be exclusively selected as witnesses of supernatural manifestations? Ignorance is not, per se, holiness, nor credulity wisdom. We all desire to know the truth, and it is not our crime that we can read and write. Here is a question on the answer of which is supposed to hinge the eternal destiny of millions. Give us light; give us proof. If miracles can be wrought they can be proved. God is not parsimonious of his favors. Every breeze that comes to us laden with perfume whispers of his love; every harvest bespeaks the bountifulness of his gifts; and tiny insects, no less than blazing suns, evidence to us the wonder of his works, and the wisdom and beneficence of his provisions for his creatures, from the smallest to the greatest.

Would you convince us of miracles, submit your tests to scientific men, such as compose the French Academy of Science, for example. One favorable report from such a body of men would outweigh, in intelligent minds, the combined testimony of a thousand monasteries, and ten million monks and nuns.

Is the request unreasonable? Did not the patriarchs of old ask of God a "sign" that he would fulfil his promises to them? Scripture tells us they did, and that the signs were given them. Will Deity feel insulted because we ask for proof that he speaks and acts as fallible mortals tell us he does? Ah! there is not the rub. The God-insulting theory, unrealized as is its hollowness by many who urge it against us, is not what disturbs the votaries of the miraculous. It is merely a pretext. The real point is this: the proof is not forthcoming at the right times and under required circumstances. The inquisitive eye and the experimental crucible of science are dreaded. There is the rub!

Lambert. "A false prophet does not destroy the possibility of recognizing a true one, as a counterfeit note does not destroy the value of a genuine note."

Granted. But false prophets make us distrustful of prophetic pretensions, as counterfeit notes excite us to a rigid test of the genuine. What is desired is proof; not that "Grimes is dead," for death comes to all; but ample proof that Grimes has risen, or made his presence manifest to those who summoned his spirit from the "vasty deep," for here we are met by antecedent improbability.

CHAPTER XVII.

REPLY TO CHAPTER XVI.

The Authorship of the Gospels-The Gospels do not purport to have been Written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John-Diverse Renderings in Manuscripts of the Scriptures-Orthodox Authority-Original Purity of Text of Scripture Early Lost-Catholic Authority-The Bible does not prove itself—Translations of Scripture-Miracles.

As prefatory to our reply to Chapter XVI. of the "Notes," we observe, that here is a subject, the authorship of the Gospels, worthy the pen of the profound scholar and of the most astute and searching criticism. No one who loves truth desires victory at the expense of truth. Moreover men love certainty; they are too lazy to accept bullion when the ready coin is equally convenient; to formulate by laborious process, even in matters of faith, when a perfectly infallible formula is at hand. If the Bible be an unerring guide in all matters of faith and practice, or if there be a divinely commissioned priesthood that will lead us to a knowledge of all spiritual truth necessary to our happiness here and hereafter, all sane men, being assured of the fact, will rejoice and prefer certainty to doubt and speculation. Doubt is not captiousness, investigation is not the child of prejudice, but the issue of a wedlock between truth and the human soul, consecrated by the purest and holiest love.

Who wrote the Gospels? On such a question as this we had expected, at least, dignified reasoning and learned criticism. We were disappointed. In place thereof we find ireful captiousness and, in the main, assertion substituted for proof, statement for argument.

Ingersoll." The fact is, no one knows who made the ‘statements of the evangelists.'

"There are three important manuscripts upon which the Christian world relies. The first appeared in the Catalogue of the Vatican in 1475. This contains the Old Testament. Of the New it contains the four Gospels-the Acts, the seven Catholic Epistles, nine of the Pauline Epistles, and the Epistle to the Hebrews, as far as the fourteenth verse of the ninth chapter,'—and nothing more. This is known as the Codex Vatican. The second, the Alexandrine, was presented to King Charles the First, in 1628. It contains the Old and New Testaments, with some exceptions; passages are wanting in Matthew, in John, and in 2d Corinthians. It also contains the Epistles of Clemens Romanus, a letter of Athanasius, and the treatise of Eusebius on the Psalms.' The last is the Sinaitic Codex, discovered about 1850, at the Convent of St. Catherine on. Mount Sinai. It contains the Old and New Testaments, and in addition the entire Epistle of Barnabas, and a portion of the Shepherd of Hermas-two books which, up to the beginning of the fourth century, were looked upon by many as Scripture.' In this manuscript, or codex, the Gospel of St. Mark concludes with the eighth verse of the sixteenth chapter, leaving out the frightful passage: 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth

and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.'"

Lambert." The fact is, there can be no reasonable doubt whatever that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote the Gospels attributed to them. . . . You have as good reason, and no better, to say that no one knows who wrote Shakespeare, "Paradise Lost," the Divine Comedy of Dante, Cæsar, Livy, Tacitus, Josephus or Homer. No one ever doubts that those books were written by the authors to whom they are attributed."

Certainly as to Homer and Shakespeare the Father is in fault. But waiving this, is there no difference in the amount of proof which a just criticism requires in establishing the authenticity of the Gospels and of the works referred to? The works of Shakespeare, Livy, Tacitus, etc., are professedly merely human productions, written to regale the imagination and to teach us the facts of history, while the Gospels speak to us as from the skies. They come freighted with a record of miracles and wonders stupendous. They tell us of unseen worlds and of spirits and angels intangible. They assure us of facts for which we find no parallel in human experience, and, above all, aver that, unless we believe these things, and submit to a certain ceremonial rite-as to which the Christian world. is at sad variance, both as to mode and effect-we shall be damned; that is, cast into a lake of fire, to there "burn forever unconsumed.” Moreover these writers do not agree among themselves.* Such being the case, our eternal interests demand that we should know both who speaks and by what authority we are addressed. There are many different renderings of the text of Shakespeare; but one would suppose that if God inspired a book on the acceptance of which the salvation of a world depended, it would not only be free from ambiguity but that its authorship would be placed beyond dispute, and its text preserved from liability to mutilation and interpolation. That which is intended as a "lamp unto the feet, and a light unto the path," should give forth no dim nor deflected rays. The poor wanderer in the swamps and morasses of error, when he casts his longing gaze over the drear expanse, should be able to know the beacon light which is set to guide

We are told that circumstantial variety with substantial agreement in the testimony of witnesses is a proof of their veracity. But what of circumstantial contradiction, and of irreconcilable statements?