true, and as no other account of the rise and progress of Christianity is in being, do they not prefer a strong claim to be considered trust-worthy, and can we justifiably supersede them, without doing an injury to the authority of history in general?

Then open any one of the Gospel historians, and peruse the narrative. If you have an impartial and a practised eye, you cannot fail to discern numerous and indubitable tokens of reality. Perhaps your mind, from its associations, is rather struck and offended with modes of thought, and forms of speech, that are alien from modern usage. But reflect a moment. Is not this very objection a proof of the antiquity of the writing? The book is alleged to be nearly two thousand years old, and to have been produced by a Jew, an unlearned Jew, who professes to narrate the public history of a Jewish peasant. What, under these circumstances, is it natural you should find, but many things clothed in a foreign dress, and even things'hard to be understood'? Of course, the age in which Jesus appeared-as every age-had its peculiar phraseology, its manner of seeing human duties and relations, its rationale of disease, its philosophy, and its errors. It was not these things which Jesus came to correct, but to pour a new stream of moral and spiritual life into the heart of the world. And in the execution of his work, he could do no other than employ the current moulds into which thought and speech had run. Opposition enough-opposition that ended in his death he called forth by his moral efforts; had he also attempted to correct every mistake of a popular philosophy, and 'run a tilt' at every erroneous word he encountered, he would effectually have barred himself out from the minds of his countrymen, and even failed to have his language and his purpose comprehended. He took, as he was compelled to do, existing phraseology as he found it, and based thereon the instructions which were the foundation of his kingdom, and the principles of a great social and moral reform. In this he did no more

than every teacher of new doctrines must do. Our own language is full of the relics of an exploded philosophy. We still speak of the rising and the setting of the sun. We still use words which imply that madness is caused by the moon, or the influence of the souls of the departed in the bodies of the living; Lunacy' implies the one, 'Maniac' the other. The errors are gone, the phraseology remains; and perhaps some two thousands years hence, should all our literature have perished but some three or four brief histories, and some dozen letters, there may arise men who will maintain that we were ignorant of Astronomy, and visionaries respecting the origin of mental disorder. Nay, should--which is not very probable-but should the sole surviving books be some from the pen of Mr. Owen, a skilful critic would easily be able to show, from his very language, that he labored under the grossest errors. For instance, he is very much given to make against his countrymen the charge of hypocrisy. All who differ from him are hypocrites. Now, in its original signification, this word hypocrite denotes a player. So that the learned doubters of two thousand years hence will bring against him the charge of representing a whole nation as consisting of actors: and those-if any-who undertake his defence, may gravely adduce in his justification the authority of Shakespeare, who declares in express terms,

-All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.'

Or in your perusal of the history, you may feel revolted at the accounts of miracles with which you meet, and throw the book at once aside, as unworthy of your notice. But do not be satisfied with a first view. Go a little beyond the surface. Look into the details, and the character of these miracles. I am mistaken if you will not find in both reasons for hesitation. Here, too, there are difficulties; but the accounts, setting aside for a moment, their miraculous nature, bear the impress

of reality, in the naturalness and the minuteness of the circumstances, as well as their general accordance with the character and circumstances of the distinguished personage who is represented as performing them. If ever a course of action bore the form and pressure of benevolence, it is the conduct of Jesus Christ in his miraculous deeds; and the true philanthropist, so far from being averse to the exercise of this divine love, could only wish that similar individual disorders in the present age should be met by remedies of the same efficacy.

But there is an historical fact for which we have to give a reason. The Christian religion, promulgated in a remote and despised corner of the world, under the auspices of a few Jewish peasants, though resisted unto death by the authorities of the land, and abandoned for a time even by its own partizans, made its way, before its founder had been dead more than half a century, into the most civilized cities of the world, shook the temple of a once omnipotent superstition to its base, awakened the anger of a predominant philosophy, stood in the arena as a competitor for universal empire, and ere long took its seat on the throne of the Cæsars. Look at the meanness of its origin, the impotence of its instruments, and the rapidity and grandeur of its triumphs; look at the array of powers which were set to crush it; and then say, if, in the calmness of your mind, you can account for its prevalence in the first ages, apart from the admission of miraculous assistance. You are a philosopher, and know that every effect requires an adequate cause. plain this effect, without the supposition of supernatural agency. To do so, history, experience, the principles of human nature, afford you no competent aid; and where the learning, power of intellect, and covert malice of a Gibbon have failed, you may well find it impossible to adduce any reasons which, though designed to set aside the influence of miracle, shall not carry the reflecting

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mind back to it as the cause of your alleged, but insufficient causes.

With these explanations, I am content to put the question of the truth of the Evangelical narratives to the decision of any man of ordinary cultivation. The stamp of reality he would feel to be on every page. Most of the scenes, he would be satisfied, must have occurred. The picture is a transcript of actual life. The men and women of the Gospels; the junctures in which they are placed; the sentiments they utter; the feelings they experience or express; the incidental touches of nature which not seldom present themselves; the congruity of the language employed with the peculiar circumstances of the individuals,-circumstances regarding their age, their rank, their condition, their country,-these and similar things give the mind an assurance that it is a real history we are perusing, or rather permit not a suspicion to enter the mind of its being a fiction. It is no difficult thing for even an ordinary reader to distinguish between the features of reality, and those of invention; and the readiness with which the narratives of the New Testament enter the mind, and wind themselves round the heart of the sound-headed people of England, and especially the eagerness with which childhood receives them as true histories, and the sensibilities which many of the narratives awaken in their bosoms, are satisfactory assurances that the events spoken of really happened, and that the persons once appeared on the stage of actual life. Believing, as I do, that these features of reality occur in every page, I should find no difficulty in presenting several instances to your notice, but time compels me to be satisfied with requesting your attention to the account found in the 9th chapter of John's history, of the restoration to sight of the man born blind, an account which, to my mind, is fraught with a real human interest, and bears, in every part, evidences of its truth. Indeed, I can hardly think any impartial judge will deny, that the feelings which he finds recorded

in the histories are, in the main, human feelings, the feelings of men and women like ourselves. Restore the circumstances, and he same emotions would again be experienced, and in substance the same language employed. Love, grief, and pity are as universal in their expression, as they are in their prevalence. There is no mistaking them wherever the realities themselves are found; and it is equally true, that to imitate their language, or describe their workings, is an effort of art which is rarely, if ever, attained in perfection. Look on the histories of Christ, and you feel at once that you have to do with a real chapter in human history, and not with an effort of the imagination.

It is a peculiarity of these books, for which the Christian ought to be grateful, that they are not a treatise, not a code of laws, but a series of human pictures, a transcript of actual life, a theatre of action, a leaf out of the book of man's destiny. They thus carry with them their own evidence; they make an irresistible appeal to our minds and hearts, to kindred thoughts and sympathies within ourselves; thoughts and sympathies which we have actually experienced, or which we know that in like circumstances we should experience. Thus the authority of the Christian Scriptures is the authority of human nature over human nature, the control of mind on mind, and heart on heart. And, except the natural emotions of our breasts are turned awry by prejudice, or polluted by iniquity, I must think it difficult for us to study these sketches, which are all over full of humanity, without feeling that our minds are in the midst of actual scenes, and conversing with real human beings.

Pre-eminently does this appear to me to be the case in regard to Jesus Christ. I know that he is represented in these books as surrounded by a brighter and holier light than that of earth. I know also that the virtues indirectly ascribed to him are superior in degree to those known to have been possessed by any other mortal. Still, humanity appears in deep and indelible lines in the