off and instantly fell into a long and profound sleep. As soon as he waked he related to the king and to the believing multitude his journey to heaven, and his intimate conference with the Deity. Every doubt was silenced by this supernatural evidence; and the articles of faith of Zoroaster were fixed with equal authority and precision." These were the kind of men who saw the star in the east (or from the east) and went to proffer the gold and frankincense and myrrh to the infant Saviour. But if the Magi suspected the divine mission of Christ they were doing violence to their own faith, for Herodotus says: "The people (of Persia) reject the use of temples, of altars and of statues, and smile at the follies of those nations who imagine that the gods are sprung from or bear any affinity with the human nature." If this be so, would the Magi have believed that a god-man, born of woman, had descended upon the earth?

If, as learned priests and bishops contend, the Bible does not prove itself, how can it prove what it contains-especially the most incredible part, the miraculous? Will tradition help us out? If so, give us the most serviceable traditions and we will read them with care and discuss them with candor. Or, shall we invoke extrinsic evidence to convince us of the credibility of the entire gospel narratives? If so, where shall we look for the extrinsic evidence that may suffice for that purpose? Before we can credit miracles we must insist on the most indubitable proof-not such as may suffice in a question of a common historical or every day fact, but such as disinterested, educated and unbiased minds would deem sufficient.

Should the Father bring me word that my friend, his neighbor, was dead and that he was with him when he expired, I would credit his statement implicitly; but if he should assure me that a priest or bishop had restored the dead one to lifeI might think him honest-but I would not believe one word

of his statement.

I would think first of trances and of all natural causes which might produce the semblance of death; but no number of witnesses, in that particular case, would convince me that the dead had been brought to life.

But were the accounts of miracles given us by the evangelists strictly contemporary with the events they record? Or, was the present canon of Scripture accepted and the books therein contained unquestioned as to genuineness and inspiration in the infancy of the church? I love to quote Catholic authority: it is often so charming in its explicitness. Bishop (afterwards Archbishop) Purcell, in his debate with Campbell (p. 130), says: "You did not see the miracles; the books that record them were written long after they occurred; and many of the most important portions of this very book were doubted for upwards of three hundred years after Christ, even by Luther himself, in the enlightened sixteenth century! His [Campbell's] author, Du Pin, says, there were abundance of false Gospels, false epistles, false Acts, in the early ages. How then, according to his [Campbell's] principles, can we be sure of the authenticity of a single book of the Old or the New Testament, being we have no vouchers for the truth but the testimony of men? Here are chasms to be bridged, and links in the chain of Scriptural testimony to be welded, for full three hundred years, aye, sixteen hundred years before the various books of the Scriptures were collected together."

But have we a divine sanction, or other proof, to show that Jesus ever authorized any one to write a history of his acts and sayings? Let Catholic authority answer. See "The Bible Question," by the great and good Fenelon, Fletcher's notes, p. 48: "Our Divine Redeemer wrote nothing: he only preached. But did he not command his apostles to write? Of this or of such command there is no testimony in the Bible. So that thus there is no proof, in the sacred book itself, that any writ

ten word has ever been appointed by Christ Jesus himself to be the rule of our belief." Again, p. 57: “The Bible neither proclaims its own inspiration, nor can the sacred article be proved by any testimony of the Bible." In the same work (p. 57) are quoted approvingly the words of "the excellent and learned Hooker," as he is there called: "But it is not the word of God, which doeth or can assure us, that we do well to think it his word."

The good priest, it seems to us, had better have argued from the true Catholic standpoint, and have averred that the Bible does not and cannot prove itself, and that the only present and living witness of its inspiration and truth is the Catholic Church. When this ground is taken we shall be prepared to consider it. I fear, however, that such position would hardly be considered tenable by his Protestant readers; besides, should he now change his base he would be obliged, as lumbermen say when they "stick" or "stave," to "raft over."

We now come to the long-mooted question respecting a passage in Josephus.

Ingersoll." Is it not wonderful that Josephus, the best historian the Hebrews produced, says nothing about Jesus?” Lambert." Here is what he says: 'Now about this time Jesus, a wise man,' etc.

Ingersoll." The passage in Josephus is admitted to be an interpolation."

Lambert.-"Admitted by whom? By you, and Paine and Voltaire, and other infidels, Tooley street tailors."

Without stopping to commend the manly dignity and Christian courtesy of this reply I pass to the question at issue. Did Josephus write the paragraph referred to? I answer no, and assign the reasons which seem to me to necessitate the conclusion: Ist, the context shows that it is an interpolation; 2d, the probabilities of the case, strong enough to

exclude the possibility of an opposite conclusion, show it; 3d, it is shown to be spurious by learned Catholic and Protestant as well as Hebrew authority.

First, as to the context. Just before the disputed passage intervenes Josephus is speaking of the wrongs suffered by the Jews at the hands of Pilate and of the end of a certain sedition. Then, as we claim, was interpolated the passage: "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day." What follows? "About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder," etc. What! was it a calamity that the crucified Saviour had risen from the dead? That he had proved himself the long-looked-for Messiah, the hope of Israel, whose coming the prophets had foretold, and which was to be the redemption of the Hebrew race?

But leave out the interpolation and you will see how the preceding and the succeeding paragraphs dovetail together (See "Antiquities of the Jews," Book 18, Chapter 3).

Second, as to the probabilities of the case. Josephus was a Jew and, in his latter days, of that strictest of sects, the Pharisees, whom Christ had called hypocrites and vipers. Would not a convert from such a class, a man of noble lineage and of such great learning and literary power, have been referred to as one of the greatest triumphs of the new faith? Would

not Josephus have embraced with holy ecstasy the religion of him whom he believed to be "the Christ ?" Josephus wrote his own biography no earlier than 100 A. D., but he nowhere indicates a change of faith, nor refers to the greatest event of all ages, the coming of the Son of God for the redemption of the world.

Third. Historical and critical authorities, by a vast preponderance, negative the genuineness of the disputed passage. True Eusebius refers to it twice, and that is the first reference made to it in history. Of Eusebius we are told that "he is called the Father of History,' not because he was master of historiographer's art, for he had neither method with respect to the whole, nor criticism with respect to details; neither style nor absolute veracity" (" Enc. of Rel. Knowledge," vol. i., 771). The same authors observe: "But though this famous testimony is by Eusebius ("Hist. Ecc." i., ii). it is entirely spurious." See list of learned authorities cited. The "Encyclopædia Britannica" says: "Book xviii., chap. iii., sec. 3 [of Josephus] contains a remarkable passage relating to Jesus Christ, which is twice cited by Eusebius as genuine, and which is met with in all the extant MSS. It is, however, unanimously believed to be, in its present form at least, spurious, and those who contend for its partial genuineness are decidedly in the minority." To the same effect says the "American Encyclopædia." Eusebius was born in the third century and died about 340 A. D. Yet Origen, the most learned father of the church, who lived in the second century, says that Josephus was not a believer in Jesus.

Were all these wise, learned, Christian writers, "Tooley street tailors?"

Ingersoll." Is it not wonderful that no historian ever mentioned any of these prodigies?"

Lambert." The prodigies you refer to are, first, the massa