We know nothing certainly of Jesus Christ. We know nothing of his infancy, nothing of his youth, and we are not sure that such a person ever existed.

There was in all probability such a man as Jesus Christ. He may have lived in Jerusalem. He may have been crucified; but that he was the son of god, or that he was raised from the dead, and ascended bodily to heaven, has never been, and, in the nature of things, can never be, substantiated.

For many centuries this Peasant of Palestine has been worshiped as god.

Millions and millions have given their lives to his service. The wealth of the world was lavished on his shrines. His name carried consolation to the diseased and dying... His name gave courage to the martyr..., The outcasts, the deserted, the fallen, felt that Christ was their friend, felt that he knew their sorrows and pitied their sufferings.

All this is true, and if it were all, how beautiful, how touching, how glorious it would be. But it is not all. There is another side.

In his name millions and millions of men and women have been imprisoned, tortured and killed. In his name millions and millions have been enslaved. In his name the thinkers, the investigators, have branded as criminals, and his followers have shed the blood of the wisest and best. In his name the progress of many nations was stayed for a thousand years. In his gospel was found the dogma of eternal pain, and his words added an infinite horror to death. His gospel filled the world with hatred and revenge; made intellectual honesty a crime; made happiness here the road to hell, denounce love as base and bestial, canonized credulity, crowned bigotry and destroyed the liberty of man.

It would have been far better had the NT never been written - far better had the theological Christ never lived. Had the writers of the NT been regarde as uninspired, had Christ been thought of only a man, had the good been accepted and the absurd, the impossible, and the revengeful thrown away, mankind would have escaped the wars, the crimes and sorrows of a thousand years.

At first Christ was a man - nothing more. Mary was his mother, Joseph his father. The genealogy of his father, Joseph, was given to show that he was of the blood of David.

Then the claim was made that he was the son of god, and that his mother was a virgin, and that she remained virgin until her death.

The claim was made that Christ rose from the dead and ascended bodily to heaven.

It required many years for these absurdities to take possession of the minds of

men.

If he really ascended, why did he not do so in public, in the presence of his persecutors? Why should this, the greatest of miracles, be done in secret, in a corner?

At last, in the dusk of death, Christ, finding that he was mistaken, cried out: "My God, my God! Why hast thou forsaken me?"

Why should we place Christ at the top and summit of the human race? Was he kinder, more forgiving, more self-sacrificing than Buddha? Was he wiser, did he meet death with more perfect calmness, than Socrates? Was he more patient, more