The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1881-06-15
1T STILL LIVES.

age of thirty-three. Alexander the Great
died at the same age. Which left the
deepest trace behind him? Would the
issue of new edition of the Life of Alex
ander the Great make any sensation in
Great Britain to-day? 1t is true Alex
ander was warrior and Jesus was
teacher; but Alexander's preceptor;
Aristotle, was, perhaps plato may be an
exception), the greatest thinker the world
has ever known. No uninspired man has
ever influenced the thought of the world
like Aristotle. But would new edition of
the works of Aristotle summon whole
population of country to the book
stores to-day? 1t is tremendous fact
that 100000 copies of the Revised Eng
lish New Testament were sold the second
day after its publication. How many
millions have been sold up to this date,
we cannot tell. Such fact must have
made its impression on the philosophers
of the day who believed that Christianity
was dead. No dead religion awakens an
interest akin to this A revised edition
of the books Of Zoroaster might be brought
out in Persia to-day without producing
even ripple; and the re-editing of the
seventy volumes of Voltaire in France
would attract no appreciable attention.
A new and revised edition of John Stuart
Mills works would have no considerable
sale in the London market. So it would
fare with Auguste Comics works in
France, or with Hegels in Germany. 1t
is worthy of the attention of intelligent
sceptics that this religion of the New
Testament, after eighteen hundred years,
still has such hold on the foremost ma
tions of the woodland that this CHRIST,
whom Renan describes as a mere senti-
mentalist, should still, with his bound
less pretensions, continue to excite such
profound interest among the most earnest
and sincere votaries of truth in Europe,
Asia, and America Aristotle, as we
have said, exerted for centuries a great
influence on the thought of the world ;
but his was labored edifce, reared by
severe and patient mental toll. Christ
never makes any effort at all; what he
says and what he does is as enforced and
spontaneous as the operations of instinct
He never hesitates moment. He never
strains after thought or effect. He is
always full of grace and propriety
Every utterance appeals to the deepest
consciousness of humanity. There is no
studied system about his teaching; he
never, so far as appears, took pen in hand.
He left no memoirs; no memoranda; he
gave no instructions to literary execu-
tors. Thirty years after his death, four
plain men write four plain accounts of
his three years career; and converted
Jew writes dozen letters to the churches
which sprung up or to few personal
friends, with no special pains on his part
to preserve them, or to construct canon,
and these it is which have turned the
world upside down; which have ridden
high over the philosophy of Aristotle and
loOO SplOuiu S anu HeuOJ WHICH, nave
seen hundred other systems rise and
go down; which have been fercely, bit
terly assailed by the very ablest minds
for nearly two thousand years; which
excite the displeasure and even hatred of
the philosophers and savants of our day
this is the Revised English New Tes-
lament which commands a greater sale
to-day than all the works of all the great
writers of Europe combined would COM
mand in England and America. No
system could, through so many centuries,
and after the lapse Of eighteen centuries,
hold the educated thought and the en-
lightened conscience of the world in this
way, unless it was based on truth. And
it is to-day the moral truthfulness of
Christianity which clothes it with the
same power in this most enlightened
period Of the worlds history that it dis
played in periods Of less mental activity
and among communities far more imper-
fectly informed than are the populations
of modern Europe and America 1t
was like miracle that so obscure a re-
ligion should have broken the power Of