one another's faces bewildered; the judge on the bench would refuse to believe his eyes and ears. After a few moments' silence, he might well dismiss the court with this single injunction: "Gentlemen, you are discharged; the mission of all civil courts on earth is ended." We ingist, therefore, that the magnificent weight of this testimony from the lips and pens of truthful and intelligent eye-witnesses, confirmed by enemies, confirmed by monumental rites, confirmed by civil and religious observances, confirmed by contemporaneous history, confirmed by coordinate transactions, which took place in different parts of the Roman empire, is matched by no evidence which has ever yet been adduced in support of any other fact, or any other grouping of facts, found recorded in human history.

Such, my hearers, is the chain of evidence as yet unbroken by ancient or modern sceptics, which the Christian Church presents to the world in support of the certainty of Christ's miracles.

THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST ARE POSSIBLE.

The first step in this argument is, that Christ's miracles are probable if they are possible. The second step is, that Christ's miracles are certain if they are possible. The position now reached is the third step in the ascending stairway, a position upon which all that has preceded is left to stand or fall,-and is this: the miracles of Christ are possible.

Whether miracles are violations of the laws of nature, as is claimed by not a few writers upon this subject, or whether they are only violations of the recognized order of nature, as is claimed by several noted theologians, are questions relatively unimportant; they are technical rather than vital; they are questions never raised by our Lord or His disciples.

That which one is called upon to establish in this dis

cussion is not, therefore, a satisfactory definition of miracles, but the presentation of evidence that certain deeds which have been called miracles-those of absolute control, as when at the word of Christ the sea became as a pavement and the tempest as a child of obedience; or those of creative power, as when, at the word of Christ, five thousand men, besides women and children, without visible. supply, were abundantly fed; or those of healing the sick and of raising the dead-were actually wrought by our Lord. The point of vital issue is this: If these deeds can be shown to be possible, then the question whether or not they are miracles, and the question whether or not miracles are possible, will take care of themselves.

We may be a little more explicit, applying this thought to the Old as well as to the New Testament miracles: If one can prove beyond a doubt that the waters of the Red Sea were so parted as to make a wall on the right hand and on the left, and that the parting and water-walls were such that the Israelites could pass over the sea-bed dryshod; or if one can prove beyond question that the whole celestial machinery was arrested for nearly a day, so that there was no day like that before it or after it; or if one can prove that Elijah called down fire from heaven, and that the water in the trenches about the altar burst out in flames and burned dry; or if one can prove with perfect clearness that Jesus was dead, that He lay dead in His grave until the third day after His interment, that He afterward willed Himself to life and with a mutilated body walked among His disciples for forty days; then, we repeat, despite any number of philosophic definitions, common sense will be perfectly satisfied that miracles are possible and that miracles have been wrought.

The attitude of the believer and of the unbeliever toward each other can now very easily be stated.

Says the man of faith: "I believe the miracles of the

Bible because of their character, and because they are well authenticated by testimony and monuments."

But the objector replies: "I do not believe those miracles because, by universal admission, they are 'violations of fixed laws,' or they are 'effects contrary to the established constitution of things,' and are, therefore, impossible and incredible."

The man of faith continues: "I believe the miracles of the Bible, and I believe them because they are probable, and because they are firmly authenticated, and also because certain events have taken place in the history of the universe, which, at the time they took place, were just as contrary to the established constitution of things,' and were just as 'manifest violations of the operations of the known laws of nature,' as are the miraculous transactions recorded in both the Old and New Testaments."

The closing rejoinder of the unbeliever is this: "If it can be clearly proved that anything has happened in the universe that is as contrary to the established constitution or course of things as are Bible miracles, then I will accept those miracles upon the evidence presented."

Again the believer answers: "I will present proof that is clear, ample, and unanswerable, that such events have taken place, or else I will surrender the entire argument." And I appeal to you, my hearers, if in this statement the believer has not put his case fairly and reasonably.

We are, therefore, henceforth to search simply for established facts. As our time is limited, we need not take a broad sweep, though there is no end to the facts that could be employed for our purpose, but will confine attention to the advent of man and woman on the earth. In a word, there was a time when not a man could be found here. Not a bone, not a solitary relic of man can be found after reaching certain boundary lines in geological history.

Indeed, there was a time when man could no more have

lived on the earth than he can now live in a furnace where iron is boiling hot. There is, therefore, no denying the statement that the appearance of man on the earth was something contrary to the then existing order of things. Indeed, in some respects the origin of man on the earth is the oddest thing that ever has happened, and, in some respects, is the miracle of miracles. The origin of man is at least the most unaccountable riddle which modern science has undertaken to solve; and, seemingly, science is no nearer solving that riddle than she was fifty years ago. And the creation of the first woman is full as puzzling to the sceptical scientist as is the creation of the first man. The troublesome difficulty is thus stated:

There could have been no first child without a woman; and there could have been no first woman unless she had grown from a child, or had been full formed by supernatural power. The first child, or the first full-grown woman, were interruptions in the then existing order of things. Once they were not here; afterward they were here, and are now here. And we defy the whole world of science to throw a solitary ray of light upon the creation of the first man or the first woman apart from creation by supernatural interposition. The creation of the first man and woman is one of the solid granite walls against which infidelity will yet beat its brains out, provided it continues to make its assaults upon the scientific possibility of Bible miracles.

"Oh, no; you are going too far," some one replies. "The creation or origin of things is easily accounted for upon naturalistic grounds. The earth was evolved; then vegetable life came by spontaneous generation; then lower forms of animal life were evolved from vegetable life; and then the higher animals and man, without any miraculous interposition, were in an orderly way evolved from the lower animals."

Now, even if these claims were admitted, still the argument in hand would retain largely its force: for vegetable life, which once was not, afterward was; and animal life, which once was not, afterward was; and man, who once was not, afterward was.

Here, therefore, in the then existing and apparently established constitution of things, were breaks and interruptions, three of them perfectly distinct from one another so far as science can judge; and they were of a character such that no human mind could have anticipated either of them. No deeds wrought by our Lord were matters of more surprise than was the appearance on the earth of vegetable life, or of animal life, or of human life. Hence, if the unbeliever insists that the coming of life on earth was a natural evolution at the time it came, then all the believer need say in reply is, that the miracles of Christ, which are no more wonderful than the origin of life, were also a natural evolution at the time they were wrought. In other words, the hypothesis that the New Testament miracles were the product of a natural evolution at the hands of Christ has for its support every scientific fact and every form of argument that can be employed in support of the hypothesis that the origin of life is the product of a natural evolution. Therefore, the integrity of the Bible account of the miracles of Christ (and essentially the same may be said of the Old Testament miracles), upon the ground of their impossibility, cannot be questioned by any advocate of evolution and natural selection, without endangering the foundations upon which he is seeking to build his superstructure, which is antagonistic to revealed religion.

But in this concession we have granted to the unbeliever, for the sake of the argument, far more than is needful. For, in the light of recent thought, these claims of spontaneous generation and evolution by natural selection, upon which materialism is entirely dependent, are