of supernatural but universally accredited fables, these legends
escaping detection or suspicion as they accumulated, and suddenly laying
hold in a few years of myriads of votaries in all parts of both worlds,
and in three centuries uprooting and destroying Christianity and all
opposing systems! How long will it be before the Swedenborgian, or the
Mormonite, or any such pretenders, will have similar success? Have there
not been a thousand such, and has any one of them had the slightest
chance against systems in possession,--against the strongly rooted
prejudices of ignorance and the Argus-eyed investigations of scepticism?
But all these were opposed to the pretensions of Christianity; nor can
any one example of at all similar sudden success be alleged, except in
the case of Mahomet; and to that the answer is brief. The history of
Mahomet is the history of a conqueror--and his logic was the logic of
the sword.
In spite of the theory of Strauss, therefore, not less than that of
Gibbon, the old and ever recurring difficulty of giving a rational
account of the origin and establishment of Christianity still presents
itself for solution to the infidel, as it always has done, and, we
venture to say, always will do.
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