Christ could have saved

his faith wavered when he saw Him, whose Divinity he was just beginning to realize, refuse to give the proof which might at once have annihilated His enemies. The sight of His Lord's humiliation destroyed the last remaining element of courage, and he fell. him, and yet He did not. And so it is still. There are those who, like the Jew, seek "a sign from Heaven," and because God refuses to give it, plunge into unbelief. Perhaps the temptation is common to all keen-thinking minds. One more proof, one more miracle, one more unmistakable and personal testimony, we are apt to say, and then our doubts will be at rest! And God, who has already heaped miracle upon miracle, and testimony upon testimony, hides Himself from our cry, and because He does not answer, the weakness of our faith whispers to us that He cannot.

But if there is one fact more strongly evidenced than another to those who watch the dealings of God with man, as made known to us both by Revelation and by the ordinary workings of His Providence, it is that there are certain general laws of reason and experience, by the observance of which all truth must be obtained, and all right principles of action discovered; and that God will not in His Almighty wisdom vouchsafe to us any other. It may be,-it would seem to be,-that a departure from these laws is inconsistent with our condition of probation; and it is certain that if they were departed from, the concession to our weakness would

be useless. "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." If we are only to be convinced by personal evidence, we require a personal miracle; and should the miracle be vouchsafed, it would affect only those who beheld it. If granted to others, it would soon cease to be a miracle, for it would become to us part of the ordinary course of nature.

Reason, from its universality, is, therefore, a much stronger guarantee of truth than any miracle can be; and the force of the early miracles lies not in the fact of their being miracles, but in their reasonableness. A Divine revelation required a Divine testimony; it was reasonable to expeet it. Therefore, miracles were granted at the beginning. But as soon as the new revelation was established and recognized as Divine, the instrument for its transmission was reason, working through those general principles of historical evidence which are applicable to all ages. This does not do away with the collateral, and what may be termed the metaphysical evidence to the truth of Christianity. But such evidence cannot be the general foundation of intellectual belief, because it depends upon the peculiar theories and the moral constitution of each individual; and no man could rest his hopes of salvation upon a proof which, though accepted by one man, could be reasonably denied by another. God's witness is fact: Christianity is a fact. Let those who deny its divinity begin by first disproving

its origin. If it is not true, from whence did it arise?

Well will it be for all to remember that, granting the truth of Christianity, the question by which its rejectors will be judged at the Last Great Day will be, not whether they had all the evidence which they thought necessary to convince them of the divinity of the Revelation, but whether they accepted the truth of its facts upon that amount of reasonable evidence on which they received the ordinary witness of history. St. Peter was pardoned when his faith grew weak, for the full testimony to his Lord's divinity had not yet been given; but there will be no pardon for us.

PREJUDICE.

ST. LUKE, Xxii. 66—71.

"And as soon as it was day, the elders of the people and the chief priests and the scribes came together, and led Him into their council, saying, Art Thou the Christ? tell us. And He said unto them, If I tell you, ye will not believe: and if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go. Hereafter shall the Son of Man sit on the right hand of the power of God. Then said they all, Art Thou then the Son of God? And He said unto them, Ye say that I am. And they said, What need we any further witness? for we ourselves have heard of His own mouth."

HERE again is an illustration of the natural working of the human heart; something like thought and compunction arising as the dark excitement of night passes away, and the cold grey dawn of morning casts a chill over the passions as well as over the bodily frame. The difference between the view of events taken at night and that taken in the daytime is known and acknowledged universally; and every one who has experienced the effect of the early morning, must remember the dreariness which then creeps ever the heart, either in deep sorrow, or after strongly-awakened feelings;-the sudden pause and questioning which the dull, faint light seems to force upon us ;-the doubt how our

actions or our plans will be regarded by others ;how we shall ourselves view them when looking back from amidst the business and pleasures of life. Without night one might almost imagine there would be no overwhelming energy either for good or evil. Without the cold dawn, no warning of prudence, no bitterness of repentance.

And so it seems that the chief priests and scribes, startled by the contrast between the vehemence of their passionate indignation against our Blessed Lord, and the coldness of that first awakening of nature, were induced to pause in their course, and, leading Him into the council, to ask, as though anxious to find some cause for relenting, "Art Thou the Christ? tell us."

The answer was clear; the warning which accompanied it most awful; but their long-indulged enmity was too strong for the feeble visitings of compunction; and the very words which should have terrified them to their salvation, were turned to the furtherance of their guilty schemes. "Hereafter," said Christ, "shall the Son of Man sit on the right hand of the power of God." In this declaration was contained a fresh cause for fear. The Christ was in their eyes a temporal prince; but Jesus spoke of Himself as far greater. Partly in terror, as it would appear, partly in anger, they all exclaimed, "Art Thou then the Son of God?" And when the reply left no doubt, with the madness of determined guilt, acting the more fiercely because its course had for a moment been arrested,