that the negative testimony of witnesses present at any given transaction, cannot set aside the positive testimony of a far less number of witnesses, or even of a single reliable witness.

The silence of any of the Evangelists in reference to an incident or event at which they may have been present, but which possibly they may not have noticed, or which they do not record, does not contradict in the least the testimony of one who says such an incident occurred. The fact of the marriage in Cana is not at all disturbed because John is the only witness who testifies to it. The rule applies to that extraordinary doubt of modern criticism: whether the Israelites were ever in Egypt, because, as affirmed, the monuments do not record their presence, nor their flight, nor the destruction of the Egyptian host at the Red Sea. Now leaving out of the argument the strong probability that the monuments do refer to their presence in Egypt, and the further probability that the Egyptians would not be likely to preserve on their monuments the record of their own ignominy and overthrow, the objection could not stand for a moment in any court of justice in the presence of the positive testimony of the record to the history in Egypt. All the more, as this testimony is sustained by an extraordinary weight of incidental corroborative evidence, and is involved in the whole subsequent history of the nation.

Grant, if you will, that there are improbabilities in parts of the history; still the courts rule that "Mere improbability can rarely supply a sufficient ground for disbelieving direct and unexceptionable witnesses of the fact where there was no room for mistake." (Starkie, i., 558. See also Greenleaf on Ev., i., 1, 14, 15.)

That canon, fairly applied, sweeps away no inconsiderable portion of the objections to the Scripture histories. Take the great decisive fact of the resurrection of Christ,

fact that carries with it the whole Christian system, and the verity of the whole Christian revelation. It is a fact of testimony; of the testimony of many witnesses, under a great variety of circumstances, at many times and places, and extending through so long a period as to preclude all reasonable or admissible supposition of "mistake." No fact of ancient history can be proved by testimony if the resurrection of Christ cannot be. The proof stands by itself, positive, direct, unexceptionable as to the character and capacity of the witnesses. It is proof that the law of the land declares cannot be set aside by "mere improbability." And if this fact is established, everything essential to Christianity is established. The seal of the risen Christ is on the Old Testament: His blood is on the New Testament. It is throughout the living Book of the slain and living Lord.

Another very important rule of law is this: "In cases of conflicting evidence, the first step in the process of inquiry must naturally and obviously be, to ascertain whether the apparent inconsistencies and incongruities which it presents may not without violence be reconciled." (Starkie, i., 578.) "Where there is an apparent inconsistency or contradiction in the testimony of witnesses, such construction shall be put upon it as to make it agree if possible, for perjury is not to be presumed." (Decision Sup. Ct. of Errors of Conn., vol. 6, p. 189.) Nothing is more remarkable than the constant violation of this rule by many of the critics of the Bible. Their effort is to see, not if the testimony can be made to agree, but if, by any possibility, it can be forced to appear contradictory.

The courts take even stronger ground on the obligation of harmonizing apparently conflicting evidence. If the elements of reconciliation are not found in the evidence itself, they insist on the admission of any reasonable supposition that will explain the difficulty.

"Where doubt arises," says Starkie (Ev., i., 586), "from circumstances of an apparently opposite and conflicting tendency, the first step in the natural order of inquiry is to ascertain whether they be not in reality reconcilable, especially when circumstances cannot be rejected without imputing perjury to a witness; for perjury is not to be presumed; and in the absence of all suspicion, that hypothesis is to be adopted which consists with and reconciles all the circumstances which the case supplies." (See also Starkie, i., 578, 582.)

Take the familiar case of the taxing when Cyrenius was governor of Syria (Luke ii. 2). Everybody knows how confidently it was asserted that Luke was in error because Cyrenius' government of Syria was several years later than Luke makes it. Equally, every one knows how that difficulty was met by the supposition, made almost a certainty, that Cyrenius was twice governor of Syria, once at the time in question and once later. Even if the supposition were not as probable as it is, if there were no other way of solving the difficulty, we should be justified, by the principle of law, in assuming it, rather than to assume that a witness as intelligent as Luke, and with his opportunities of knowledge, and with no motive for misstatement, should either wilfully or carelessly have made so gross an error. Here the rule fits perfectly: "In the absence of all suspicion, that hypothesis is to be adopted which consists with and reconciles all the circumstances which the case supplies."

In regard to certain objections to the Mosaic record, e. g., the improbability of the desert sustaining the host of the Israelites we select this as an example of a mass of like objections-Dean Stanley, while holding in general to the historic fact, says, the recorded miracles do not meet the difficulty, and we have no right to add to them. For "if we have no warrant to take away, we have no warrant

to add." If by this he meant we have no right to add to the inspired word as a part of it what is not in it, he is quite correct. But if he meant, as he evidently did, that we have no right to make a reasonable supposition to explain an apparent difficulty of the Word, no utterance can be more groundless. He might as well object that Moses could not possibly have led the Israelites through the desert forty years, because no man could do that without sleeping; and the record does not say that Moses slept during all that time, and "we have no warrant to add" to the record!

The same difficulty is urged by others from the present barrenness of the desert, which it is contended is substantially as it was in the time of the Exodus. This is to be met not so much by hypothesis as by the facts-(1) That the condition of the desert was very different then from its condition now. Because the country around Philadelphia cannot now support a tribe of Indians by hunting and fishing, it does not follow that it could not do this two hundred years ago. (2) God had undertaken to bring the nation out. If every miracle necessary to this end is not recorded, it does not prove that it was not wrought.

This suggests an obvious and very important consideration. Facts may now be missing which were perfectly well known at the time of the event, but which have not been preserved. Hence, if a difficulty can be removed by a reasonable supposition of a missing fact, we are entitled to make that supposition.

Webster (Works, v. 6, p. 64), in his address to the jury on the celebrated trial of the Knapps for the murder of Capt. White, of Salem, Mass., says: "In explaining circumstances of evidence which are apparently irreconcilable, or unaccountable, if a fact be suggested which at once accounts for all, and reconciles all, by whomsoever it may be stated, it is still difficult not to believe that such fact is

the true fact belonging to the case." The missing fact that was wanted in this case to show a motive for the murder, was the stealing of a will, or the purpose to steal a will, and this proved the true hypothesis.

To illustrate by a familiar incident of the Old Testament history. The prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel foretell the fate of the last king of Judah, Zedekiah. (Jer. xxxii.; Ezek. xii.) They declare that he shall be taken captive by the king of Babylon, that he shall go to Babylon, and that he shall die in Babylon; yet Ezekiel expressly says that he shall not see Babylon. Now here is apparently as gross contradiction as there can be; and if our information stopped here it would be impossible to reconcile it. Fortunately, however, the explanation is given in the history. From 2 Kings xxv. we learn that the king of Babylon, when Zedekiah was brought into his presence at Riblah, ordered his eyes to be put out, and sent him blind to Babylon. So that he saw the king of Babylon, he went to Babylon, he died in Babylon, and yet he never saw Babylon. But-and this is the point of this familiar case-if this unexpected and extraordinary fact had not been stated, how absolutely impossible it would have been to give any satisfactory solution of the difficulty. It may be doubted whether any supposition as violent as this needs to be made to reconcile every alleged contradiction of the Bible.

A remarkable illustration of the power of a missing fact occurs in the history of the overthrow of Babylon itself. The Scripture account (Dan. v.) says that Belshazzar was king of Babylon; that he was in the city engaged in a feast at the time of its capture, and that he was slain.

Reliable secular historians give the name of the king as Nabonnedus or Labynetus, and state that he was not in the city when it was captured; that he was not killed, but taken prisoner, kindly treated, and allowed to retire to