it was a Rabbinical idea that Moses and Elias would appear in the Messiah's times. Besides, to the Christian it was a grand desideratum to represent his Messiah as conversing with the Founder and Reformer of the first Dispensation; and nothing was so natural a subject of conversation as the Passion, when the Atonement doctrine was once established. The Transfiguration is evidently formed upon the Myths of the Old Testament-and it must have been one of the latest-formed legends in the three Palestinian Gospels, while in the region where the Platonic Gospel was written-whether that were wholly at Ephesus, or conclusively at Alexandria-the legend did not suggest itself to minds less deeply tinctured with Hebrew predilections.

Let us now devote so much attention as our remaining time, this evenin gwill allow-to three subjects-the Locality, the Duration, and chronology, of the Public Life of Jesus.

(To be continned in nevt number.)

Keview.

Peace Lyrics. By H. G. ADAMS. (C. GILPIN, 5, Bishopsgate Without.) THIS tasteful little volume is the production of one whom I have long known and esteemed, and who is esteemed by very many whose esteem is best worth having, in his native county of Kent. Peace and Brotherhood have their shrines in the very heart's core of the bard, and he has, most appropriately, dedicated his Lyrics to Elihu Burritt. Mr. Adams is the author of many volumes of poetry and prose: indeed no Kentish poet has received a greater welcome. The pieces in this volume are, perhaps, more perfect in music than anything he has yet produced; and they are certainly inferior to none of his former productions in vigour. The two following pieces may serve as a spice of his quality :

I sing no song of chivalry,

I wake no sounding lyre,

:

MY POETICAL CREED.

The deeds of Knights in tourney-fights,
May not my soul inspire;

I look not unto ages past,
Nor dream of by-gone days,

The toil and strife, of present life,
These better suit my lays.

I turn not to the giddy height,
Where mad Ambition tread,
Nor to the plain, of gory stain,
Where War his banner spreads;'

Those whom the world has heroes called,
I dare not so misname,

But the truly great, whate'er their state,
Shall grace my roll of fame.

And who are these? the wise, the good,
Full oft the lowly born,

With whom to walk, with whom to talk,

The proud would think it scorn-
Who labour hard, who suffer much,
. Who bear, and who forbear,
And deem the Christian garniture,
The meetest man can wear.
We have chivalric spirits, too,
Though chivalry be dead-
Gone with the age, on whose dark page,
Its light a lustre shed;-

Men who have fought a goodly fight
'Gainst hydra-headed Wrong,

And themes like these, shall better please,
And stir me into song.

A COMPENDIOUS WAY TO BE SAVED.-Some, who despair of being saved by works, turn Methodists, to obtain salvation by faith. They resemble the butler in Addison's Drummer. Having lost a silver spoon, he consults a conjurer; who promises the spoon again upon condition that he should "drink nothing but small beer for a fortnight;" but the butler despairing to "recover it in this way, e'en bought a new one.' Thus it is much easier to be saved by faith among the Methodists, or absolutions among the Papists, than by a course of moral practice: all sinners like it better, for the same reason that an epicure or voluptuary had rather be cured by medicine, or Bath waters, than submit to abstinence and regimen. Sylva, or the Wood.

On the 1st of June will be published No. I. of a new monthly Journal, entitled, THE FREETHINKER'S MAGAZINE,

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OR, UNFETTERED THINKER AND PLAIN SPEAKER FOR TRUTH, FREEDOM, AND PROGRESS.

"AND though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple! Who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?"-Milton's Areopagitica.

IT is the celebration of the Queen's birth-day-the fifteenth of April. Having to pass by 'Apsley House,' and the colossal equestrian statue of the Iron Duke,' on my way from my own home to the city-an unusual bustle and running of people brought me to a halt. What a significant shew passes under that arch above which stands the giant image! It is a throng of general officers on horseback, with the Iron Duke himself, and Lord Hardinge with his one arm, and the 'royal duke,' Cambridge, abreast. How bolt upright the 'hero of Waterloo' affects to sit, and yet how he rocks and totters, with his years of eighty-one !-and what a contrast there is between his gay scarlet coat and white plumes, and that bedimmed face and ever-mumbling mouth!

They escort him to the gates of Apsley House; and a groupe of boys, streetsweepers, and cabmen, take off their hats and shout. All who were passing, 'gentle or simple,' stopped to gaze curiously at the old man ; but the shouters --of a verity, they were truly of the 'unwashed!' Yet this was the 'Man of Order,' whom the well-to-do should have delighted to honour. But they left the honour-paying to the canaille!

Was not this a sign that thought is beginning to germinate in the minds of some? They looked on curiously; but they remembered that the 'hero' was an expensive curiosity, and a slaughterous one. So the disposition to take off the hat and cheer, was not found in them.

And that old man himself—was not he a sign, too? Bedecked and bedizened, yet all his splendid trappings could not make him look young again. Like the principle of 'Order' which he represents and has fought for-he is in his superannuation; and all his decorations only serve to make it more apparent. The last struggle is taking place with him—and with Kings, Popes, and President-Pretenders; and all their shew and pretence of security cannot hide it. They belong to the Age-that-was, and their trappings too. The present age feels this, and groans to be delivered from both. Yet this deliverance may not be realised so soon as the most ardent could wish. The type may often put on his trappings, and enact that unseemly farce, yet; and Order' may yet, again and again, suppress the struggles of its victims, and often mount afresh its plumes, and don its holiday gear. But 'Order' will