extraordinary might have been expected to awaken.

Four inspired writers have given separate accounts of the life of
Christ--all repeat many of His wonderful sayings--all dwell with marked
minuteness on the circumstances of His death--and all attest the fact of
His resurrection. Each mentions some things which the others have
omitted; and each apparently observes the order of time in the details
of his narrative. But when we combine and arrange their various
statements, so as to form the whole into one regular and comprehensive
testimony, we discover that there are not a few periods of His life
still left utterly blank in point of incidents; and that there is no
reference whatever to topics which we might have expected to find
particularly noticed in the biography of so eminent a personage. After
His appearance as a public teacher, He seems, not only to have made
sudden transitions from place to place, but otherwise to have often
courted the shade; and, instead of unfolding the circumstances of His
private history, the evangelists dwell chiefly on His Discourses and His
Miracles. During His ministry, Capernaum was His headquarters; [20:1]
but we cannot positively tell with whom He lodged in that place; nor
whether the twelve sojourned there under the same roof with Him; nor how
much time He spent in it at any particular period. We cannot point out
the precise route which He pursued on any occasion when itinerating
throughout Galilee or Judea; neither are we sure that He always
journeyed on foot, or that He adhered to a uniform mode of travelling.
It is most singular that the inspired writers throw out no hint on which
an artist might seize as the groundwork of a painting of Jesus. As if to
teach us more emphatically that we should beware of a sensuous
superstition, and that we should direct our thoughts to the spiritual
features of His character, the New Testament never mentions either the
colour of His hair, or the height of His stature, or the cast of His