implied significance and spiritual tenderness, than is ever observable among the Greeks. If English conversation seldom equals the Platonic Dialogue in dialectic precision, or in the charms of fancy, it often far surpasses even that in moral purity and moral depth.

In Egypt, Greece, and Rome the multitude were comparatively uncared for. They were used by their superiors; but the notion of duty towards them, founded on their partaking of the common human nature, was rare and uninfluential. The poor were unprovided for. Great public charities, schools for the people, hospitals for the sick, asylums for poverty and old age, the parochial system, and the general recognition of man as such, in that inward sentiment of humanity which is now largely implied in our manners, and on which our laws are largely based, belong characteristically to modern times.

The ancient historian records political events, whose causes are political; the modern historian has often to trace the causes of war and revolution further back into the mysterious recesses of man's nature.

In the Homeric poems there is a childlike echo of Nature's joyous music; evil passions are represented rather according to their calamitous effects than their essential badness. The ills of life are pathetically lamented; the domestic virtues and affections are sung with due tenderness. Yet the want of true Divine reverence renders Homer, with all his beauty and power, morally superficial. But on turning to

"Hamlet" we find ourselves in another world, with an indefinite spiritual circuit, and suggestions of mysterious hopes and fears, of infinity and eternity.

A similar contrast is presented between the Parthenon and Westminster Abbey. The one is beautiful, indeed, but it is a shallow beauty, at once understood, reaching little further than the eye. The symmetry of the other is not so plain. It was built under the sense of an Infinite Presence, and suggests both reverence and aspiration.

If the music and painting of the Greeks are lost it is not likely that they had anything which approached the region of Handel; and, to go no further, the cartoons of Raphael would in the ancient world have been in every sense an impossibility.

It appears then, that men of modern times have in their consciences, and manifest in their manners and laws, literature, and arts, a familiarity with a higher standard of morality than was generally known of old. With this they are ever, consciously or unconsciously, comparing themselves and each other; towards correspondence with this they are ever aspiring. They show acquaintance with a large region of rich morality which was hid from the ancients. There can be no doubt but that this higher moral standard was first promulgated, this new region of truth first disclosed, and the consequent moral revolution-the change from the ancient to the modern character-begun, about the time of the Christian era. Were it possible to find an

accurate observer ignorant of the cause of the revolution, and to show him only the phenomena, he would declare the commencement of it to be contemporary with the earliest Christian age. Being then acquainted with the facts which give character to that age, he would judge that they were the causes of this revolution; he would attribute the moral difference between ancient and modern times to the appearance and history of Jesus Christ.

The first teachers of Christianity effected this moral revolution. Their undertaking required inestimable power, which, however, they were conscious of possessing, and the event justified their boldness. What then was the strength with which they contended successfully with Jews, and Greeks, and Barbarians? They had received a singular impression of the excellent power and greatness and loveliness of a Person whom they had familiarly known, and whom they called the Son of God. This impression was their own strength, and they were enabled to impart it to others. This, then, is the cause which is found in the last analysis to have been essentially the power which overturned Paganism, led captive men of all nations by a mysterious and irresistible charm; it was this which dispelled their ignorance, overcame their prejudice, and founded a new and universal community of a new humanity, which was irrespective of nation, of rank, of education, of age, and even of sex.

The united force of these reasons constitutes a

very strong presumption in favour of the veracity of the Christian Scriptures. Their truthfulness is the key to the otherwise unintelligible history of mankind. Of the genuineness and authenticity of the separate books there is evidence of the same nature, but in far greater quantity, than in favour of other ancient works. For the proof of this we must refer the reader to the standard works on the subject.

The modern reader, if fair to himself, will now be prepared to study the Christian Scriptures with respect, nay, with reverent teachableness. If he studies them with this spirit, he may expect that they will prove, to him not a mere piece of curious literature, but instinct with spirit and life. No one who has tried the august experiment has failed to find that the most intimate and stringent relation is soon established between the Book and his inmost nature. When he reads the Speech said to have been addressed to the original prophet, or uttered by the Incarnate Word, its peculiar and indescribable character, its singular efficacy, produce the instinctive conviction that it is indeed Divine. The Word (777, Móyos) of God is a fire, a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces. Compared with other utterances, it is as wheat to chaff. It is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

The revealed character of God appeals to the conscience and the affections. It is its own evidence; and the reader feels both that it is perfectly original, and that to refuse it homage were to violate what is most sacred in his own nature.

As in the case of the original receivers of Revelation, so now in the case of the readers of the Record, Miracles play an important part. Although they partly rest on the trustworthiness of the documents, yet such is their inseparable connexion with the origin of the Church, and with the whole history to which they belong, and such is their otherwise unconjecturable combination of power and goodness, that their evidence is as convincing, if not as vivid, in the Record, as to the eye-witnesses.

What may be termed the continuity of conception which runs through the Books of the Bible, from the earliest to the latest, though stretching over a period of many centuries, is an evidence that its conceptions are imparted or revealed. At first they, are few and simple; their gradual development requires long ages. But once given, they are never lost; and the new which are added are congenial with the first. By this continuity the latest Revelation is identical in spirit with the earliest. There is a similar continuity observable in the investing diction. The words of the earliest documents are preserved in the latest, but with every new Revelation have made an acquisition of meaning. The organized system of Scripture diction, one, and unfolding from age to