Moral Glory of Jesus Christ 7 5 these men, once so blind and ignorant, write four little pieces about the person and the work of the Lord Jesus which the study and the research of Christendom for eighteen hundred years have not exhausted, and which, the keenest and most hostile criticism has utterly failed to discredit. But this is not all. Others have tried their hand at com posing the Life and Deeds of Jesus. Compare some of these with our Four Gospels. SPURIOUS GOSPELS The Gospel narrative observes an almost unbroken silence as to the long abode of Jesus at Nazareth. Of the void thus left the church became early impatient. During the first four centuries many attempts were made to fill it up. Some of these apocryphal gospels are still extant, notably that which deals with the infancy and youth of the Redeemer; and it is instructive to notice how those succeeded who tried to lift thè veil whiph covers the earlier years of Christ. Let another state the contrast between the New Testament records and the spurious gospels: “The case stands thus: our Gospels present us with a glorious picture of a mighty Saviour, the mythic gos pels with that of a contemptible one. In our Gospels He exhib its a superhuman wisdom ; in the mythic ones a nearly equal su perhuman absurdity. In our Gospels He is arrayed in all the beauty of holiness ;■in the mythic ones this aspect of char acter is entirely wanting. In our Gospels not one stain of sin fulness defiles His character; in the mythic ones the Boy Jesus is both pettish and malicious. Our Gospels exhibit to us a sublime morality; not one ray of it shines in those of the mythologists. The miracles of the one and of the other stand contrasted on every point.” (Row.) These spurious gospels were written by men who lived not long after the apostolic age ; by Christians who wished to honor the Saviour in all they said about Him; by men who had the portraiture of Him before them which the Gospels
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