without some slight variation in its shades. ldentity would imply that it had been "learned and conned by rote."

The investigator of the christian evidences will find in the Gospel depositions no studied uniformity, and no discrepancy incompatible with their common verity. The eight witnesses to the New Testament manifestly wrote without concert; they have no artificial sameness of style, narrative, or doctrine. Their ostensible disagreements are often startling to the superficial observer, and have furnished some of the most formidable weapons ever wielded by infidelity against the faith of the cross. Such impediments to prompt belief would not have been infused into their writings by an adroit band of fraudulent conspirators. But the occasional semblance of inconsistency in the sacred witnesses has been explained by the labors of pious criticism; and the harmony of the Gospel is now as clearly demonstrated as the harmony of the spheres.

CHAPTER XI.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

Writers of Gospel had no motive to deceive-Not moved by revenge-Or prejudice-Or hope of temporal emolument-Or desire to gain fame by tales of wonder-Incurred by their testimony certain obloquy, privations and sufferings, and probable torture and martyrdom-Conditions of discipleship foretold from beginning-Martyrdom, though not always proving orthodoxy, proves sincerity of victims.

IT is in the detection of motive that the science of juridical evidence displays its utmost prowess. When in a court of justice, testimony is loaded with intrinsic improbability, and when the facts utterly exclude the supposition of unintentional mistake or mental hallucination, so that the triers have no alternative but to believe the witness true, or else to believe him perjured; then it is that the juridical science of evidence comes to their aid and enables them to solve the problem of innocence or guilt with almost infallible certainty by probing “the thoughts and intents of the heart." Has any sinister motive led the witness astray? Was he stimulated by revenge or prejudice?

Was he beguiled by the

hope of gain, direct or consequential? Was he urged onward by ambitious promptings? Was his astonishing testimony induced by the thirst of distinction?

These are inquiries to which the minds of the startled triers will anxiously address themselves. And if the circumstances of the case, evolved, perhaps, by the pressing machinery of questioning and cross-questioning, return to each of these inquiries a negative response, full and clear as the solar rays; and if furthermore it should appear beyond peradventure that the witness by testifying incurred inevitable obloquy, privations and suffering, and imminent jeopardy of imprisonment, torture and martyrdom, the triers could not, becanse he testified to facts new and strange to their limited experience, pronounce him guilty of perjury, without violating their own official oaths which bind them to decide according to the evidence. The difficulty of disbelieving the testimony would be immeasurably enhanced if it should be confirmed by seven other independent witnesses testifying, like the first, without liability to impeachment of motive, and like him, incurring by the very act of their asseveration sure obloquy, privations, and suffering, and probable imprisonment, torture, and martyrdom.

Let the tests of motive, so efficient in the juridical science of evidence, be invoked into the christian service, and applied in all their power to the eight evangelical witnesses.

First. The writers of the Gospel were not instigated by revenge or prejudice; nor were they moved by the hope of temporal gain. At the time of their conversion, the peasants of Judea were strangers to the heathen world. Neither against polytheism, nor the faith of their mother-land, had they any vengeance to wreak. To the Mosaic institutions and the traditions of the elders, they were attached by the ardent prepossessions of childhood. Paul was "a pharisee, the son of a pharisee," brought up at the feet of Gamaliel.

Nor were the evangelical witnesses beguiled by the expectation of temporal emolument. They had plighted their allegiance to a King whose natal palace was a stable, whose throne was a cross, whose crown was of thorns, who declared of himself "My kingdom is not of this world," and whose only resting-place on earth was a stranger's grave. What temporal gain could they expect from following an indigent Preacher of righteousness, who, in this vast globe, had not " where to lay his head ?"

The apostles themselves lived and died in abject poverty, meekly and contentedly working with their own hands.

Secondly. The writers of the Gospel were not stimulated by a thirst of worldly renown. It is true that the love of fame is an active passion of the human soul. For the love of fame the poet has sung, the philosopher toiled, the warrior dared the utmost perils of "the imminent deadly breach." But the evangelical witnesses knew from the beginning that their earthly portion would be obloquy, enduring as life. How could the disciples hope to escape those poisoned calumnies which had encompassed their Lord from the waves of Jordan to the tomb of Joseph ?

The apostles have, indeed, succeeded to an inheritance of posthumous renown immeasurably surpassing that of any martial conqueror. But conscious impostors could not have anticipated such a consummation. The disciples had beheld their Master betrayed and arrested; they had deserted him and fled; hovering round the summit of Calvary they had seen him crucified between two thieves. Nothing but his resurrection could have resuscitated the hopes of his discomfited followers.