resisting modern mind to adopting the con- very naïvely reserve to themselves the purely arbitrary prerogative of squarely turning their backs upon their own historical conditions of debate, whenever it simply suits their emer And, in view of the developments of this ent, namely, that, regarded from the present And it has been almost exclusively because But all such anti-scientific, anti-supernaturalistic playing with our subject must at last be ended. Seventy-five years are assuredly long enough for this sort of wading in the shallows. It is high time to say that the gospel records of the Resurrection cannot possibly be regarded by any scholar as if they were but a common and uncorroborated ghost-story; whereas they form in truth a component and integral portion of the Bible, and more particularly of the gospels. And if we who occupy the supernaturalistic position argumentatively consent to make a complete truce concerning every mooted modern gospel question, and to go directly over and conduct the entire investigation of such a cardinal Christian tenet as that of Jesus' resurrection, altogether from the very standpoint insisted upon by our opponents, namely, that merely the words of Christ in Matthew constitute "the basis of all that we know of the teachings of Jesus," our opponents assuredly must not, even after that, fairness, and come what may come of it to either party, the words of Christ in Matthew must henceforward constitute for them, as well as us, the only ultimate standard of scientific arbitration. No sooner do we come, however, to consider, from the anti-supernaturalistic point of view, the question of the miraculous resurrection from the dead, not of some merely imaginary Jesus, but of that Jesus alone who speaks to us in Matthew, than forthwith we find that it is utterly impossible for us ever to arrive at any fixed and final verdict on this question without becoming confronted with the almost fearful query what we are to think of that specific Jesus personally, in case he did not have a real resurrection. We may indeed endeavor to amuse ourselves for a season with our problem, like another Strauss, as if it were a simple question in psychology; and for another season, like another Feuerbach, as if it were a simple question of our personal assertion; and for still another season, like another Renan, as if it were, at the very worst, but a simple question of hallucination, fraudulently aided and abetted, perhaps a very trifle, by certain friends of Jesus. But all this time we have been most steadily averting our faces from the very historical basis of the whole investigation, namely, from the words of Christ in Matthew. And when we once begin to direct our thoughts to those specific words of Jesus, turn and twist them, and even contort them as we may, we still must always, invariably and unavoidably, reach precisely this result, namely, that whatever may be either true or false concerning any other Jesus, the Jesus whose words remain to us in Matthew, beyond all doubt or question, not only prior to his crucifixion predicted, but subsequently to his crucifixion attested, his real death and real resurrection. Nor is this all; but we must furthermore remember that this question of the personal complicity of this Jesus with his resurrection, does not in any sense come before us as an original, exceptional, and isolated question connected with his mental and his moral character. Conversely, long before we could even reach this special question of his resurrection for a separate investigation, we have found ourselves obliged formally, in a preceding paper, and by way partly of recapitulation, and partly of additional suggestions, in the present one, to trace this Jesus step by step through a most unparalleled career of deliberate thaumaturgy ;have been compelled, in fact, either to say that this Jesus was in truth a superhuman wonder-worker of the very highest order, or else to say that this Jesus was in truth among the greatest knaves and fools combined ever known or dreamed of. Here indeed everything is precisely of a piece concerning that Jesus of which alone we speak, and who is the only Jesus of which any scholarly recognition whatever can be made in this deliberation, namely, that Jesus whose words remain to us in Matthew. If, in other words, the resurrection of that Jesus was a real one, it is then to be regarded by us merely as his "crowning miracle"; if, on the contrary, it was not a real one, it is then to be regarded by us merely as his crowning act of foolishness and fraud. But so soon as we have ventured out so far as this from shore, we then for the very first time begin to realize that the central current of the argument and evidence in favor of the Christian view of Jesus' resurrection, and the like, instead of having been so soon as this exhausted, has in fact now but fairly caught us; and that there is after this no longer any choice left us, excepting either, in the first place, to yield ourselves up and go like an arrow directly down the stream to Christian standing-ground; or else, in the second place, to turn defiantly back against the whole rush and struggle of both the argument and evidence, and so attain at last to anti-Christian standing-ground only by the sheer force of dogged dogmatical resistive swimming. For no sooner do we reach the point in our investigation, which is above arrived at, than up comes the further question, how that Jesus, whose words remain to us in Matthew, ever came to place himself in such a superhuman attitude before his contemporaries, that either a most astounding series of actual miracles, or else a most astounding series of glaring and shameless frauds, ending with a personal rising from the dead, alone could rally to his rescue. But no sooner is this question asked than, for reasons partially suggested in the present paper, and fully to be developed in a future one, out comes the fact that the special Jesus referred to, undertook to play the role of the superhuman Son of God before his contemporaries, after such a fashion, that, in default of his being in truth the Son of God he claimed to be, not only in the direction of his thaumaturgy, but also in the direction of the titles which he assumed, the honors which he received, the supernatural knowledge to which he laid a claim, the divine prerogatives connected with the moral and religious life and rights of all the human race which he presumed to exercise-that in these respects, not to instance others, this Jesus would stand convicted be fore the bar of modern thought and culture of being the most deliberate, despicable, and detestable impostor and charlatan combined, in all religious annals. But if the absolute alternative should eventually be forced upon the anti-Christians, that the Jesus in question was either really the superhuman Son of God he claimed to be, or else such an impostor and charlatan, may he not have been the latter? When the modern anti-supernaturalists acquire sufficient scientific courage squarely to discuss that question with the Christian, they will then soon enough discover whether that view of Jesus is merely an empty pistol held to their heads by the defenders of ancient orthodoxy, or whether, as Prof. Froschammer above impliedly admits, it is a pistol loaded to the very muzzle with death and destruction to every current or conceivable creed and system of the antisupernatural. Meanwhile the prior question is, whether the absolute alternative can hereafter be fairly averted by the anti-supernaturalists, or whether it can only be vaulted and evadedas it thus far surely has been, and that by all, from Paulus down to Herbert Spencer. Now, gentlemen, be pleased to come at once to close quarters with us Christians in regard to our belief in the great leading supernatural features of both Christ and Christianity. We perfectly agree with Renan: "The critical studies relating to the origin of Christianity will only speak their deepest utterances when they shall be cultivated in a purely secular and non-religious spirit, according to the method of the Hellenists, the Moslems, the Hindoos, men strangers to all theology, who dream neither to ap plaud nor to defame, neither to defend nor to overthrow the dogmas." We frankly and without reserve throw down to you the gauntlet in all these investigations, to do precisely what Huxley justly says we ought to do, and that is, "to follow reason and fact in singleness and honesty of purpose, wherever they may lead, in the faith that a hell of honest men will be more endurable than a paradise full of angelic shams." CONCERNING SOME IMPERIAL BOOTY. If the French newspapers are read by the Solitary Prince, Yih-tsing, Emperor of China, His Celestial Highness must be very much diverted about this time. All Paris, and especially all Paris journalism, has been discussing this question: Whom do the things belong to? The ex-Empress of the French, formerly Countess of Teba, or Mamselle Montijo, is administratrix of the last will and testament of the late L. N. Bonaparte. She claims, among other real and personal property, the Chinese museum at Fontainebleau. From her cool retreat at Chislehurst, she demands, in behalf of her son, the reputed heir to whatever property was left by her late husband, a vast number of works of art, curiosities, articles of virtu and sundry parcels of real estate in and around Paris. It is in the Chinese collection, however, that we now have any special concern, as disinterested observers of the little games of kings, emperors and political chess-players. Let us go back a few centuries. China was Cathay and Pekin was Cambaluc, When say about A. D. 1264, Kublai Khan made that city the seat of empire. In the time of the Tsin dynasty, that is to say, B. C. 222, it had been the capital; and when Kublai Khan, then in the meridian of life and at the zenith of his power, there fixed his residence, he built for himself a great and wonderful city of palaces and temples just outside the environs of Cambaluc. Doubtless, no such work of human hands has been seen on the earth since the time of Solomon; possibly, the famous hanging gardens of Babylon may have been somewhat more wonderful; but no other fabric was ever comparable to it for extent and magnificence. Messer Marco Polo, whose reputation as a champion romancer in his day, has since been replaced by the the honest renown which he deserves, says that the palace was enclosed by a wall of four miles in compass; that five gates opened on each side of this four-square mural defense; and that the palace was subdivided into innumerable temples, kiosks and palaces. It was known, in fact, as "The One Hundred and Eight Temples." Of the chief structure Marco says: "You must know that it is the greatest Palace The roof is very lofty and the walls of the palace are covered with gold and silver. They are also adorned that ever was. | with representations of dragons (sculptured thusiastic old chronicler, who saw what he Thus Marco Polo. "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree; Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground If we may believe the Venetian traveler, the fancy of the English poet took no liberty with the real facts. His verse is a marvelous minute picture of the wonders so floridly described by Marco, even to the Green Mount of Coleridge's "sunny spots of greenery. In this luxurious retreat, too, it is quite possible that the great Khan, even while he was hospitably entreating the noble Venetian, may have "heard from far ancestral voices prophesying war.' To this fantastic dream of beauty, one hundred years later, came the victorious Ming, establishing in 1368 a native dynasty and driving the degenerate successors of Kublai Khan back to Outer Mongolia. Hither came a great and destroying army, ravaging Cambaluc and removing the seat of empire to Nanking. Not for long, however, did the Ming dynasty degrade Kublai's capital; the second of the race returned to Pekin; and, though it is said that all traces of the works of the Mongols were swept from the earth, it is undoubtedly true that the foundation stones of Cambaluc became those of Pekin and that the solid walls of Xandu, which Marco says were "fit to last forever," suffered a change only into Yuen-Ming-Yuen, the summer Palace of a long line of Chinese emperors. Modern tradition has disputed the site of Xandu, Abbé Huc fixing it at Tolon-Nur, a dirty town on the borders of Tartary; but the weight of evidence favors the belief that the Summer Palace of the Chinese Emperors was built on the ruins of Kublai | Khan's epic in stone. For our present purpose it is enough to know that the Yuen-Ming-Yuen of the later Chinese dynasty was a tolerably exact reproduction of the glorious pleasure dome decreed by the Great Khan. In the midst of the magical splendors of the place, a lake surrounded by evergreens, marble, granite and porphyry terraces, sparkled in the sun. Fifteen artificial hills, gemmed with graceful kiosks and temples, girded this charming spectacle. Over these enormous gardens rose a mountain of precipitous black porphyry, terrace above terrace, belt ed with verdure and crowned with a beautiful temple of polished tiles which was approached by a giant double staircase of cut stone. The Marquis de Beauvoir, who visited the ruins of the Summer Palace in 1867, says: "Here were the glory of emperors; here were the kiosks of innumerable empresses, the casket full of pearls, and the golden columns, the enamels, the delicate china and the jade and red lacquer work; in a word, the choicest wonders of civilization, art and labor." Others who saw these marvels before the torch of Western civilization had fired the costly pile, tell us of the vases of rare email cloisonné filled with artificial flowers of precious stones which decorated the terraces; of the matchless bronzes, the parcel-gilt images, the gold and bronze tigers, dragons and storks; and of the vast library which contained the history of China and its dependencies from the mythological age to the nineteenth century. Wonderful stories, too, are told of the old times when the Emperor's horses were littered on imperial yellow raw silk, half a foot thick, of the vast stores of treasures which illustrated the history of oriental art for thousands of uninterrupted years. The commonest objects of household use were decorated with unique designs, and the humble culinary vessels of the imperial household were enriched with the products of a riotous, oriental fancy. To this treasure-house of art, in an evil hour, came an army from civilized Europe. A long series of disputes between the Chinese and French and English governments culminated in open hostilities. In the nominal interests of the Christian religion, and with a hot desire for trade, the allied armies were pushed from the sea-coast to Pekin, in 1860. Lord Elgin represented Great Britain and Baron Gros the French Emperor, for Napolean was then at his zenith. The valuable Morny had not died; and the sun of Sedan was below the horizon. At the head of the French army was General Cousin-Montaubon, who won at the bridge of Pah-li-chiou the cross of the Legion of Honor and the title by which he is better known in French politics and history. The English forces were commanded by that cool-blooded soldier, Sir Hope Grant. The Chinese, true to their ancient strategy, and fighting the strangers with unequal weapons, resorted to every device of duplicity, cunning and treachery. After |