I. "The Gospels, by whomever written," says the clergyman, "are reliable." By whomever written! After two thousand years, it is still uncertain to whom we are indebted for the story of Jesus. What, in Dr. Barton's opinion, could have influenced the framers of the life of Jesus to suppress their identity? And why does not the church instead of printing the words, "The Gospel according to Matthew or John," which is not true,—print, "The Gospel by whomever written"?

II. "At the very least, four of Paul's epistles are genuine," says the same clergyman. Only four? Paul has thirteen epistles in the bible, and of only four of them is Dr. Barton certain. What are the remaining nine doing in the Holy Bible? And which 'four' does the clergyman accept as doubtlessly "genuine?" Only yesterday all thirteen of Paul's letters were infallible, and they are so still wherever no questions are asked about them. It is only where there is intelligence and inquiry that "four of them" at least are reliable. As honesty and culture increase, the number of inspired epistles decreases. What the Americans are too enlightened to accept, the church sends to the heathen.

III. "It is true that early a sect grew up which….held that Jesus could not have had a body of carnal flesh; but they did not question that he had really lived." According to Dr. Barton, these early Christians did not deny that Jesus had really lived,—they only denied that Jesus could have had a body of carnal flesh. We wonder how many kinds of flesh there are according to Dr. Barton. Moreover, does not the bible teach that Jesus was tempted in all things, and was a man of like passions, as ourselves? The good man controls his appetites and passions, but his flesh is not any different from anybody else's. If Jesus did not have a body like ours, then he did not exist as a human being. Our point is, that if the New Testament is reliable, in the time of the apostles themselves, the Gnostics, an influential body of Christians, denied that Jesus was any more than an imaginary existence. "But," pleads the clergyman, "these sects believed that Jesus was real, though not carnal flesh." What kind of flesh was he then? If by carnal the Gnostics meant 'sensual,' then, the apostles in denouncing them for rejecting a carnal Jesus, must have held that Jesus was carnal or sensual. How does the Reverend Barton like the conclusion to which his own reasoning leads him?

IV. "It is true that there were literary fictions in the age following the apostles." This admission is in answer to the charge that even in the first centuries the Christians were compelled to resort to forgery to prove the historicity of Jesus. The doctor admits the charge, except that he calls it by another name. The difference between fiction and forgery is this: the former is, what it claims to be; the latter is a lie parading as a truth. Fiction is honest because it does not try to deceive. Forgery is dishonest because its object is to deceive. If the Gospel was a novel, no one would object to its mythology, but pretending to be historical, it must square its claims with the facts, or be branded as a forgery.

V. "We may not have the precise words Jesus uttered; the portrait may be colored;….tradition may have had its influence; but Jesus was real." A most remarkable admission from a clerical! It concedes all that higher criticism contends for. We are not sure either of Jesus' words or of his character, intimates the Reverend preacher. Precisely.

In commenting on our remark that in the eighth century "Pope Hadrian called upon the Christian world to think of Jesus as a man," Dr. Barton replies with considerable temper: "To date people's right to think of Jesus as a man from that decree is not to be characterized by any polite term." Our neighbor, in the first place, misquotes us in his haste. We never presumed to deny anyone the right to think of Jesus what he pleased, before or after the eighth century. (The Debate, p. 28.) We were calling attention to Pope Hadrian's order to replace the lamb on the cross by the figure of a man. But by what polite language is the conduct of the Christian church—which to this day prints in its bibles "Translated from the Original Greek," when no original manuscripts are in existence—to be characterized?

Dr. Barton's efforts to save his creed remind us of the Japanese proverb: "It is no use mending the lid, if the pot be broken."