record like them. It has the beginning of the new creation to unfold, as they had of the old. It introduces us at once, as they did, to a supernatural scene, where we behold the most marvellous displays of the Divine Power-displays which lift us above earthly things, which make us see heaven opened and hear God speaking. No one ever reads the New Testament without feeling that he is perusing a book which has in it something grander than the world, higher than humanity,—that facts are passing before him that do not belong to common life, that transcend the ordinary experience of mankind, that owe their existence to the special interposition of Heaven.

But at this point, and notwithstanding these clear marks of the supernatural, we are met by the denial that a miraculous revelation is found in the Bible, or has ever been made. The phenomena in the Scriptures to which we have referred are alleged to be altogether fabulous and worthy of no credit; and the doctrines found in connexion with them are represented as having no other authority, than their intrinsic truth or their agreement with our own intuitions of truth, to commend them to our belief. They stand, it is said, upon their naked merits, with nothing peculiar about them to indicate a higher origin than the human soul itself, and with no external marks to distinguish them from the pure and wise teachings of the sages of the Heathen world. The distinctive claim which is put forth in behalf of the Scriptures, of containing a revelation from God, is destroyed by the assertion of a similar claim in behalf of every human being. The Prophets and Apostles, nay, our Saviour too, it is maintained, had no other communication with God than that which every man does or may enjoy.

Thus what we have called the grand peculiarity of the Bible is rendered of none effect. And thus too, it seems to us, the direct issue is made between a revelation and no revelation; for it is a solecism to call that a revelation which every man knows of himself alone. This is the issue. And there are great questions hang. ing on the decision. 'Whence am I? Why am I? Whose am I? Whither do I go?-these questions the reason can ask; but can it answer? And if after all our searching into the substance and laws of our being, after all the light which philosophy has shed upon the subject, together with the testimony of the Scriptures, we

do but just begin to feel a comforting faith, can we willingly let go the idea of a Divine Revelation ?

To exhibit the proofs of such a Revelation however, is not our object. We are not writing a treatise on the Evidences. It is sufficient for us to know, that those evidences exist; that they have been a thousand times submitted to the scrutiny of the most gifted minds; that acute and able jurists have passed upon them as they would upon grave matters of law, and always have come to the same favorable decision; that every objection made against them has been met and refuted over and over again; and that, notwithstanding all the assaults they have received, the edifice of the Scriptures still stands strong and complete in its original glory, its dome lifting itself in majesty to the sky, every arch perfect, its windows opening to the kingdom of heaven, and not a stone loosed in its foundations. It is sufficient for us to know, that thousands upon thousands, unable to find peace in the twilight glimmerings of that truth which their own souls, by the feeble inspirations that breathed through them, gave forth, or in the mystic letters imprinted by the finger of God on the earth, the sea, and the sky, have turned to this Book of books, and found here the satisfaction they craved, and which they were wretched till they obtained. This is sufficient for us, and therefore we leave the Evidences till they are wanted.

But the religion of the soul, which is set up as of higher authority than the Bible, what is it? It is little more than a series of earnest and anxious inquiries-questions without answers. It settles nothing. The "Divine Dialogues" of Plato, in which there is, perhaps, a nearer approximation to truth than in any other of the writings of the ancient philosophers, contain after all nothing satisfying upon the grand problems they propose. The interrogatories are curious, and the answers ingenious; and this is the most that can be said of them. The reader is left after careful study in a land of shadows. He obtains no solid foundation for his heart's hopes. He feels that the mystery in which existence was wrapped is mystery still. He forgets, as soon as he lays the book down, its wire-drawn arguments, and instantly the momentary gratification they had awakened vanishes. What then can he do? He has interrogated his own soul till wearied and disheartened; he has con

sulted the best oracles of this world's wisdom, and has obtained no peace. To whom then shall he go? Is it strange that he feels there ought to be somewhere a counterpart to this half-religion of the soul? Now suppose this to be his feeling; that is, suppose he is convinced of the necessity of a Revelation. He feels that it would be the highest gift of God to man. He feels that if God is good and loves his children, he must vouchsafe to them such a gift. It is almost too great for his hope, but he watches and waits if possibly he may hear tidings of it. He prays that God would speak and tell him what and wherefore he is. Suppose then, that just at this critical moment, when his heart is swayed hither and thither in agonized suspense, he hears that God has verily spoken, and that in words of paternal love man has been addressed by a Messenger from Heaven. He hears that the everlasting silence of the sky has been broken. He hears that the will of God has been proclaimed and the roll of man's destiny unfolded. He hears that one has appeared having in him the power of God, standing above all men in dominion that he might speak with authority to all men, proving that he comes from the spiritual world by breaking down at his will the barriers between it and the flesh, showing that he is greater than man by doing works which no man of himself could do, and by living a life such as no man before him had lived. Suppose all this to have happened, and that in the fulness of his heart he repairs to this reputed Messenger of Heaven, puts to him the same questions which had all his life agitated him-which he had in vain proposed to his own soul and to the great teachers of his day—and that he obtains from him full and satisfactory answers, and returns praising and glorifying God? Is he to be accounted a fool because he receives implicitly the words of this Teacher? Is he to be charged with childish credulity because he believes on his authority? Is it a mark of weakness in him to attach an added value to the doctrines he hears on account of the extraordinary character of the personage who speaks them to his anxious heart? Is it superstitious in him to give full credence to testimony concerning things invisible, when it comes from one who bears in his hand the wand of Omnipotence; and because he bears it? Can the Omnipotent speak falsely? "Let God be true and every man a liar."

But there is a way of getting over or breaking through this theory of a supernatural Revelation without (as it is thought) destroying the substance of Christianity. Of Christianity, we say, because we shall confine the rest of our remarks to that part of the Bible. I accept,' says the spiritualist, the answers of JesusI do not object to any doctrines taught by him; but I will not be held to a belief of all the facts related of him by his biographers. They tell many things that are contrary to all experience and that I cannot believe. They pretend to attestations to truth which never were given, and which would prove nothing if they had been. They belonged to an age from which mythological fictions had not died out, and it is not wonderful that they should have exercised their imaginations in inventing marvellous stories concerning Jesus.'

Now to all this there is one short answer; namely, that there is just the same evidence that Jesus actually performed the miracles attributed to him, as that such a person as Jesus ever lived, or that, supposing him to have lived, he delivered the doctrines ascribed to him. The same witnesses testify to the one that testify to the other. If there is any difference as to credibility, it is in favor of the miraculous works, for it is well known that men can more accurately report a fact they have seen than a discourse they have heard. We have read beautiful orations on the character and genius of the Son of God which omitted altogether his supernatural endowments, nay, which sneered, in polished phrase, at the miracles recorded of him. Yet what knew the writers at all of Jesus, but from the testimony of those same men who bear witness to his wonderful works, and for whom as witnesses they affected to feel such contempt? Whence did they gather materials for their eloquent eulogiums but from the very histories the credit of which they were doing their best to destroy? That serene and heavenly life--that deep-souled piety--that warm-hearted benevolence—that high spirituality of thought, which they so much admired in him, from whom had they learned it all but from the poor fishermen of Galilee and the great disciple of Gamaliel,-men of whom they would insinuate that little or nothing is known?

To separate the common from the miraculous in Christianity seems to us impossible. Its first and fundamental element is miraculous facts. "This makes it a religion, and not a philosophy;

a Divine institution, and not a human contrivance; a record of certain truths, and not of uncertain opinions; a system of doctrines to be taught upon authority, and not a series of speculations to be proposed upon the ground of their probability alone."* These facts enter into the very life and substance of the religion. They are the strongest threads of its texture. Pull them out and its consistency is wholly destroyed. As well might you take the blue from the violet, the crimson from the rainbow, the crystal from the diamond, and not destroy their beauty, as take from Christianity its supernatural element and leave it unshorn of its glory. Let us try the experiment with a Harmony of the Gospels before us and see how we shall succeed. At the first public appearance of Jesus, in the beginning of his ministry, it is recorded of him, that "he came from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him," and that, “when he was baptized, he went up straightway out of the water." These being natural facts may be credited, it is said. But what follows in close connexion, deeply important to Jesus as a Teacher sent from God and full of sublimity, must be rejected! And, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him: and, lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Fit opening of the divine drama of the Saviour's ministry.-A short time after this we find our Lord in the village of Cana at a wedding. The only common fact related of this wedding is, that Jesus and his mother and his disciples were present. Now from this, comparatively, no moral lesson can be drawn and little insight into the character of Jesus be obtained. But as soon as we read on and take in the miraculous fact recorded, instantly we catch a glimpse of his true life and spirit. We get an idea not only of his marvellous power, but of the genial kindliness of his heart.-Again: not long after we behold him in the temple driving out the sheep and the oxen, and overturning the tables of the money-changers; and when asked by the Jews what evidence he could show of authority to do these things, he replies, "Destroy this temple,"-pointing probably to himself" and in

* See Mr. Burnap's Lectures on the History of Christianity for some excellent remarks on this whole subject. Likewise an able Sermon on the Christian Name and Christian Liberty by Rev. S. K. Lothrop.