precept for Christians morally capable of putting themselves in the place of their neighbours; but ordinary mortals require more definite instruction in the duties of Humanity. We, therefore, inevitably regret the absence from this great discourse of specific reference to the good old-fashioned heathen virtues of truth, honour, and honesty, which, if epigrammatically defined by the Preacher on the Mount, might have saved us from the modern scandal of piety combined with the adulteration of food, and charity flowing from the hands of the fraudulent promoter. And if Jesus had ever read of and commended the heroic virtues of the noblest of the Gentiles who had worthily sustained the dignity of Humanity, we might not now be witnessing the unedifying sight of Christians posing in the garb of miserable sinners, and rolling mankind in the mire of gratuitous abasement. How invaluable to us would have been an Evangelical version of the motto-Noblesse oblige! And if Jesus had commended the man who, in rising above his fellows, invites them to follow in the path of progress, we might have escaped the modern superstition of Equality,' which means pulling down our neighbour to the level of our own attainments.

But the most lamentable omission in the Sermon on the Mount is the question of Slavery. The Essenes were nearly two thousand years in advance of their age in condemning this great social evil, and yet their illustrious disciple leaves unsaid that denunciation of human bondage which would have been a priceless boon to unborn millions, and would have saved Christianity from the shame of sanctioning for centuries that crime against Humanity which, in robbing some of freedom, inflicts

on all the moral debasement involved in the relationship of master and slave.

If Jesus, revisiting the earth at the beginning of this century, had witnessed the spectacle of Christian nations growing rich through the toil and sufferings of slaves, how intense would have been his feelings of self-reproach for the great opportunity lost of advocating on the Mount the emancipation of all slaves, and the final abolition of servile institutions, as the anti-human creation of savage barbarism! Turning in deep dejection from the scene of human debasement, Jesus would be the first to admit that even he had failed to realise, in his teaching, the full force of his own words- Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them for this is the law and the prophets.'

It is rather startling to find this precept associated with the law and the prophets. Can we trace sympathetic philanthropy in the pages of Moses, or consideration for others in the denunciations of the prophets? Did Elijah put himself in the place of the unoffending messengers of their king when he called down fire from heaven to destroy them? Or did Elisha recall his own thoughtless childhood when he summoned ferocious executioners of prophetic vengeance to accomplish the slaughter of the Innocents?

In chapter v. 17 we read, 'Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.' As Jesus forthwith proceeds to condemn the teaching of Moses, this text cannot be a correct record of his

words. Marcion, whom the claimants of primitive orthodoxy branded as a heretic, asserted that the text had been tampered with by Judaising converts, and that Jesus had really said, 'Think ye that I am come to fulfil the law or the prophets? I came not to fulfil, but to destroy.' This is the only reading reconcilable with the general purport of the teaching of Jesus. If he had spoken as recorded in our version, his auditors would have inevitably inferred perpetuity of obligation to obey the law of Moses. Modern commentators tell us that the Greek words “ ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται, more correctly translated till all things have come to pass,' refer to the establishment of the Kingdom of God through the death and resurrection of Jesus; but as, however, the congregation of the Mount had never heard of these prospective events, this hypothesis depicts Jesus addressing men, in unintelligible terms, who were liable to extreme penalties for not fulfilling his sayings.

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But what law was abolished at the resurrection ? The decalogue? But that is read out in our churches as the basis of Christian ethics. The objectionable enactments of Moses? But these were denounced during the lifetime of Jesus. The position is obviously too complex for apologetic adjustment; and we must either reject the passage as it now stands, or admit irreconcilable difficulties in the teaching of Jesus.

The closing verses of the Sermon on the Mount clearly indicate that the kingdom of heaven was attainable rather through practical morality, than orthodox faith. Can we question the orthodoxy of men who prophesy, cast out devils, and work miracles in the

name of Jesus?1 And yet these eminent spiritualists are rejected in favour of practical moralists, whose merits, according to a later discourse (chapter xxv.), shall be recognised on the day of judgment, in the philanthropy which feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, shelters the homeless, and visits the sick; in other words, Jesus borrows his ideas of future retribution from the Egyptian Book of the Dead,' written at least two thousand years before the Christian era. How marvellous that, in the face of so explicit a declaration, a Christianity of dogma should have succeeded a Christianity of ethics, and that, but a few generations after the death of Jesus, his followers should have adopted saving creeds instead of saving virtues!

Jesus addressed men and women on the Mount who, probably, never had another opportunity of listening to his words. On him, therefore, rested the responsibility of clearly defining all that is needful for entrance into the kingdom of heaven. That all consisted of nothing more than simple trust in divine beneficence, and the practice of human virtues, engraved on the ancient monuments of Egypt, centuries before Moses is said to have tortured its inhabitants with appalling plagues. The auditors of Jesus heard nothing of the Fall of man, the necessity for atonement, the regeneration of baptism, the dogma of the Trinity, or the mysterious influence of the Holy Ghost. If it is indeed true that salvation depends on faith in dogmatic creeds, whether Apostolic, Nicene, or Athanasian, many hearers of the Sermon on the Mount will doubtless rise up the Day of Judgment against Jesus of Nazareth, to

Matt. vii. 21-23.

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denounce the fatal silence which left them in ignorance of the ecclesiastical rites and theological mysteries indispensable to candidates for the Kingdom of Heaven.

What, therefore, are our conclusions respecting the Sermon on the Mount? A marvellous discourse from the lips of a Galilean peasant, but disclosing no trace of the originality indispensable to divine revelation. The student of the Apocrypha will find many of the ideas of Jesus scattered through the pages of 2 Esdras, the Wisdom of Solomon, and Ecclesiasticus; and he who carefully and dispassionately reads the Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius,' drawn, not from Christianity, but from Grecian and Roman philosophy, will find all which is most excellent in the Sermon on the Mount, based on the principle of duty towards God and man, even unto death, without one thought of reward here or hereafter.

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