life of Jesus? It was one long, bitter struggle against the persistent, systematic persecution of one class of society. You need not believe me. You have access to the New Testament, and if that does not verify what I say I am a deliberate falsifier of history. It was not the common people that persecuted Jesus, though they did finally desert him. It was everywhere the pillars of church and state who did that. It is said that "the common people heard him gladly." It is nowhere said that the pillars of society did that. And the fate which the pillars of society visited upon John within less than twelve months from the beginning of his ministry they visited upon Jesus less than three years after. And they did it in both cases for the same reason—the one reason which is always conclusive with that class—because John and Jesus were a menace to their interests.
But some one will say: "Everything is changed now. We are living in the midst of a Christian civilization. This is the Christian era. This is a Christian government. And here is a great church overspreading the earth, founded and maintained for the sole purpose of preaching the gospel of that crucified Galilean." If any one ever says that to you, I want you to tell him nothing could be farther from the truth. There does not exist on this earth today an institution that is more distinctly or persistently hostile to all that
