that John had merely to lead up to Jesus, he baptized them afresh "in the name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts xix. 1-5). Moreover, the statement made that there is but "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. iv. 5), disallows all the prior baptisms.

P.-As John is said to have been filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb, it is strange that his disciples should not even have heard that there was a Holy Ghost.

S. It is so certainly.

P.-Seeing that Jesus offered himself to his own, and was rejected by them, and finally crucified, how can John be said to have made ready a people prepared for the Lord?

S.-I cannot tell you.

P.-What were the positive fruits of his mission, or those of Jesus after him.

S. The number of the disciples after the death of Jesus was "about an hundred and twenty" (Acts i. 15), and there were followers of John such as those who were rebaptized by Paul, as above mentioned.

P. And is this all that can be spoken of after the whole of Judea and all the region round about had confessed their sins, and been baptized by John and by Jesus in succession to him? The mission of John, instead of marking him out as one of the greatest men who had ever lived, seems to me to have been stamped with absolute failure.

If the true baptism had to be established after the death of Jesus, and a preliminary baptism, whatever purpose it was meant to serve, was committed to John, what could be the occasion for the baptism dispensed by Jesus to so many during his lifetime; and dispensed, it would seem, in vain, so far as gathering them in as his followers was in view?

S.-I am unable to say.

But

P. The next event is the birth of Jesus. The subject is Birth of introduced in a conversation between an angel and Mary. He Jesus. tells her that she is to have a son, and at this she expresses extreme wonderment, seeing that she "knew not a man. as she was at the time affianced, or as good as married, to Joseph, this feeling of surprise is certainly out of place. The incident has the appearance of having been brought in just to

allow of the promised conception by the Holy Ghost being introduced with effect.

With the miraculous birth of a being of human form, but divine origin, I am already familiar from Hindu fictions. The parentage of Jesus is derived from the Holy Ghost, the third person in the Christian Trinity. The angel speaks of the Holy Ghost to Mary as if already familiarly known to her, as he did also to Zacharias in respect of his promised son. On the other hand, you have mentioned disciples of John who had never heard that there was a Holy Ghost. When was the revelation of this person in the Trinity first made?

S.-His existence is nowhere spoken of previously to the occasions now in question.

P.-And yet Mary takes it as a matter of course that she is to have a child by him! The fact we really have to deal with is that of a young person, accounted a virgin, being found by her husband already with child. As he was about to put her away for profligacy, it would seem she must have kept back from him the revelation made to her by the angel. Is it conceivable that she should run such risks? When her husband discovered for himself the condition she was in, he must of course have questioned her closely on the subject, and what could have been her answer? It must be presumed that then at least she must have told him of the apparition to her of the angel Gabriel, and of the consequent conception by the Holy Ghost; and it must be concluded that, if she made such a statement, he could not have accepted it, as till he got the assurance of his own dream his intention was to divorce her. And if he could not credit Mary's subtantial declaration of what she had witnessed with her own senses, would a dream have sufficed to satisfy him of the chastity of his wife, and that the parent of her coming offspring was that mysterious personage the Holy Ghost, hitherto unheard of by any one?

S.-According to Matthew's narrative, Joseph, it is clear, knew nothing of the revelation made to Mary. It is stated, after speaking of his discovering the state of Mary and his design to put her away, that "while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream." Nor was a word said to him in this dream of the apparition to Mary. The silence of Mary is certainly not to be reconciled

with the fact that she had received such a revelation; neither is it consistent with the divine method to suppose that such an annunciation should have been made twice, and in independent form. It is commonly held by critics that there was but one such annunciation, and that the two narratives are in conflict as to the circumstances under which it was made. Luke gives it as made to Mary, and Matthew as made to Joseph, neither speaking of the event told by the other.

P. And is it upon accounts so inconsistent and at variance that the fact of the divine generation of Jesus depends?

S.-Certainly there is nothing else to cite in proof of the divinity of his parentage, unless it be involved in the circumstances of his history and acts when on earth.

of David.

P.-Jesus, it appears, was to occupy the throne of David The throne and reign over the house of Jacob, and yet never had that position!

S.-Assuredly he had not.

Al

The idea is that it is a prediction remaining, in some way or other, to be fulfilled. though Jesus gave out that his kingdom was not of this world, he held out to his disciples that "in the regeneration" he would sit on the throne of his glory," when they also were to sit "upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matt. xix. 28).

P.-The only certainty then at present is that the prediction has not been accomplished.

Jesus was to be the son of David, and that fact also is not made out.

S.-It is not. As on the father's side he came from the Holy Ghost, his connection with any human stock could only be through his mother; and here the alliance was with the tribe of Levi, not of Judah. It is through Joseph that the descent is sought to be maintained, but as he was not his father, Joseph affords no real link with David. Nor can the genealogies which would derive Joseph from David be depended on.

P. Will you be good enough to put these genealogies The geneabefore me?

S. These lists will enable you to compare the statements of the evangelists with one another, and with what appears in the Old Testament.

logies.

You will observe that David had two sons, Solomon and Nathan. These were his children by Bathsheba, the wife he wrenched from Uriah. Matthew traces Joseph from Solomon, and Luke derives him from Nathan. This is a fatal divergence. The names and numbers of the descendants necessarily differ, the lines being distinct from the outset. Matthew has twenty-five generations between David and Joseph, and Luke has forty. Matthew has followed the genealogy in the Old Testament, as far as it goes, but with strange liberties in orthography; and he has been guilty of omissions, namely, of three persons between Jehoram and Uzziah, one between Josiah and Jeconiah, and one between Salathiel and Zorobabel. In deriving Jesus from Jaconiah he brings against him the ban of Jeremiah (xxii. 30), who declared that no man of his seed should prosper or sit upon the throne of David; whereby, as Matthew gives the descent, we have prophecy ranged against prophecy. Luke has had no prior genealogy that we know of to go by, and would seem to have made up one from his own imagination. The third name on his list is Mattatha. On this the changes are wrung,-Mattatha, Matthat, Mattathias, Maath, Mattathias, Matthat, as if to help out the list. In the same way names of the patriarchs, Joseph, Juda, Simeon, Levi; and Juda, Joseph, Semei (changed seemingly from Simeon), are clubbed together. Notwithstanding that the line of Luke is a totally dissimilar one from that given by Matthew, it is singular that he should fall into Matthew's line in certain parts. For example, he has with him Salathiel followed by Zorobabel, omitting, as Matthew has done, Pedaiah, who, according to the Old Testament, came between them, and he presents Matthat as Joseph's grandfather, which corresponds with Matthan as given by Matthew. P.-How is it attempted to reconcile these genealogies?