elements furnished to us by the Four Gospels.  It attempts, in my opinion, a synthesis, perhaps premature, perhaps impossible, certainly not successful.  Up to the present time, at any rate, we must acquiesce in Fleury’s sentence on such recastings of the Gospel story:  Quiconque s’imagine la pouvoir mieux ecrire, ne l’entend pas.[56] M. Renan had himself passed by anticipation a like sentence on his own work, when he said:  “If a new presentation of the character of Jesus were offered to me, I would not have it; its very clearness would be, in my opinion, the best proof of its insufficiency.”  His friends may with perfect justice rejoin that at the sight of the Holy Land, and of the actual scene of the Gospel story, all the current of M. Renan’s thoughts may have naturally changed, and a new casting of that story irresistibly suggested itself to him; and that this is just a case for applying Cicero’s maxim:  Change of mind is not inconsistency—­nemo doctus unquam mutationem consilii inconstantiam dixit esse.[57] Nevertheless, for criticism, M. Renan’s first thought must still be the truer one, as long as his new casting so fails more fully to commend itself, more fully (to use Coleridge’s happy phrase[58] about the Bible) to find us.  Still M. Renan’s attempt is, for criticism, of the most real interest and importance, since, with all its difficulty, a fresh synthesis of the New Testament data—­not a making war on them, in Voltaire’s fashion, not a leaving them out of mind, in the world’s fashion, but the putting a new construction upon them, the taking them from under the old, traditional, conventional point of view and placing them under a new one—­is the very essence of the religious problem, as now presented; and only by efforts in this direction can it receive a solution.

Again, in the same spirit in which she judges Bishop Colenso, Miss Cobbe, like so many earnest liberals of our practical race, both here and in America, herself sets vigorously about a positive reconstruction of religion, about making a religion of the future out of hand, or at least setting about making it.  We must not rest, she and they are always thinking and saying, in negative criticism, we must be creative and constructive; hence we have such works as her recent Religious Duty, and works still more considerable, perhaps, by others, which will be in every one’s mind.  These works often have much ability; they often spring out of sincere convictions, and a sincere wish to do good; and they sometimes, perhaps, do good.  Their fault is (if I may be permitted to say so) one which they have in common with the British College of Health, in the New Road.  Every one knows the British College of Health; it is that building with the lion and the statue of the Goddess Hygeia before it; at least I am sure about the lion, though I am not absolutely certain about the Goddess Hygeia.  This building does credit, perhaps, to the resources of Dr. Morrison and his