There were frequently heated arguments on religion between Napoleon and members of his suite during the dreary hours at Longwood, and on one of these occasions he, Montholon, and Antommarchi are the debaters.  To the former he suddenly flashed out:  “I know men well, and I tell you that Jesus Christ was not a man”; then he curtly attacks the pretentious doctor by informing him that “aspiring to be an atheist does not make a man one.”

Dr. Alexander Mair published in the Expositor, some twenty years ago, a critical study of the authenticity of the declarations imputed to Napoleon when at St. Helena on the subject of the Christian religion, from which I make the following extract:—­

“One evening at St. Helena,” says M. Beauterne, “the conversation was animated.  The subject treated of was an exalted one; it was the divinity of Jesus Christ.  Napoleon defended the truth of this doctrine with the arguments and eloquence of a man of genius, with something also of the native faith of the Corsican and the Italian.  To the objections of one of the interlocutors, who seemed to see in the Saviour but a sage, an illustrious philosopher, a great man, the Emperor replied:—­

“’I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man.

“’Superficial minds may see some resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires, the conquerors, and the gods of other religions.  That resemblance does not exist.

“’I see in Lycurgus, Numa, Confucius, and Mahomet merely legislators; but nothing which reveals the Deity.  On the contrary, I see numerous relations between them and myself.  I make out resemblances, weaknesses, and common errors which assimilate them to myself and humanity.  Their faculties are those which I possess.  But it is different with Christ.  Everything about Him astonishes me; His spirit surprises me, and His will confounds me.  Between Him and anything of this world there is no possible comparison.  He is really a Being apart.

“’The nearer I approach Him and the more clearly I examine Him, the more everything seems above me; everything continues great with a greatness that crushes me.

“’His religion is a secret belonging to Himself alone, and proceeds from an intelligence which assuredly is not the intelligence of man.  There is in Him a profound originality which creates a series of sayings and maxims hitherto unknown.

“’Christ expects everything from His death.  Is that the invention of a man?  On the contrary, it is a strange course of procedure, a superhuman confidence, an inexplicable reality.  In every other existence than that of Christ, what imperfections, what changes!  I defy you to cite any existence, other than that of Christ, exempt from the least vacillation, free from all such blemishes and changes.  From the first day to the last He is the same, always the same, majestic and simple, infinitely severe, and infinitely gentle.