interest unless miracles had been interwoven with it. But that is all a mistake; for the ruling class among the Jews, the wealthy class, and the most educated class, were the Sadducees; and they surely did not believe in miracle, nor spirit, nor the resurrection. John the Baptist was the great teacher, and had the greatest following that the Jews had ever known. John the Baptist wrought no miracles. Why did he not work miracles, if miracles were natural and necessarily attributed to every great Jewish teacher? There was enough of the critical spirit to distinguish between superstition and reality, and to scrutinize the evidence. upon which these narratives of our Saviour's life rested. We have reason to believe that such scrutiny was exercised, and that these narratives were accepted because they conform to the testimony of witnesses who were yet living at the time the Gospels were written.

All we need to do is to compare this vivid, this bright, this healthy, this exceedingly vigorous, and yet this exceedingly calm and clear narrative of the Saviour's life, with the medieval stories of miracles, or the stories of miracles in the Apocryphal New Testament; and we find that we are in an entirely different atmosphere. In Mark the miracles are natural and necessary to the presence of him who is the greatest miracle, who is in himself the incarnate Son of God. If Jesus Christ, God made flesh, did not signalize his coming by a miracle, that would itself, we might say, be the greatest of miracles. If Jesus, the Son of God, became incarnate, then miracles were the natural and necessary accompaniment of his incarnation; and so

we claim that this Gospel of Mark needs only to be read and studied to assure him who reads and studies it that this narrative is a perfectly credible narrative of historical facts.

The argument for miracles in general, of course, does not belong to my present purpose. I have only aimed thus far to show you that the Gospel according to Mark is unique and peculiar in its character; that it sets forth Jesus Christ in his aspect of the Wonderworker; that it sets forth Jesus Christ so naturally, so simply, with so many indications of the testimony of an eye-witness, so many things that could not possibly have been forged, or merely imagined, that we have in this Gospel one of the very best testimonies that Jesus Christ lived and that he wrought the wonders that were attributed to him.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

THE Gospel according to Matthew is the Gospel of rejection and sacrifice. The Gospel according to Mark is an exhibition of the wonder-working power of the Son of God. The Gospel according to Luke, which we take up to-day, is the Gospel of humanity, the Gospel that brings before us most vividly the human life of our Redeemer, that brings him most intimately into contact with our human wants and sorrows. The Gospel according to John, which concludes the four, is the Gospel of the divinity, as the Gospel according to Luke is the Gospel of the humanity, of Christ. So we have a complete cycle, a perfect whole, in these four Gospels with which the New Testament begins.

Luke is probably a contraction for the longer name Lucanus, just as Apollos is a contraction for the longer Latin name Apollonius. Luke was probably not a Jew; for in the Epistle to the Colossians, where Paul mentions those who are of the circumcision, Luke's name is not mentioned; but his name is mentioned among others who follow, and who are apparently all Gentiles, or of Gentile origin. Tradition says that he was born at Antioch, that gathering-place of the nations, far to the north of Palestine.

The Gospel is dedicated to Theophilus, just as the Acts, written also by Luke, is dedicated to Theophilus; and to him in the dedication is applied the very peculiar epithet, "Most excellent Theophilus." That

word is applied also by Claudius Lysias, and by Tertullian, to Felix, and by Paul to Festus, both of them governors of Judea, and apparently it is used very much as we should use the words, " Your Excellency." Theophilus appears, therefore, to have been a man not only of official position, but of note and wealth; and the Gospel of Luke, and the Acts alike, are dedicated to him perhaps in token of respect, perhaps as the patronus libri, or patron of the book, who aids in its publication, who gives to it a certain measure of dignity and currency through his sanction and recommendation.

Tradition says that this Theophilus was himself a resident of Antioch, and that Luke was his freedman; and as in those days slaves often were more educated than their masters and pursued employments of great respectability, so it is quite possible that Luke was an educated physician while yet he was a slave, and that after a time, possibly on account of the Christian relations between Theophilus, his master, and himself, he became the freedman of Theophilus. This Gospel may have been dedicated to the master who had set him free, as a token of gratitude for the boon he had received at his hands; and yet, after all this is said, we must also say that it rests upon precarious tradition, and not the very greatest weight is to be attached to it.

Historically the first thing we know with regard to Luke is that he is the companion of Paul in Paul's journey beginning at Troas. Lightfoot, a very sagacious commentator and a very learned man, suggests that this first appearance of Luke in company with Paul almost exactly synchronizes with the attack of Paul's

constitutional malady, which Lightfoot believes to have been epilepsy; and he suggests that Luke may have accompanied Paul, partly in his professional capacity, in order to be caring for the health of the apostle.

You remember that scene in which the man of Macedonia appears in a dream to Paul and cries, “Come over and help us "; and you remember the response which is evoked. The apostle Paul goes over to Europe, and the transition is made from missionary work in Asia to missionary work in Europe. Luke goes with Paul to Philippi; and there at Philippi he seems to remain. Notice now how exceedingly meager the actual material is for building up even this story. It all rests upon the use of the word "we" in place of the word "they," when Paul comes. In all Paul's journeys up to Troas, Luke, in the Acts, uses the word they" did so and so; but from Troas we find that he uses the word "we"; and that word "we" he uses until Paul comes to Philippi and departs from Philippi. Then for seven years of Paul's history Luke does not appear to have been with Paul; but when Paul comes back to Philippi again, where Luke may have been left as pastor of the church for the instruction of converts, we find that the word "we" is used again. Luke seems to have accompanied Paul to Asia, i. e., to Asia Minor, and then back again to Palestine; and at last Luke goes with Paul to Rome, and continues with Paul to the end of the history.

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they "

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Curious, is it not, that, although Luke is the writer of the Acts and was the companion of Paul, he mentions his own name not even once? The only clue we have to his being Paul's companion and a sharer in