from the tracing of such faint analogies. Spring returns not to the dead: it has no power over the winter of the grave. The vegetable world obeys its influence, and the flowers re-appear; but they that have gone down to the grave return no more. The verdure of the field is renewed, and the trees again put forth their leafy pride; but the friends of which death has deprived us, and which lie mouldering beneath their shade, escape not from the grasp of the destroyer. No; nature affords not any evidence which can console the mourner. She furnishes no satisfactory answers to our most earnest inquiries. We ask, where are the beloved of our hearts whose mortal remains we have consigned to the tomb? Does the devouring grave ingulf the whole of their being; or has that better part, the mind, escaped from the ruined mansion, and found a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens? Do they yet live for themselves, for virtue, and for us, in another and a happier region, or have we bade them an eternal adieu? Or, wrapped in the sleep of death,→ do they remain until the fulfilment of the designs for which providence instituted the ages and dispensations of this introductory being: and at whose glorious consummation, as saith the scripture, the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God?'

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Nature has no answers for such questions as these and if revelation be a fable, we are, with respect to the most momentous subjects, in utter darkness, and in the region of the shadow of death.

Yea, if Christ be not raised,' uncertainty is our portion, and sorrow our inheritance, and vanity our pursuit, and delusion our comforter: for to what do our most diligent inquiries lead, but that, 'as the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away; so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more?' But, on the contrary, if Christianity be true, then celestial light beams upon man's mind. His existence is no longer a riddle and a mystery, and man takes his place amongst the useful and the honourable creatures of God. If the Apostle's assertion, that Christ is become the first fruits of them that slept,' be true, we may naturally look for the fulfilment of the scripture representation: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.' Then, we may confidently wait for 'the end that cometh, when Christ shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule, and authority, and power; and when death himself shall have been destroyed, and God shall be all in all.

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The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is, therefore, the most important event in the、 annals of humanity; forming at once the basis of our religion, and the test of its divinity--the only firm ground of hope-the only sure pledge of our immortality.

But previously to reviewing the history of this great event as recorded by the Evangelists, I would again adduce the evidence of Tacitus,

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respecting the existence and death of Jesus. Speaking of the sufferings of the Christians during the persecution by order of the Roman emperor Nero, he says: The founder of that name was Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was put to death as a criminal by the procurator Pontius Pilate.'

Here then, we have a testimony, which cannot be suspected of having proceeded from interested motives, that establishes the facts of the existence of Jesus, and of his having been put to death, as the Evangelists assert. Tacitus, moreover, in common with the New Testament writers, speaks of the amazing influence and rapid spread of the religion of Christ: but he assigns no sufficient cause for its extraordinary power over the minds of men, and dismisses the subject, by calling it a 'pernicious superstition.' What the Roman historian neglects to do, the Evangelists accomplish. What he, without any inquiry into the merits of the case, dogmatically calumniates, they show to be the natural operation of a powerful cause, namely, the resurrection of the founder of Christianity from the dead. It is this fact which makes the conduct of the Apostles and Disciples of Jesus rational; which accounts for the wonder-working energy of a system, opposed from its infancy by the powers of darkness in high and secret places; and against which, the authority, the prejudices, the force, the riches, and the interests of the world, were arrayed in deadly contention.

But having premised thus much with respect to a remarkable heathen testimony, concerning the execution of Jesus, I would proceed to make a few

comments upon the Evangelists' account of the circumstances that took place subsequently to this event, until the day in which he was taken up;' and to attempt a reply to certain objections alleged against it by the unbeliever.

No sooner had the malice of our Lord's enemies accomplished his destruction, and his body had been laid in Joseph's tomb, than the chief priests and pharisees apply to Pilate, saying, 'Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, after three days I will rise again. Com mand therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples.come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, he is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, ye have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure,, sealing the stone, and setting a watch.'

Here, let us observe, first, that the men who were most desirous of the death of Jesus, and most interested in his destruction, were satisfied that their cruel purpose had been accomplished.

Among the various modes of attack upon Christianity, is that of denying that Jesus died by the crucifixion he underwent. The unbeliever has advanced many plausible arguments tending to show, that what both the enemies and the friends of our Lord deemed to be an utter extinction of life, was merely a case of suspended animation: that, in this insensible state, the body of Jesus was taken down from the cross and laid in Joseph's tomb; and that, after having, in some inexplicable man

ner, revived, and disengaged himself from the habiliments of the dead, our Lord effected his escape from his dreary prison. The unbeliever supposes, moreover, that our Lord remained in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem until the wounds that had been occasioned by his crucifixion were healed; 'sometimes appearing in one dress, sometimes in another, to avoid the notice of his enemies:' that as Jesus appeared to his disciples, only in these disguises, and at intervals, they were deluded into the belief, that his predicted resurrection from the dead had taken place; and that when he finally took leave of them, and retired into Galilee, his disciples conceived that he had. ascended into heaven.

Such is the hypothesis gravely put forth, in order to account for the re-appearance of Jesus after his crucifixion. And, for the purpose of strengthening the argument, it is shown that, though crucifixion is a cruel, it is, nevertheless, a lingering, death: and the histories of similar inhuman punishments are quoted, in order to prove, that certain unhappy criminals have suffered more severely than Jesus suffered; and were suspended in torment longer than he was suspended, before nature sunk exhausted in death; and that, therefore, when Christ bowed the head, and, as it is said, gave up the ghost, this could not be an infallible proof of the total extinction of the vital spark.' These, and similar arguments, are brought forward to show that Jesus was not actually put

*New Trial of the Witnesses.