itself, could ever induce one of them to reveal the plot. What unparalleled intrepidity, and what attachment to a false Saviour, are manifest in the language of Paul :— "For I am persuaded that neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers; nor things present, nor things to come; nor height, nor depth; nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." And again, he declares, "Christ shall be magnified in my body whether it be by life or by death." Such we might casily show to be the spirit of all the apostles.

Now, if the apostles were deceivers, what a MIRACLE was their manner of life! A MIRACLE, far greater, and much harder to be believed, than the resurrection of a score of men from the dead. Yes; on the hypothesis that the resurrection of Christ was a falsehood, the phenomena of Christianity, as it exists at this day, must be pronounced by all unprejudiced minds, a greater miracle than the resurrection itself.

But why should it be thought a thing incredible that God should raise the dead? Could not He whose universo is full of miracles, presenting their evidence with a forco that the infidel cannot resist, who created the fist pair of all animal life, could not He raise Jesus Christ up from the dead? We confess we are satisfied with the evidence. Our faith could be no stronger, had we actually beheld the crucified Saviour issuing from his death-shroud, or with Thomas, put our hand into the wound of his side, and cur finger into the nail prints of his hands. No additional evidence could make us more willing to risk all our eternal

interests upon the reality of the great MIRACLE OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION.

One more question remains to be considered. Have we, in the New Testament, an uncorrupt account of the origin of Christianity, or are not the miracles interpolations, unnecessary to make out the history?

We reply, first:-If the resurrection of Christ is an interpolation, then the grand climax of the story, recorded in the New Testament, is an interpolation. No German blade can be found sufficiently thin to pass between Christianity and the Resurrection. Christ crucified and raised from the dead, is the hero of that volume. As well might we suppose Achilles to be an interpolation in Homer, Æneas to be an interpolation in Virgil, or a victorious Washington an interpolation in the history of the United States. The resurrection of Christ could not have been added by some subsequent hand to the New Testament, without changing the whole frame-work of the history.

The fact that the resurrection, and all the other miracles, are found in all the ancient manuscripts and translations of the New Testament, shows, most conclusively, that they could not have been added subsequent to the day when its authors wrote. The Syriac, the Armenian, the Ethiopic, the Coptic, translated at a very early period, before men could have had any motive for making such interpolations, are precisely like our own version.

The united testimony of the Christian sects, who made the resurrection of Christ the foundation of their religion, though they disputed warmly on other points, utterly preclude the idea of any interpolation respecting the death and resurrection of the Saviour.

The apostles also made the resurrection the foundation of Christianity, and this idea is so woven into all the epistles, that it could not have been subsequently introduced, without writing new epistles, and making them essentially different from the original ones. Ancient books may be, and have been, greatly mutilated, but never by the insertion of a hero and a leading idea, around which every other idea is made to cluster.

Our discussion brings us to the following remarks:

1. The miracle of the resurrection of Christ, confirms as truth, all other miracles, both of the Old and New Testaments. These books are so connected as to form one system, and if one of its miracles be true then all are true. This is so apparent as to require no proof.

2. The miracles confirm the fact of Christ's Divine mission. No one could have done the mighty works he did, unless God had been with him. If the miracles of the earth, and of man's creation, prove the Divinity of their author, then, by the same rule, those wrought by the Saviour prove his Divine mission.

cause.

3. A book having the sanction of miracles must be true, as none but the God of truth could have been their efficient An evil spirit might as well have created a world, and peopled it with human beings, as to have wrought a miracle like those performed by the Saviour. The Bible affords no evidence that supernatural events ever took place through the direct agency of the devil.

Once admit the idea that the enchantments of ancient magicians and witches were real, and then, for aught we could know, the devil might have been the Creator of this world, and Christ might, indeed, as he was accused by

the Jews, have performed his mighty works through the agency of Beelzebub. But the perfect harmony of nature, proves its author to be a Being of truth, and none but He can break in upon that harmony, by causing miracles to be wrought, and when he does break in upon that harmony, he still remains the same Being of truth, since he does so for special purpo333, for which he ever assigns his reasons. We are therefore, brought to the conclusion that the miracles wrought by Christ, prove him to be a teacher sent from God.

LECTURE XI.

THE MESSIAH AS A TEACHER.

NEVER MAN SPAKE LIKE THIS MAN.-John 7; 46.

Three great teachers, whose characters, somewhat resemble each other, have made their appearance in this world-Moses, Socrates and Jesus Christ. The former two were true representatives of the systems under which they lived. They were the highest types of humanity that could have been developed by the influences that surrounded them.

Moses was favored with a revelation from God, though given, it is true, in the midst of clouds and darkness; and Socrates appears to have gone to the utmost limits of unaided reason, in his discoveries of moral truth. Perhaps it may be said of him that he felt after God and found him. Jesus Christ came not as a developement of any system, but he appeared as a perfect ORIGINAL. His like, as a

moral teacher, had never previously existed.

All three of these teachers were far in advance of the ages in which they lived. Moses often incurred the displeasure of the Jews, and nothing short of Divine interposition saved him from their murderous resentment; Socra tes was poisoned; and Jesus was crucified.