shape, as they then willingly gave up both their senses and their reason." He then asked me, if I believed a miracle could be proved by human testimony. "Certainly," I said, " if the effect of the miracle remained, and was permanent in its nature and cognizable by the senses." He talked about the Apocalypse being a strange book, and that it had perplexed the early Christians to decide whether it was divine or not. I said, "the best people are puzzled on many subjects often without any sufficient reason; but that we now can have no difficulty, from the circumstance of some of the prophecies in it being literally fulfilled." "What prophecies in it have been fulfilled?" asked his lordship. "Those," I said, " with regard to the seven churches, which appear to have struck Gibbon himself in some degree, and those which relate to the low, oppressed, and corrupted state of the church at large, and the wars and persecutions, and bloodshed, which should arise in it. Did people," I said, " attend to these prophecies, instead of drawing an argument against Christianity from its slow progress and many corruptions, they would have seen, in the fulfilment of them, a fresh confirmation of its truth." We again reverted to the subject of St. Gerasimo, and I expressed my hope that when education was more extended, the gross superstitions of the Greek and Roman churches would cease, and we should hear no more of the miracles performed by the saints. I said that there were already signs of this improvement beginning to appear, as the Pope, who seemed to be rather a liberal kind of man, had, at the request of the governor of Malta, lately abolished fifteen festas of the minor saints. "I like his holiness very much," said his lordship, " particularly since an order, which I understand he has lately given, that no more miracles shall be performed." In allusion to the character of the Pope, I was mentioning his kindness to a friend of mine, the celebrated missionary Wolff, and in giving some anecdotes of the latter, I mentioned the names of Mr. Henry Drummond and Lord Calthorpe. "Do you know those gentlemen?" said his lordship. "No," I replied, "except by report, which points them out as eminent for their piety." " I know them both well," he said, "they were not always so; but they are excellent men. Lord Calthorpe was the first who called me an atheist when we were at school at Harrow, for which I gave him as good a drubbing as ever he got in his life." Among the many anecdotes

which his lordship told with humour and vivacity, was one which he said happened when he was in Italy. A church having taken fire, one of the saints held out his toe, and the conflagration im mediately ceased, to the great delight and edification of the multitude. His lordship's manner was cheerful, affable, and lively.

Next Sunday, M., M., M., and myself, met in S.'s house. On this occasion I wished to engage them a little more in the subject. I pointed out to them the propriety of remembering that each of the books of the New Testament was distinct and separate in itself, and that different individuals had composed them. Therefore they ought to be considered as distinct relations and testimonies, each confirming the other, and not as one testimony, as many imagine, from the circumstance of their being now always published together. The character of these authors I would leave till I had shewn the opinion of many men of great reputation on the subject of the Christian religion.

Beginning with Polycarp, the disciple of John, and Clemens of Rome, the fellow-labourer, as it is believed, of Saint Paul, I read a long train of positive evidence and testimony of the earliest Christian writers and fathers down to the time of the Emperor Constantine, after which period there could be no doubt of the full tide of testimony in favour of this religion. I pressed upon them the rank, the talents, and the integrity of many of these writers, whose abilities and testimony could be deemed inferior to the negative testimony of the most celebrated infidel writers, only by those who rejected or undervalued them. I marshalled the conflicting testimonies together, and shewed that if the question was to be decided by authority alone, that it must be in favour of the Christians, as every circumstance which could constitute evidence, or give weight to it, was unequivocally in their favour.

The Christians were men who gave a proof of the sincerity of their principles by exposing themselves to persecution, to the loss of their estates and effects, and even to death itself. Their lives were unblemished and innocent, and they were occupied in acts of forgiveness and benevolence. Their abilities were of an order as high, or even higher, than their pagan opponents, though the latter are better known to scholars, as writing on

subjects connected with philosophy, history, or poetry, than those of the Christians, whose works were all on the subject of religion.

If a strict review, indeed, is made of the talents of each party, no honest mind could long be at a loss to give a preference to the great erudition, the sound judgment, and manly eloquence of some of these writers. The amount of the whole is, that Tacitus, though acknowledged as an able historian and fine writer, did not know whether the Jews came from Mount Ida, and derived from it their name, whether they were of Ethiopic descent, and driven out from Egypt for a contagious disease, or whether Jerusalem is not mentioned by Homer under the name of Solymar. He states, apparently without doubt, that Moses, an exile, brought them from Egypt; that the people thirsting in the wilderness, and being likely to rebel, Moses had the cunning to follow some asses, who would, he knew, search out the first grass and water; and that in this way he pretended to get water by heavenly aid; that in order to retain his power and confirm his authority, he gave out that the laws which he imposed on them were given by heaven,-that they sacrificed the effigy of the ass, the animal to which they had been indebted