Now, is it not possible that there may be something like this in religion? May it not be a reality—a supreme reality—though you do not see it or feel it? May I not know it to be real because I have felt its power? And if there are thousands and tens of thousands as intelligent men and women as the world has ever seen who are as ready to testify that they have felt the power and experienced the reality of the Christian religion as you are to testify that you have felt the power and know the sweetness of music, are you wise to dismiss its claims because you have not felt the force of them? You must see this. I leave it to your candor. Christianity may be true though you have not felt its truth. A cloud of witnesses stand ready to testify to you its truth from personal experience. They may not argue with you: multitudes of them could not argue with you; but, after all, they have a proof of the reality of their religion, of the power of Christ to satisfy and bless men, which no arguments in the world can shake. If all this were a new thing, or if the witnesses were only ignorant and superstitious men, you might well enough hesitate to receive the testimony; but when you reflect that it is the accumulated testimony of nearly nineteen centuries, that it comes from all countries and all classes, from the prince on the throne and the beggar at his gate, from the philosopher in his study and the sailor in the forecastle, from the statesman in the cabinet and the ploughman in the furrow, I submit it cannot with wisdom or reason be set aside. It is no answer to say that many great men and learned men and ploughmen can be brought who have had no such experience and give no such testimony. This is true, but it is one of the first laws of evidence that no amount of merely negative testimony can overthrow the explicit evidence of honest, intelligent, trustworthy witnesses. Fifty men who did not see a murder could not set aside the clear testimony of two who did see it. Few of the race have ever seen the moons of Mars, or even of Jupiter; this does not disturb the witness of the few who have: the satellites are there.
I have just been reading—not for the first time—Peter Harvey's account of his visit, with Daniel Webster, to John Colby. You will find it in Harvey's Reminiscences of Webster; and if you have not read it, it is worth your reading. Colby had married Webster's oldest sister when Webster was a mere boy. It was in some respects a strange marriage. She was a godly, Christian woman, while Colby was a wild, reckless, ungodly man—"the wickedest man in the neighborhood," Webster believed, "as far as swearing and impiety went." He seems to have been the terror of Webster's boyhood. Singularly enough for New England, though a man of strong natural powers, he never learned to read till he was over eighty years of age. His wife died early, and the families drifted apart. Webster had not seen Colby for over forty years, but he heard that a great change had taken place with him, and he visited him to judge for himself. I should mar the story of the interview if I undertook to condense it. Let me give the essential parts of it in Mr. Harvey's own words. Long as it is, I think you would be sorry to have it shorter.
Webster and Harvey had driven to Andover, and were directed to Mr. Colby's house. "The door was open.... Sitting in the middle of the room was a striking figure who proved to be John Colby. He sat facing the door, in a very comfortably furnished farmhouse room, with a little table—or what perhaps would be called a light-stand—before him. Upon it was a large, old-fashioned Scott's Family Bible in very large print, and, of course, a heavy volume. It lay open, and he had evidently been reading it attentively. As we entered he took off his spectacles and laid them upon the page of the book, and looked up at us as we approached, Mr. Webster in front. He was a man, I should think, over six feet in height, and he retained in a wonderful degree his erect and manly form, although he was eighty-five or six years old. His frame was that of a once powerful, athletic man. His head was covered with very heavy, thick, bushy hair, and it was as white as wool, which added very much to the picturesqueness of his appearance. As I looked in at the door I thought I never saw a more striking figure. He straightened himself up, but said nothing till just as we appeared at the door, when he greeted us with—
"'Walk in, gentlemen.'
"Mr. Webster's first salutation was—
"'This is Mr. Colby—Mr. John Colby—is it not?'
"'That is my name, sir,' was the reply.
"'I suppose you don't know me?' said Mr. Webster.
"'No, sir, I don't know you; and I should like to know how you know me.'