biographers.

I interrupted Mardon at this point by saying that it did not matter
whether Christ actually existed or not. What the four evangelists
recorded was eternally true, and the Christ-idea was true whether it
was ever incarnated or not in a being bearing His name.

"Pardon me," said Mardon, "but it does very much matter. It is all the
matter whether we are dealing with a dream or with reality. I can
dream about a man's dying on the cross in homage to what he believed,
but I would not perhaps die there myself; and when I suffer from
hesitation whether I ought to sacrifice myself for the truth, it is of
immense assistance to me to know that a greater sacrifice has been made
before me--that a greater sacrifice is possible. To know that somebody
has poetically imagined that it is possible, and has very likely been
altogether incapable of its achievement, is no help. Moreover, the
commonplaces which even the most freethinking of Unitarians seem to
consider as axiomatic, are to me far from certain, and even
unthinkable. For example, they are always talking about the
omnipotence of God. But power even of the supremest kind necessarily
implies an object--that is to say, resistance. Without an object which
resists it, it would be a blank, and what, then, is the meaning of
omnipotence? It is not that it is merely inconceivable; it is
nonsense, and so are all these abstract, illimitable, self-annihilative
attributes of which God is made up."

This negative criticism, in which Mardon greatly excelled, was all new
to me, and I had no reply to make. He had a sledge-hammer way of
expressing himself, while I, on the contrary, always required time to
bring into shape what I saw. Just then I saw nothing; I was stunned,