character. At the same time it is full of inconsistencies and
contradictions upon immaterial matters. For example, the four
accounts of the resurrection differ in detail, and there is no
orthodox learned lawyer who dutifully accepts all four versions
who could not shatter the evidence if he dealt with it in the
course of his profession. These details are immaterial to the
spirit of the message. It is not common sense to suppose that
every item is inspired, or that we have to make no allowance for
imperfect reporting, individual convictions, oriental
phraseology, or faults of translation. These have, indeed, been
admitted by revised versions. In His utterance about the letter
and the spirit we could almost believe that Christ had foreseen
the plague of texts from which we have suffered, even as He
Himself suffered at the hands of the theologians of His day, who
then, as now, have been a curse to the world. We were meant
to use our reasons and brains in adapting His teaching to the
conditions of our altered lives and times. Much depended upon
the society and mode of expression which belonged to His era. To
suppose in these days that one has literally to give all to the
poor, or that a starved English prisoner should literally love
his enemy the Kaiser, or that because Christ protested against
the lax marriages of His day therefore two spouses who loathe
each other should be for ever chained in a life servitude and
martyrdom--all these assertions are to travesty His teaching and
to take from it that robust quality of common sense which was its
main characteristic. To ask what is impossible from human nature
is to weaken your appeal when you ask for what is reasonable.

It has already been stated that of the three headings under
which reforms are grouped, the exclusion of the old dispensation,