Christianity, No Fable 87 sin, to comfort and support them in death, and to prepare them for immortality. Even those who regard Christianity as being based on delusions and deceptions do not assert that the object of its instructors was anything so lofty and spir itual, but rather that its fabricators sought thereby to enrich themselves by imposing on their credulous fellows, blinding them to the truth by setting before them fictions as if they were facts, frightening them with ghostly terrors and so se curing a hold upon their services or their means. The latest sensation provided by German spculation as to the origin of Christianity is that it was manufactured in Rome in the time of Trajan, i. e., about the beginning of the second century, in order to help on a great liberation movement amongst the Jewish slave proletariat against their tyrannical masters, and that in fact it was an imaginary compound of Roman Social ism, Greek Philosophy and Jewish Messiahism. Neither of these, however, is the account furnished by'Christianity itself in its accredited documents, of its aim, which, as already stated, is to deliver men from sin and death. The very gran deur of this aim proves that Christianity has not emanated from the mind of man, but must have proceeded from the heart of God. And it may be safely contended that Infinite Wisdom and Love makes no use of fables and deceptions, legends and fictions to further its purposes and realize its aims. 2. If, in addition, the details of the Christian Scheme be considered, that is to say, the particular means by which it proposes to effect its aim, it will further appear that the idea of fiction and fable must be laid aside and that of reality and truth set in its place. It will not be seriously questioned that the details of the Christian Scheme are substantially and briefly these: (1)' that God in infinite love and out of pure grace, from eternity purposed to provide salvation for the fallen race of man; (2) that in order to carry out that pur pose He sent His own Son, only begotten and well-beloved, the
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