satisfied even the rigor of the Mosaic institution. The Gospel has benignly afforded to the feeble faith. of mortals the benefit of eight original and concurring witnesses. This feature in its authentication should be profoundly estimated by the honest student of the christian proofs. Who, sitting in the seat of a juryman, would gratuitously take upon himself the responsibility of discrediting eight concurring and uncontradicted witnesses, swearing positively to things which their own eyes had seen. or their own ears heard?

Man would be an isolated and miserable being if he could repose no confidence in testimony, judicial and extrajudicial. Faith in human testimony is the solace of life, the cement of commerce, the gravitating principle which binds together the moral elements of the world. Burst it asunder and substitute in its stead the distrust of each in the asseverations of all, and our race must relapse into the original chaos from whence it was redeemed by the consolidations of society. The light of day might as well be extinguished as faith in human testimony. Universal darkness would not be more appalling than the universal domination of heartless, cheerless skepticism.

CHAPTER X.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

Writers of Gospel not deceivers-Truth has a manner of its ownDirectness, simplicity, and ingenuousness of evangelical witnesses -Examples of their candor-Pureness of their moral character -Proved by their writings-By history-By the confessions of infidels—Had not primitive christians been of pure character, new faith would not have outlived its Founder-Writers of Gospel consistent in narratives, doctrines, and precepts, without studied uniformity.

HAVING shown in the last chapter, that the writers of the Gospel could not have been innocently deceived in the christian miracles, we now proceed to show that they were not wilful deceivers. For this object we shall, as in the last chapter, resort to those juridical balances, whose accuracy in weighing testimony has been tested by the experience of ages. It it be true that sometimes "the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light,"* and if it be also true that the judicial generations have from the beginning lived and moved, and had their being in cultivating and

*Luke xvi. 8.

perfecting the science of evidence, let "the children of light" deign to receive, in this particular department, some practical lessons from "the children of this world."

First.-When witnesses, in a secular court, testify to improbable events, the triers steadfastly mark their manner as a criterion of their honesty. Truth has a manner of its own, not easy to be described, but instinctively felt. Successfully to counterfeit the truthful manner, is scarcely within the compass of human art. It is, indeed, declared that sometimes "Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." But the transformation requires all the adroitness of the arch-fiend. A work of fiction, though drawn by the ablest of pens, may be distinguished by the critical and experienced from a narrative of facts. Paintings, however perfect, are not nature. The Grecian pencil beguiled birds; it aspired not to beguile sagacious men.

Let the student of the christian evidences scrutinize profoundly the manner of the sacred depositions. Among the prominent badges of the truthful manner, are directness, simplicity, and ingenuousness. These badges are engraved on every page of the Gospel testimonials. Take, for in

stance, the four histories of our Lord. The tale of the lisping child, to whom deceit is a stranger even in name, is not more direct, simple, and ingenuous, than the narratives of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They bear intrinsic marks of being the impersonation of verity;-not its semblance chiselled out by the artist, but its original, breathing, speaking reality. If they are fabulous, the unlettered Galileans possessed a power of counterfeiting truth unequalled in the annals of the human mind.

Take, as another example, the defences of Paul before the Roman governors. What was it which made Felix tremble in the presence of his helpless prisoner? What was it that drew forth the exclamation from Festus, "Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad?" What was it that almost persuaded Agrippa to be a christian? Fiction never developed such scenes; none such are portrayed in the pages of poetic lore. Paul was a friendless stranger; humble, penniless, despised, chained. Yet truth had nerved his heart with her potency; clothed him in her simple, majestic robes; imparted to him her own peculiar, ineffable, overpowering, godlike manner. No wonder that the licentious Felix trembled; that the haughty

king was shaken; that the infidel Festus thought the speaker mad. The best antidote against unbelief is the study of the evangelical depositions. Had Rousseau read them with candor and humility, he might have been healed of his morbid skepticism. "Search the Scriptures," is the counsel of him who spoke as never man spoke. It was the prescription for the heart by the great Physician who made it, and knew all its maladies and their

cures.

Artlessness is the garb of truth. Fiction, if it would pass for verity, must counterfeit that garb. Nor could the disguise be long concealed. Between the simulated and the natural, the discerning eye will soon discover the distinction. Nothing can surpass in genuine artlessness the evangelical writers. They employed no stratagem to gain credence. The thought of being disbelieved seems not to have entered their simple imaginations. Overwhelmed themselves by the absorbing truth of their story, they dreamed not that its fidelity would be questioned. They rehearsed astounding miracles without any expression of astonishment or effort to excite astonishment in others. They recounted the signs and wonders as the known and acknowledged prodigies of the new religion, with