forward, not in a place remote from the occurrences, but at Jerusalem, in the synagogues, in the pretorium. They give in their testimony, not years afterwards, but three days afterwards, while the very storm of persecution, which had crushed Christ himself, was lowering, ready to burst upon his friends. They are tried separately, and together; and most of them are led to the gallows or the cross, without retracting a single word of their evidence. Suppose, I say, a case like this, and if you can torture it into a collusion of impostors-into a combination of perjury and fraud, examined by another combination of idiocy and senselessness, I can only tell you, that, in my opinion, you will believe in a miracle a thousand times more mysterious than the miracle of the resurrection.

I have thus endeavored to establish the credibility of that great doctrine, upon which every thing like rational Christianity will be found to hinge. Allow me, my hearers, merely to remind you again, that on this subject there are only three alternatives: either the apostles must have been deceived themselves; or, they must have completely deceived others; or, they spoke the truth. Upon which of these conclusions you will settle down, I leave to every man to decide, who has not bid a last farewell to his reason and his

senses.

It is not often, my hearers, that I interfere in public with any of the evidences of Christianity. The candid reason is, I think it too late in the day. The religion of this Book stands on too high ground to require an elaborate defence from the preacher, and a corresponding presumption of doubt in the hearers; for everybody knows that the great majority of unbelievers are entirely ignorant of the subject, and therefore to talk to them by the month together would answer just about the same purpose as not to talk to them at all. One thing, however, we shall do well to recollect. Not only does the apostle tell us that Christ was raised from the dead, but he tells us, too, that he dieth no more. The provision for our pardon, and our future welfare, has been made. The great sacrifice has been offered for sin; and to each and every one of us is extended the Divine invitation, "Come and take the waters of life freely." We may cavil; we may doubt; we may deny; but all the evidence we ever shall have, we have already. Christ will die no more, and he will rise no more. Not again will he ascend the Cross, for those who choose to reject him now; not again for their impenitence will Calvary be bathed in blood. It has once been finished; once he has bowed his head, and given up the ghost; and, believe as we may, Christianity is on the march, and Christ is on the throne; and the time is coming, whether we will or not, when the most unenviable, and comfortless, and unhappy name in all the dominions of God will be the name of Infidel!

SERMON XXVI.

"Above all things, my brethren, swear not."

James, v., 12.

The air of formality and importance in which this prohibition is habited by the apostle, is apt at first sight to awaken a feeling of surprise. Had he merely denounced profaneness in general terms, his language would have furnished its own explanation; but to forbid, above all things, a practice which, though plainly improper, does yet by no means carry along with it the enormity chargeable on many others, is a matter of some astonishment. Now, my hearers, if we look at the case in its true bearings, perhaps the subject will come down upon us with far greater solemnity than we have hitherto imagined. St. James, who wrote this epistle, ap. pears to suppose, and with much justice, that those whom he addressed were all cherishing, on one ground or another, the hope of salvation. To destroy their self-confidence, almost without seeming to do so, was, as far as we can judge, the main drift of his letter. He enumerates several things: inoperative faith; unbelieving works; a spirit of contention; neglect of prayer; pride of wealth, -as being either of them a decisive evidence of unregeneracy. But aware that upon these topics there was room for deception-aware that an individual may easily escape from any general charge which points out no single action of his own by name, the apostle goes on to present a still plainer criterion, by which every one, if guilty, might come at once to a conclusion. "Above all things," is his language, "swear not." As if he had said, However you may be deceived in other respects, one thing is certain, that an habitual indulgence in the common sin of profaneness furnishes indisputable evidence that you have no evangelical, well-grounded hope of salvation.

Since, therefore, the subject is now before us, let us, aside from every religious view of it, look upon it in some other lights. Confining ourselves to the individual alone, who is accustomed to trifle with the name of God, we may ask what possible motive-what temptation, can be thought of for a practice so directly at war with the whole scope of the Bible. If it were, that any passion pleaded for gratification; if it were, that an animal appetite should pass its wonted bounds, and seek indulgence; if it were, in short, that we aimed at any object, however worthless, or any interest, however remote-then, indeed, it might sometimes find a place upon the catalogue of our infirmities; but, contrary to all this, it seems absolutely without motive, and without end-an unprovoked violation of the law of God. There is, I know, a class of persons, especially those of feeble intellect, who appear to believe that an unusual hardihood in swearing carries along with it the evidence of intrepidity. And there is another class, who evidently aim at the exhibition of wit, and would think a repartee by no means so brisk, nor a story so well told, unless interspersed at every little interval with an oath. And there is another class, more numerous, perhaps, than all the rest together, who have no way of evincing their sincerity, except to call upon God, at convenient distances in their remarks, to damn their souls, or at least the souls of those who happen to fall within the sweep of their conversation. But surely, my hearers, it is too late in the day for mankind to be caught by flourishes so perfectly empty as these; and besides, unfortunately for the swearer, whatever imaginary laurels he may gather from his expertness, he finds himself always and entirely outdone upon the very lowest walks of society. The most debased and abandoned miscreants of every color are commonly the most forward to trample on the name of God; and the cells of a penitentiary resound with far more pithy and ingenious oaths than we can hear enlivening the merriment of the table, or larding the salutations of the coffee-house. But, irony aside, the effect which a habit of profaneness inevitably puts forth upon the mind, is, as the apostle says, above all things to be avoided. I do not mean that it implies a deviation from the path of high and honorable deportment; but this I mean, that it insensibly enfeebles our views of the Supreme Being, wears out religious impressions, and throws over the soul a callousness to its future and eternal destinies. Hence, we hear the practice often palliated, by ascribing it to the mere force of custom;-yes, a custom in which the individual hardly knows when he indulges. And who will say, that such an insensibility to habitual sin is not a state of mind deeply to be deplored? My hearers, so far from palliating, it enhances our guilt; and if there be a God on the throne of the universe, He must, and He will, punish with tenfold severity that hardihood of impenitence, which has so long indulged in sin as not even to be conscious of the perpetration.

But look at this subject in another light. What is the public tendency of profaneness? Ask the children who surround your firesides, or swarm through your streets; ask your servants and dependents, who dare not do before you what you dare do before Heaven's God; ask each other, from the highest to the lowest classes of community; ask, I say, who invented the vocabulary of oaths and curses, and I will venture to predict that not a single one can be found, who will claim the merit of originality. Each individual received the contagion from others; and certainly a more impressive commentary on the force of public example cannot be conceived. Nor is this the extent of the evil. It has a worse and a wider influence in regard to the great social