GOSPEL PHILOSOPHY,
SHOWING THE
ABSURDITIES OF INFIDELITY,
AND THE
HARMONY OF THE GOSPEL
WITH SCIENCE AND HISTORY

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BY ELDER J. H WARD

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ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS,

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Salt Lake City, Utah:

Published at the Juvenile Instructor Office, 1884.

Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1884, by J. H. Ward, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

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PREFACE.

Sectarians generally dread meeting a "Mormon" Elder in discussion, for they well know the humiliating defeat which has been the result to their compeers in hundreds of instances.

But there is another class of persons who often bring formidable-looking arguments against the truths of the gospel. This class is composed frequently of persons of considerable learning, research and intelligence. They have long ago become disgusted with the absurdities of so-called Christianity; and are not slow in showing the disagreement of sectarian dogmas with the teachings of the Bible, or contrasting the Bible with supposed science. In some instances, otherwise valuable scientific works are marred by sneers at the books of inspiration. In this age of earnest thought and research into all branches of knowledge, many of these works fall into the hands of the young and hence the growth of skepticism in the minds of many. Many of the facts contained in this work have been collected from, and references made to larger works not easily accessible to the general reader. A large number of the illustrations have been designed expressly for this work, and engraved by Brother John Held, of Salt Lake City.

To gather into a small compass the leading arguments of infidel writers, and to refute them by well-known facts; to show the cause of the conflict between science and religion; and to harmonize true science with the teachings of God's word, has been the design in writing this little work. That in its perusal the young may find their faith strengthened in the principles of the gospel; thoughtful minds find food for reflection, and the missionary Elder a valuable book of reference, is the earnest wish of

The Author.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1—

[ABSURDITIES OF INFIDELITY]

CHAPTER 2—

[CAUSES OF THE SUPPOSED CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION]

CHAPTER 3—

[FALLACIES OF SCIENTISTS]

CHAPTER 4—

[DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF?]

CHAPTER 5—

[OUR NEED OF REVELATION]

CHAPTER 6—

[VALIDITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT AS SHOWN BY INTERNAL EVIDENCE]

CHAPTER 7—

[NEW TESTAMENT FACTS CORROBORATED BY SECULAR WRITERS]

CHAPTER 8—

[HISTORICAL GLIMPSES OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES]

CHAPTER 9—

[FULFILLMENT OF PROPHECY]

CHAPTER 10—

[INFIDEL OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED]

CHAPTER 11—

[MOSES AND MODERN SCIENCE]

CHAPTER 12—

[HARMONY OF GENESIS AND GEOLOGY]

CHAPTER 13—

[SCIENTIFIC PROOFS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE]

CHAPTER 14—

[FAITH AND INFIDELITY CONTRASTED]

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INDEX

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CHAPTER I.
ABSURDITIES OF INFIDELITY.

THE PRESENT AN EARNEST AGE—AN EARNEST RELIGION REQUIRED—YOUNG MEN LIABLE TO SKEPTICISM—LITERARY FOPS—SCIENTISTS DO NOT AGREE—TESTIMONY OF SOCRATES AND PLATO—ABSURDITIES OF BRAHMINISM—ATTEMPTS OF FRENCH INFIDELS—ROSETTA STONE—MODERN SPIRITUALISM.

The gospel is truly a grand system. Let us try to entertain right views concerning it. Let us enlarge our minds to grasp it, that we may, to some extent at least, conceive its greatness and appreciate its beauties.

The peculiar wants of the age in which we live are worthy of deep and careful consideration. Never was there a time in the history of the race, when learning and general intelligence were so well diffused as at the present. The press is throwing off continually its millions of printed pages, which are scattered broadcast as the leaves of Autumn. Books on almost every conceivable subject can be cheaply bought; and journals, magazines and pamphlets, both of a good and evil influence, attract the attention of the young.

Never was there a time of more intense activity. Who can pass through the crowded streets of our cities, listen to the throbbings of the steam-engine, the hum of machinery, the appliances of electricity, gaze at the vast trains that are driven with fire and vapor along our railways, or view those magnificent structures that cross the mighty deep, without feeling that this is an earnest age?

Now, this earnest, active, thinking age demands a religion that has life and power in it. Not a religion of cold formality and narrow sectarianism, but a religion that will satisfy the intellect with its truths, touch the heart with its love, sway the will with its persuasiveness, gratify the taste with its beauties and fill the imagination with its sublimities. A religion is wanted that will enlist upon its side the whole nature of man, and command his willing and devoted homage; a religion that, bearing the full impress of its Author's image, shall carry its own credentials with it; and which, clothed with all the elements of truth and righteousness, beauty and grandeur of love and power, shall be revered by all those who love the truth, and dreaded by all who love it not.

This is the religion that the gospel reveals. There is no antagonism between philosophy and faith, between science and religion, whatever the seeming oppositions of the present; in reality it is perfect harmony. The gospel overwhelms, nay, rather, includes all philosophy.

In the life of many young men there is a period of skepticism. Then the young man is extremely liable to doubt. Then he questions all his previous convictions, challenges all his accepted opinions, and is in danger of drifting aimlessly on the wide tossing sea of unbelief, the sport of every wind of doctrine, the easy prey of every theory conceived by the ingenious brain of man.

At this period his faith in God and man is liable to be swept away through a misconception of the real teachings of science, and the example of those who seek to excuse their wicked lives under the specious plea of unbelief. This period of skeptical tendency comes early in life, frequently when the young man is in college or in the schools of science, when he begins to think and act for himself. It is intelligent, earnest young men of brains and capacity who are in special danger from the skepticism of the age.

Many of these young men have been trained in the Sabbath school, but at nineteen or twenty a change comes over them. They feel the strength and vigor of awakening manhood, and that impatience of authority which is characteristic of young men in this formative period of life. A young man hears of men of learning who reject religion; he reads now and then a magazine full of doubts and insinuations, and he begins to feel that all his belief is simply the result of his education, and that under other circumstances he might have been a Confucian, a Buddhist or a Mahometan. Perhaps he meets with a tolerably educated but skeptical friend, who tells him in effect that religion is a fraud, that the Bible is a very good book, to be sure, but destitute of divine authority. He tells him, in a word, that these things may do for women and children to believe, but as for himself, he has put away all such belief along with his childish toys.

Our young man listens to all this flippant nonsense with itching ears, until, at length, he pretends to believe the world was made by chance, is governed by chance and all things that exist are only the effects of chance.

But there is a comical side to this question, as well as to many others. Prof. Agassiz wisely observes that, "men frequently talk very learnedly of what they know but very little;" and I know of nothing more irresistibly ludicrous than to see one of these so-called scientific skeptics, who scarcely knows the difference between the leg of a wasp and the horn of a beetle, and yet will assume to patronize the Almighty and talk about progress and culture as though he was the most remarkable prodigy of the age in which he lives.

It is enough to disgust an honest man, to see some of these literary fops going along with Darwin's works under one arm and a case of transfixed grasshoppers and butterflies under the other, talking about Huxley's "protoplasm" and "natural selection," and "nebular hypothesis," and "biogensis," and "abigensis," all the while lisping with an "exthquithit lithp," and indicating by word, tone and gesture that all who dissent from their opinions are grossly ignorant and scarcely worthy of their notice.

But the greatest joke is that the scientists which they so much admire do not agree. Darwin is charging at Lamarch, Walace spearing Cope, and Herschel denouncing Ferguson. How many colors in a ray of sun-light? Seven, says Newton; only three, says David Brewster. How high above the earth is the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Light? Two and a half miles, says Prof. Lias; one hundred and sixty-five, says Prof. Tumming. La Place says the moon was not put in the right place, it should have been four times as far away; while Prof. Lionville comes up just in time and gives us the wonderful information (?) that the Creator was acquainted with His business and fixed it exactly right.

How far is the sun from the earth? Less than a million miles, says Zadkiel; seventy-six millions of miles, says La Caille; eighty-two millions, says Humboldt; ninety millions, says Henderson; one hundred and four millions, says Mayer. Only a slight difference of one hundred and three millions of miles, or a good deal farther than a person could travel, at the rate of fifty miles per hour, during the next two centuries, if he could live that long. And yet, amidst all this confusion and contradiction, we are coolly asked to give up the words of inspiration and hang our hopes of the future on the miserable vagaries of self-contradicting philosophers.

Another very ludicrous as well as amusing instance of the folly of infidelity is the fact that skeptics will catch at almost anything upon which to hang their faith. All around us, in every grade of society, are to be found men who will tell us that the Vedas and Shasters of the Hindoos are far more trustworthy than the writings of Moses, Isaiah, Paul, Nephi or Joseph. They will tell us what sublime philosophers Brahma and Confucius were, while, at the same time, they have never read a word of their doctrines, or even seen a volume of their works. All they know is what some other truth-hating infidel has told them.

But for the sake of argument let us glance at some of these wonderful writings. Socrates, one of the greatest of heathen philosophers, admits, "We must of necessity wait till some one from Him, who careth for us, shall come and instruct us how to behave toward God and toward man."

Plato declares, "We cannot know of ourselves what will be pleasing to God; it is necessary that a law-giver should be sent from heaven to instruct us." And he further adds, "Oh, how greatly do I long to see that man!" (Plato's Republic, Book iv and vi.)

Who has not felt sad at the dying words of Socrates, "I am going out of the world and you are to continue in it, but which of us has the better part is a secret to all but God." Nor is the philosophy of India any better. A few years ago, when, through the labors of Oriental scholars, the Vedas and Shasters of the Hindoos were translated and printed in European languages, a great shout went up from the army of infidels. "Here," said they, "is the true chronology. Henceforth the Jewish records must hide their heads." Accordingly the Shasters were, for a time, in high repute among those who knew very little about them.

Now, when we remember that these much-vaunted histories profess to reach back through ma-ha-yugs or epochs of 4,320,000 of our years, that a thousand of these epochs makes a kalpa or one day of the life of Brahma—the nights being of the same duration—and that his life consists of one hundred years of such days and nights, we can easily see the absurdity of these histories. In these works are also the records of the seven great continents of the world, separated by seven rivers and seven chains of mountains, four hundred thousand miles high, and the history of the families of their kings, one of whom had ten thousand sons, another sixty thousand who were born in a pumpkin, nourished in pans of milk, reduced to ashes by the curse of a demon and restored to life by the waters of the Ganges. These records give statements of wonderful eclipses, comets and deluges, seven of which covered the earth, not merely to the top of these wonderfully high mountains, but even reaching to the polar star. Yet infidels have the assurance to quote these as standard works of undoubted authority, and worthy of the credence of intelligent beings. (Duff's India, page 127.)

Nor are the promises of the future life any less absurd than the foregoing. "Tell me," said a wealthy Hindoo, who had given all his wealth to the Brahmins who surrounded his dying bed, that he might obtain a pardon of his sins, "what shall become of my soul when I die?" The priest replied, "Your soul will go into the body of a holy cow." "And after that?" he asked again. "It will pass into the body of a divine peacock." "And after that?" "It will pass into a flower." "Where, O, where will it go last of all?" cried the dying man. "Where will it go last of all? Ah! that is the question."

While British infidels were admiring the sacred writings of the Hindoos, and holding them up before the world as superior to the word of God, French skeptics were busy in a similar employment. When Napoleon invaded Egypt, in 1798, he took with him a large corps of scientific men. In the ceiling of a temple at Dendera, in Upper Egypt, some of these scientists discovered a stone, tablet covered with strange characters. These characters, it was concluded, were a representation of the relative positions of the sun, moon and stars at the time the temple was built; and, calculating backwards, it was found that this could not be less than seventeen thousand years ago. This tablet was taken from the ceiling of the temple and carried away to France, and placed in the national library in Paris. Hundreds of thousands came to see the antediluvian monument, and infidel commentators were never wanting to inform them that this remarkable stone proved the whole Bible to be a series of lies. One of the discoverers, afterwards a professor in the University of Breslau, published a pamphlet, entitled, "Invincible proof that the earth is at least ten times older than is taught by the Bible." During the next thirty years, scores of such publications followed; and the base slander received many additions and improvements, until it was a common saying that this stone proved that "the priests of Egypt were carving astronomy on their pyramids ten thousand years before Adam was born."

It did not shake their credulity in the least, that no two of their wise men were agreed by some thousands of years, how old the stone was—that no one even knew the first principles of the Egyptian system of astronomy, and that none of them could read the hieroglyphics.

But, in 1832, the curious Egyptian astronomy was studied, and it then appeared that this object, which had caused so much commotion, was simply a calendar stone to aid in the measurement of time; and that the positions of the sun, moon and stars were so placed to enable common observers to ascertain the beginning of the year. At length, by means of the Rosetta Stone—which furnished a key to these hieroglyphics—Champolion and others learned to read the inscriptions on Egyptian monuments.

[Rosetta Stone, showing present and original form, and specimens of Greek, Coptic and Hieroglyphic characters.]

The Rosetta Stone was discovered by the French, in 1799, at Rosetta, Egypt. When in a perfect condition it was a tablet of black basalt, three feet high, two feet five inches wide, and ten inches thick. The inscription was in three languages:

Coptic, Greek and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. On the publication of the inscriptions it was found that they were the key to the hieroglyphic characters. It was then discovered that the names of Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, were engraved on the stone, as well as the names of the Roman emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and Domitian. The inscriptions revealed the fact that they had no reference to early Egyptian history. The edifice in which the first-mentioned stone was found was

simply a heathen Roman temple, built between the fourteenth and eighty-first years of the Christian era. Even at the present time, in the noon-day of modern science and so-called civilization, astrologers, mediums, clairvoyants and fortune-tellers by the hundred find a profitable business among those who consider themselves too learned, wise and progressive to believe in the word of God. One infidel lecturer even advertises that he will reveal to you the secrets of the future and cure you of any disease you may have, if you will only enclose in a letter a few hairs taken from your right temple and—and—a—ten dollar bill. Concerning the future life, infidels have every variety of oracles, conjectures and suppositions; but for their guesses they have no proof. The only thing upon which they seem agreed is in denying the resurrection of the body. According to their ideas, a poor, naked, shivering, table-rapping spirit, obliged to fly over the world at the sigh of any brainless fop or silly, sentimental girl, or the bidding of some brazen-faced strumpet, is all that ever shall exist of all the great and good men and women that have lived upon the earth. To such wild unreason does the mind of man descend when it rejects the gospel, for only through it life and immortality are brought to light. A year or two since, the leader of American infidels, Robert Ingersol, was called to deliver a funeral oration over the body of his brother. In that short discourse there were many beautiful sentiments:

but through it all, as through a transparent glass, was shown the need, which even Ingersol felt, of divine revelation and divine guidance.

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CHAPTER II.
CAUSES OF THE SUPPOSED CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

SCIENCE AND REVELATION HARMONIZE—WANT OF REVELATION THE CAUSE OF BARBARISM—BENEFITS AND EVILS OF ROMANISM—CONFLICT CONCERNING GEOGRAPHY—PHILOSOPHY OF COSMAS—STRUGGLES OF COPERNICUS—BRUNO —GALILEO—OPPOSITION OF LUTHER—SERVETUS BURNED—PROTESTANT BIGOTRY—CAUSES OF INFIDELITY.

Truth is ever harmonious. Science and religion, in the true sense of the terms, can never be in conflict with each other. The direct revelations of God to man must ever agree with the results of scientific investigation. Invention and discovery are but the unfolding of the laws, attributes and objects of nature to man's finite understanding—the action of the divine will on the minds of men. So, whether man seeks for spiritual truth through the revelations of God, or looks out upon the material world and investigates the working of physical laws, the result must be the same. A truth revealed to the sensitive, impulsive human heart to-day in its full play of emotions and passions cannot be at any real variance with a truth written upon a far-off planet rolling in the depths of space, or upon a fossil whose poor life ebbed away thousands of years ago. Yet, strange to say, a conflict has been going on for years between some students of science on one side and the devotees of religion on the other. Nearly all the great and good men of the medieval or modern times have been engaged on one side or the other, and a hard contest it has been. The war has been waged longer, the battles have been fiercer, the sieges more persistent, the diplomacy more far-reaching, and the revenge more deadly than ever characterized the military campaigns of Alexander, Caesar or Napoleon.

Let us then inquire into the causes of this conflict and try and understand something concerning it. In the first place we must be careful not to underrate science. On every side we see its beneficent effects. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, and the houses we dwell in depend in a great measure upon it for their existence. When we travel it is mostly by the appliances of science. The books we read are manufactured by its aid. It transmits our messages to and from our friends, and prepares the light that illuminates our streets and dwellings. It has contributed greatly to relieve human suffering and promote human happiness, and to distinguish the civilized from the savage races of the earth.

And what has religion done? So long as it was true and pure it was the favored child of heaven. While the true church existed upon the earth, whether Jewish or Christian, we hear of no conflict between its members and the students of science. On the other hand we find from their writings that Moses, Job, David, Solomon and Isaiah were the leading scientists of the ages in which they lived. They understood natural history, architecture, sculpture, poetry, music, botany, and in astronomy they made such progress that many of the constellations still retain the names they used, such as Orion, Pleaides, etc. (See Job xxxviii, 31; Amos v, 8.) We read of no conflict between the truths of science and the teachings of Paul, though he was one of the most learned men of the age in which he lived. On the other hand the discourse of Paul in the court of the Areopagus, was the complement or sequel of ideas already held by the most celebrated Grecian philosophers. (See Acts xvii, 19-23.)

It was not till after the great apostasy, when the voice of inspiration had ceased, that the great conflict commenced between science and the so-called Christian church.

We shall better understand this fact, when we recollect that from the time of the apostles to the ninth century, science, literature and philosophy were well nigh extinct. No schools of painting flourished, no models in sculpture were designed, no order of architecture arose, no great poem was written, and no history compiled, which have been deemed worthy to be transmitted to our times. It was only when European society came largely in contact with Jewish and Saracen influences during the wars of the Crusades and in contact with the Jews and Saracens of Spain, that any decided advances were made. As if to mark out to the world the real cause of its intellectual degradation, the regeneration of Italy commenced with the banishment of the popes to Avignon. Their exile continued more than seventy years; and during their absence, so rapid was the social and intellectual progress that on their return to Rome, they found it impossible to make any successful resistance, or to restore the old condition of society.

Yet even in her apostatized condition the Catholic church did much for the amelioration of society. At the commencement of the fourth century of the Christian era, a cloud of more than Cimmerian darkness overshadowed western Europe. It was then occupied by wandering savages. The period embraced in the next thousand years greatly improved its condition. It was during this period that the population were organized into families, communities and cities. Those centuries found it full of bondmen—they left it without a slave. Where there had been trackless forests, there were now farms, orchards and villages. Instead of bloody chieftains drinking out of their enemies' skulls, there were parish priests teaching the masses the crude beginning of religious thought. Instead of gladiatorial combats, which characterized ancient Roman civilization, there were thoughtful men gravely pondering the problems of free agency and moral responsibility.

Enveloped as she was by the evils of the times, the Catholic church gave rise to many improvements. She taught the doctrine of an ultimate accountability for personal deeds, of which the ancient inhabitants of Europe had very indistinct perceptions. Under her direction the brotherhood of man was taught as it had never been before, and was illustrated, not merely by individual acts of charity, the memory of which is soon forgotten, but also by the establishment of permanent institutions, such as hospitals, alms-houses, schools and asylums for the relief of the afflicted, for the spread of knowledge and the succoring of the oppressed. Many of her high dignitaries, and even popes, were men who had risen from the humbler ranks of society. These men, true to their instincts, were often the champions of right against might. In an age of tyranny, the very organization of the church was essentially republican. It thus paved the way for modern representative governments, and prepared the minds of men for their introduction.

Still it was not over nations and communities that Rome showed her chief power, but in her control of domestic and individual interests. History presents no record like hers. Her pontiffs in the quiet halls of the Vatican could equally take in a hemisphere at a glance or examine the private character of any individual. Was there a rebellion in Spain? Her agents informed her of it. Was there an obscure philosopher in Germany writing down the results of his investigations? She also knew it. While she restrained the power and tyranny of kings by her influence, she also relieved the hungry beggar or wandering minstrel at the monastery gate. In all Europe there was not a man too obscure, too insignificant or too desolate for her. Surrounded by her solemnities every one received his name at her altar, her bells chimed at his marriage and her knell tolled at his funeral. By her confessionals she extorted from him the secrets of his life, and by her penances she punished him for his faults. In the hour of sickness and trouble her servants sought him out, teaching him to place his trust in God, and strengthening him for the trials of life by the example of the good and faithful of former days. And when at length his lifeless body had become an offense, even to his friends, she received it into her consecrated ground, there to rest till the resurrection morning. She raised woman from nearly the condition of a slave and made her the equal and fit companion of man; and in turn, received a recompense by a firm friend in every home. In an age of bloodshed and plunder she lifted up her hand in defense of the weak, and made her sanctuaries a refuge for the despairing and oppressed.

But here arose the difficulty. The so-called Christian church by apostasy had lost the key of revelation. Her decisions depended not upon the voice of inspiration but upon the musty parchments of the past. Claiming to be the church of God, she regarded her decisions as infallible and irrevocable, her teachings as beyond question. Her ideas were crystalized; her philosophy, if indeed it was worthy of that name, was stationary, as must be the case with all systems reposing on a final revelation of God. In the domain of the Catholic church during the space of a thousand years, namely from the time of the apostles to the eleventh century, not a book had been written, not a painting executed, nor statue sculptured of sufficient merit to rescue the name of the author from oblivion. Throughout the length and breadth of Europe there fell a dark cloud of intellectual stagnation, an invisible atmosphere of oppression ready to break down morally and physically whatever opposed its weight; except where a few feeble rays of light were kept flickering by the efforts of Jewish and Mahometan scholars. She at once disclosed her human and denied her divine origin by attempting to force fixed laws on society in the presence of higher truths and advancing civilization.

The first great conflict was in reference to geography—the shape and surface of the earth. When science disclosed the fact that the earth was round, there was a great commotion, and so much the more since it was by Mahometan scholars that the discovery had been made. It was asked, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" In other words, "Is it possible for vile Mahometans to understand and teach such a truth when it is not yet known to the assumed church of God?" At once the war-spirit became fierce and hot. The great writer Eusebius treated the doctrine with contempt. Lactantius asks, "Is there any one so senseless, as to believe that there are men whose footsteps are higher than their heads? That the crops and trees grow downwards? That the rains, snow and hail fall upward to the earth?" (For further particulars see Whewel's Hist. Induct. Sciences, Vol. I, page 196.) At this stage of the controversy, Cosmas Indicopleustes, by direction of the Catholic church, undertook to give a description of the earth. According to Cosmas, the universe is in the form of an immense box, twice as broad as it is high and twice as long as it is broad. At the bottom of this box lies the earth, surrounded by four great seas or oceans. At the outer edges of these seas, rise immense walls, which support the vault of heaven, even as the walls of a house support the roof; and thus walls and vault shut in the earth and all the heavenly bodies. This vast box he divides into two compartments or stories. In the lower one men were said to live, and sun, moon and stars to move. The upper one was said to be the abode of God and angels, whose principal work was to push and pull the sun and planets to and fro, and to open the windows of heaven, and thus regulate the quantity of rain.

The ignorance or impudence of Cosmas can only be partially imagined, when we recollect that he supported his theory by reference to the Bible, and quoted Genesis i, 6; Job xxvi, 11; Psalms cxlviii, 4; Isaiah xl, 22. All the sublime poetry and beautiful imagery of these texts were thus debased to give credence to the wild vagaries of this ignorant man.

Space will not permit us to follow this contest in all its phases: suffice it to say that so late as the fourteenth century Cecco d' Ascoli was burned alive for asserting his belief in the rotundity of the earth. (See Neander's History of the Christian Church, Vol. II, page 63.) The student of history will also remember how Columbus at the great council of Salamanca was overwhelmed by texts of scripture wrested from their rightful meaning. It was only after the successful navigation of the earth, by Magellan's ship, the San Vittoria, that Rome ceased to persecute the adherents of this doctrine. In all this contest Rome's dogmas only resulted in injury to herself. The authority of the scriptures was not in the end weakened, but rather strengthened; but to thinking men, Rome's claim of divine right to interpret the scriptures was of little value. Rome had been "weighed in the balances and found wanting."

It was therefore in a scientific not less than a religious point of view that many leading minds looked with favor toward that great religious, movement known as the Reformation.

While Luther, Calvin and Zwingle were busy denouncing the corruptions of the Romish church, the forces were preparing for the second great conflict between science and so-called religion, namely, that concerning the motion of the earth. Copernicus lived at the same time as Luther, and died two years before him. His was as brave a life as ever lived in story. For thirty-six years, at the very time the Protestant struggle was raging, he was working at that immortal book, De Revolutionibus Orbum, in which he so clearly demonstrates the motion of the earth, and the revolution of the planets around the sun. But he dared not print it for many years. If he published it at Rome, it would fall into the hands of the Inquisition; if he caused it to be printed in Germany, there were the Protestant leaders no less hostile; if he sent it to Switzerland, there stood Calvin and Zwingle ready to burn it. At length the work was ready for the press. By the entreaty of the Romish Cardinal Schomberg, and with many apologies, Copernicus ventured to publish it. He was now old and feeble. Patiently he waited at death's door to see a printed copy. At length the long looked-for copy arrived, he saw it, composed himself and died, 1543.

Seven years after the death of Copernicus, was born that strange mortal, Giordano Bruno. For teaching the rotation of the earth he had to flee to Switzerland. But Calvin held power there and Bruno was soon obliged to leave. Driven in succession from England, France and Germany, and, like Noah's dove, finding no rest for the sole of his foot, he at length ventured to return to Italy. He was arrested in Venice, and after eight years of solitary confinement, was burned at Rome, February 16, 1600. When the atrocious sentence was passed upon him, he nobly replied, "Perhaps it is with greater fear that ye pass this sentence upon me than I receive it."

Meanwhile Galileo was prosecuting his studies at Florence. In May, 1609, he made his first telescope and pointing it toward the heavens saw the satellites of Jupiter and the phases of Venus. These were two of the weightiest arguments that had as yet been presented in favor of the Copernican theory. Already Galileo began to encounter vulgar indignation which accused him of impiety. In 1611, Galileo publicly exhibited the spots upon the sun. This only excited the rage of his persecutors. Goaded by opposition he wrote a letter, in 1613, to the Abbe Castelli, showing that the scriptures were given for our salvation, and not to teach astronomy in particular. This was repeating Bruno's offense. Galileo was brought before the Inquisition, and, after years of imprisonment, only saved his life by denying the great truths he had discovered. He died 1642, in the seventy-eighth year of his age, the prisoner of the Inquisition. But religious bigotry did not end there. It tried to follow him beyond the grave, disputing his right to make a will and denying him burial in consecrated ground. Nor were the leaders of the Protestant cause less bitter.

In reference to Copernicus, Luther declared, "People give ear to an upstart astrologer, who strives to show that the earth revolves;" and again, "This fool (Copernicus) wishes to reverse the whole system of astronomy." Melancthon, in his treatise Initia Doctrinea Physicae, says, "The eyes are the witnesses that the heavens revolve about the earth in the space of twenty-four hours," and adds, "Now it is a want of decency to assert publicly the notions of Copernicus;" and Zwingle declares, "The earth can be no where, if not in the center of the universe. It is a part of a good mind to accept the truth as revealed by God, and acquiesce in it." (See Geschichte des Materialismus, Vol. I, page 217.)

[BURNING OF SERVETUS.]

Further, Calvin proved the darkness of his own mind when he put to death that celebrated philosopher and physician, Michael Servetus, whose greatest crimes were that in religion he denied the absurd dogma that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three separate and distinct beings and yet one and the same person; and in science he had partially succeeded in discovering the circulation of blood. The circumstances were also of the most atrocious character. Servetus was roasted for two hours in the flames of a slow fire made of green wood. Meanwhile he was begging for the love of God that they would put on more wood or do something to end his torture.

So also in superstition the Protestants were not a whit behind the Catholics. In presence of the Protestant king, James I., of England, it was declared that Agnes Sampson with two hundred other witches had sailed in sieves from Leith to North Betwick church to hold a banquet with the devil. It was also said that the witches had baptized and then drowned a black cat, which caused a terrible storm in which the ship that carried the king narrowly escaped being wrecked. King James and the high church dignitaries who formed his privy council, believed the accusation and condemned the poor woman to the flames.

The leaders of German Protestantism were Luther and Melancthon, yet even they were victims of the grossest superstition. They believed that in the Tiber, not far distant from the pope's palace, a monster had been found having the body of a man, the head of an ass and the claws of a bird of prey. After much speculation and searching of their Bibles, they concluded it was a manifestation of God's anger against Rome, and they wrote a pamphlet about it. (See Buckle's Hist. of Civilization.)

It is a quite common error to suppose these persecutions to have emanated from the papal power exclusively. When we read of Copernicus escaping persecution only by death, of Bruno, burned alive as a monster of impiety, of Galileo imprisoned and humiliated as the worst of misbelievers we are apt to look upon these things as the effect of Romish intolerance. But we should not forget that Kepler who stands pre-eminently conspicuous, who lead science on to greater victories than either Copernicus or Galileo, who thought and spake as one inspired—even he was hunted alike by Protestant and Catholic. Nor was this feeling of intolerance confined to any particular age. On the contrary we behold its continuance even to our own times. In Protestant England so late as 1772, the celebrated Dr. Priestly was not permitted to accompany the famous expedition for scientific discovery under Captain Cook, because he did not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity as taught by the Church of England.

On the 10th of May, 1859, was buried Alexander Von Humboldt. His labors were among the greatest glories of this century, and his funeral one of the most imposing of modern times. Among those who did themselves the honor of following his remains to their last resting-place was the present emperor of Germany. But no minister of any sect was present except the officiating clergyman and a few others who were considered as not in good standing in their respective churches. By these instances and many others it might be shown how has been wrought into the very fibre of modern society that pernicious idea that there is a necessary antagonism between science and religion.

The lessons thus taught were clear and convincing. Many intelligent minds saw that Protestants as well as Catholics lacked not merely the charitable spirit of the gospel, but likewise that knowledge and authority, which are the certain results of divine revelation. The result was soon apparent. A violent reaction followed. Germany, the birthplace of the Reformation, is now the stronghold of infidelity.

And why was this? What was it that made large numbers of the best men in Europe hate both the Catholic and Protestant religions? Why did Ricetto, Bruno and Servetus in the hour of martyrdom turn with loathing from that sacred emblem, the crucifix? The reason was simply this: So-called Christianity had been made to them identical with the most horrible oppression of mind, because they who had assumed to represent Christianity had misrepresented it. In other words, the absurd theories, rigid dogmas and heathenish superstitions of apostate Christianity bore no more resemblance to the benign and heavenly principles of the gospel, than an ancient Egyptian mummy, with its shrunken skeleton and ghostly visage, bears to the person of a living being in the meridian of his mental and physical powers. (See appendix to Vol. IV. Histoire des Mathematiques.)

Did space permit it would be easy to show that the Protestant sects have opposed scientific truth as bitterly, and been overthrown as completely as Rome has ever been. Not merely in the examples of geography and astronomy, but also in chemistry and natural philosophy, as shown in the imprisonment of Roger Bacon and John Barillon; in anatomy and surgery as illustrated in the persecutions against Versalius, the great anatomist of the sixteenth century. Nor was it merely in the olden times that this opposition was manifest. Scarcely eighty years have passed since Jenner, the discoverer of vaccination, barely escaped with his life from the persecutions of leading religionists in Protestant England, for conferring upon mankind the knowledge of prevention of a horrible disease. So, also, in 1847, James Y. Simpson, the eminent Scotch physician, who did so much to alleviate human suffering by means of anaesthetics, was denounced throughout Europe and America by the leading Protestant ministers. The persecutors seemed to forget that, in the first surgical operation of which we have record, God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam. (See Genesis ii., 21.)

So, also, in geology, scarcely forty years have elapsed since both Protestant and Catholic leaders were denouncing that science as a "dark art," "infernal artillery," and "an awful evasion of the testimony of revelation." While such honored names as Prof. Sedwick, Edward Hitchcock, Louis Agassiz and Mary Somerville were denounced coarsely by name for those studies which unfold the wonders of creation, and illustrate the goodness of our Heavenly Father—studies that have made their names honored throughout the world. (See Silliman's Journal. Vol. 30, page 114.)

And what has been the result of all this? In the older nations have come forth, by natural reaction, the most formidable enemies the so-called Christian church has ever known. Of these Voltaire and Renan may be considered types, and there are many signs that the same causes are producing similar results in our own country. Yet Renan, Bennet and Ingersol are not haters of truth. Rather may it be said, they hate counterfeits and are indignant at the assumptions of apostate Christendom. In their impetuosity they have rushed into the other extreme, and demand for science more than she can rightly claim.

* * * * *

CHAPTER III.
FALLACIES OF SCIENTISTS.

IGNORANCE OF SKEPTICS—ERRORS IN ASTRONOMY GEOLOGY NOT RELIABLE—SCIENTISTS DISAGREE—TESTIMONIES OF HUGH MILLER—HUMBOLDT —LYELL—SECOND-HAND KNOWLEDGE—OUR NEED OF FAITH.

"A little or superficial knowledge may incline a man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth him back to religion." So said Francis Bacon, one of the world's greatest philosophers, and history has proved his saying to be true. The great lights of the scientific world, such as Columbus, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Herschel, Agassiz, Rosse or Proctor, all have cherished a reverence for religion. On the other hand, it is generally third or fourth rate men of learning, or those whose impetuosity is greater than their judgment, who ever attempt to achieve distinction as infidel lecturers. Men who have failed in their business for want of capacity, frequently turn misanthropes and denounce truths and men that they have not brains enough to comprehend. True, apostate Christianity has been "weighed in the balances and found wanting," but does that prove that there is no vital, no divine religion that will satisfy the intellect of man with its truths, and touch the heart with its love—a Christianity which, bearing the full impress of its Author's image, shall take its place among the various forces at work in society and eventually subordinate them all? Nay, verily! As well might we say that because there are counterfeit bank bills in existence, therefore, none are genuine.

One cannot help being amazed at the cool impudence with which infidels take for granted the very points to be proved, and set aside, as unworthy of serious examination, the most authentic records of history and facts of science. When skeptics, who are determined not to believe in the Bible, find the historical evidences of its genuineness, authority and inspiration impossible to be overthrown by ridicule or sophistry, they turn their attention to some other mode of attack; and, of late years, they have ransacked the whole circle of sciences hoping to find a more powerful weapon. Especially has every new discovery been hailed by skeptics as an ally to their cause, until further acquaintance has proved that it was not so. Thus, when geology began to upheave its titanic form it was eagerly greeted by skeptics; but now that they have discovered the proofs it gives of a Creator they are getting shy of its acquaintance.

It is, therefore, worth while to enquire, is science really so positive as these persons pretend? Or, is it true that the students of the physical sciences have no certain knowledge of their theories? We need not here speak of the disputes between Herschel and Ferguson, Newton and Brewster, La Place and Lionville. Rather let us begin with the most positive of all sciences. Mathematics—the science of magnitude and numbers—and note a few things concerning it. Upon reflection, it is surprising how few subjects are capable of a mathematical demonstration.

The mathematician may demonstrate the size and properties of a triangle, but he cannot demonstrate the continuance of any actual triangle for one hour, or one minute after his demonstration.

A mathematical proof admits of no doubts or contingencies. A man may calculate the force of the wind, but he cannot tell how long it will continue to blow in that direction, whether it will increase to a hurricane or subside to a calm. He may count the revolutions of an engine, but he cannot test its extreme power, or prove its continued existence for a single hour. How many of the most important affairs of life can be demonstrated by means of the multiplication table? It would be safe to say not one in ten. Again, mathematics frequently deal with purely ideal figures, which never did or never can exist. There is not a mathematical line—length without breadth—in all the universe. On careful examination, we find that there are no mathematical figures in nature. We speak of the earth as a sphere, but it is a sphere pitted with hollows as deep as the ocean, and crested with protuberances as high as the Andes or Himalayas, in every conceivable irregularity of form. There is not an acre of absolutely level ground on the face of the earth; even its waters pile themselves up in waves, or dash into breakers, rather than remain perfectly level for a single hour. The microscope reveals the fact that the pearl is proportionally rougher than the surface of the earth, and the dew-drop is no nearer round than a pear. When we speak of the orbits of the planets as elliptical or circular, it is only in a general way; just as we speak of a circular saw, the outline of its teeth being regularity itself, as compared with the motions of the planets in their orbits.

So also with Astronomy, it is far from being an exact science. From the comparative simplicity of the forces with which it has to deal, and the approximate regularity of the paths of the heavenly bodies, it may be regarded as the science in which the greatest possible certainty is attainable. It opens, at once, the widest field to the imagination, and the noblest range to the reason; it has attracted the most exalted intellects to its pursuit, and has rewarded their toils with the grandest discoveries. Lest we should ascribe to the discoverers of the laws of the universe, the glory due to their Creator, let us glance at some of the errors of astronomy.

Sir John Herschel, than whom none has a better right to speak on this subject, devotes a chapter to the "Errors of Astronomy."

"No philosophical observation or experiment is absolutely accurate. The error of a thousandth part of an inch in an instrument, will multiply itself into thousands and millions of miles according to the distance of the object."

To begin at our own little globe, where exactness is more easily attained, than among distant planets, we find that two of the greatest astronomers, Bessel and Newton, differ from each other in the measurement of the diameter of the earth fully eleven miles. So also the diameter of the earth's orbit is uncertain by 360,000 miles. Now the diameter of the earth, and the diameter of its orbit are the very foot rule and yard stick, as it were, by which astronomers measure the heavens. (See Humboldt's Cosmos, Vol, I. page 7, and Vol. IV. page 477.)

"Let us then be candid," says Loomis, "and claim no more for astronomy than is reasonably due. When in 1846 the great astronomer Le Verrier announced the existence of a planet hitherto unseen, and when he assigned to it its exact position in the heavens, and declared that it shone like a star of the eighth magnitude, not an astronomer of France, and scarcely one in Europe had sufficient faith in the prediction to prompt him to point his telescope to the heavens."

So also geology, one of the most recent of the sciences, and in the hands of infidel nurses one of the most noisy, has been found to be unreliable in many particulars. True a wonderful outcry has been raised about the antagonism between the records of the rocks, and the records of the Bible. But no one has yet succeeded in proving such an antagonism; for the plain reason that neither the Bible nor geology says how old the earth is. They both say it is very old. The Bible says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The term here translated "in the beginning" signifies, as every Hebrew scholar knows, a period of such remote antiquity, that in Bible language it stands next to eternity. Now if the geologist could prove that the earth is a thousand million years older than the time when Adam appeared upon it, this would contradict no statement of the Bible. So when infidels come to us with their geological theories about the manner in which God made the earth, or in which the earth is said to have made itself, and how long it took to do it, and tell us that they have scientific demonstration from the rocks that the Bible is false, we surely have a right to enquire into the foundation of these theories upon which they have built such startling conclusions. Now it is remarkable that every infidel argument is based not upon the facts, but upon the theories of geology. But how does our infidel geologist set about his work of proving that the earth has any given age, say a thousand million years? Why he simply commences with a theory or supposition. Yet a demonstration must rest upon facts, it admits of no suppositions. In examining the crust of the earth we find a great many layers of rocks, one above the other, evidently formed below the water, some of them out of the fragments of former rocks containing bones, shells and casts of fishes and tracks of the feet of birds, made when these rocks were in the state of soft mud. These layers form what is termed the crust of the earth, and are altogether several miles in thickness. Yet not one of these layers gives us the element of time. They announce to us successive generations of animals and plants; but they do not tell us how long these generations lived. We have every reason to believe that the condition of the world was very different then, from what it is now; not only as regards its temperature, of which we have many proofs that it was much higher than at present; but likewise in regard to the density of the atmosphere and the distribution of water on the surface of the globe. All these conditions indicate that both animal and vegetable life were then far different from what they are now, as the fossil remains of those animals and plants abundantly and unquestionably prove. But in all this we have no means of determining the duration of those species. The various species of plants and animals may have flourished during a period of a thousand, a million, or a thousand million years for all we know.

Here is a problem exactly similar. On examination we find that a certain house is built on a foundation of well-cemented concrete three feet deep, that it has ten courses of stone in the basement, forty courses of brick in the first story, thirty-six courses in the second, thirty-two in the third; with a roof of nine inch rafters, covered with inch boards, and an inch and a half layer of coal-tar and gravel; now tell us how long was the house in building? Why the very school-boy would laugh at the absurdity of such a question. He would say, "How can I tell unless I know where the materials were obtained, how they were conveyed, how many workmen were employed, and how much they could do in a day? If the rock had been brought from a distance, the brick to be made by hand, the lumber all dressed with a handsaw and jackplane, and all the work done by a slowgoing jobbing contractor who employed only three or four men—why, they would not get through in a year. But if the rock was found in excavating the cellar, if the brick were made by machinery and near at hand, the lumber dressed by steam saw and planing mills, and thirty or forty workmen employed, it might be all finished in a month."

So the geologist ought to say, "I do not know either the source of the materials of the earth's strata nor the distance from which they were conveyed to their present position, nor the forces which were employed in changing them from their primitive elements to the forms in which we now see them; therefore I cannot tell the time required for their formation. If the crust of the earth was originally fused into granite by intense heat, and this granite has been thrown up into vast mountains by the internal heat of the earth; and in turn, these mountains have been slowly worn away, by the action of wind, rain and frost, and conveyed down to the shores of the primeval ocean, by the still slower agency of mountain torrents and rivers; and if these deposits having first been the home of various species of animals and plants have hardened into rock which in turn has been heaved up by volcanic forces—if this was the mode of creation, hundreds of millions of years may have been required to produce the effects we now see upon the surface of the globe.

"But if the crust of the earth originally consisted of the various elements of which granite and other rocks are composed, if (as is generally conceded, granite is the lowest in the scale of all the rocks with which man is acquainted,) the granite was fused into its present condition by the intense heat generated by the chemical action of these elements upon each other, and if the overlying strata were consolidated by the vast pressure of a universal ocean, as is generally conceded to have covered the earth at a certain geologic period, and if these rocks were baked by their own chemical heat or by the continuous heat of the underlying granite, while the cooler temperature of the water above prevented the upper strata from becoming so solid—then, under such circumstances, a very few centuries might suffice." (See Lyell's Principles of Geology, chapters 12 and 32.)

Until these indispensable preliminaries are settled, geology can make no calculations of the length of time occupied by the formation of the strata.

Again, all geological computations of time are made upon the supposition that only the same agents were then at work which we now see, that they wrought with the same degree of force and produced the same results though working under widely different conditions. For example, suppose it now takes a year to deposit mud enough at the bottom of the sea, to make an inch of rocks, and if mud was deposited no faster in those remote ages, then the rocks would be as old as there are inches in the eight or nine miles depth to which the strata extends. But how can we prove that mud was deposited at the same rate then as now? And so the whole fabric of geological chronology vanishes into a mere unproved notion, based upon an if.

It is truly astonishing that any sober-minded person should allow himself to be shaken in his religious convictions by the alleged results of a science so unformed and imperfect, as geologists themselves acknowledge their favorite science to be. Thus Hugh Miller admits, "There are no calculations more doubtful than those of the geologist;" and again, "It furnishes us with no certain clue by which to unravel the unapproachable mysteries of creation." (See Footprints of the Creator, page 313.)

These mysteries belong to the wondrous Creator, and to Him only. Men attempt to theorize upon them, and to reduce them to law; but all nature rises up against them in their presumptuous rebellion. A stray splinter of cone-bearing wood, a fish's skull, the skeleton of a reptile, the tooth or jaw of a quadruped, all or any of these things— weak and insignificant as they may seem—when found imbedded in the strata of the rocks, become evidence too strong for man and all his theories. These puny fragments in the grasp of truth become weapons as irresistible as the dry bone in the hand of Sampson of old; and our slaughtered theories lie piled up heaps upon heaps before them.

Then, again, they are quarreling about the leading principles of the science. Hopkins attempts to prove that the crust of the earth is eight hundred miles thick, while Humboldt asserts that it is less than twenty-four. As the temperature increases one degree for every forty-five feet we descend into the earth, so, at that rate, in less than twenty-four miles the heat would be so great as to melt iron and almost any known substance. But here, again, they differ. Wedgewood declares that iron melts at 21,000 degrees Fahrenheit; while Professor Daniels is positive that it melts at 2,786 degrees, Fahrenheit. Only a slight difference of 18,214 degrees.

But then comes the great question: if granite is the lowest layer in the strata, what is below the granite? De Beaumont affirms that "the whole globe, with the exception of a thin envelope—much thinner in proportion than the shell of an egg—is a melted mass kept fluid by heat, but constantly cooling and contracting its dimensions and occasionally cracking and falling in, and squeezing upwards large portions of the mass, thus producing those folds or wrinkles which we call mountain chains." On the other hand, Davy and Lyell think that "we may perhaps refer the heat of the interior to chemical changes going on in the earth's crust." So much for the uncertainties of geology.

If space permitted, it would be easy to go over other sciences and show similar uncertainties in them all. It is worthy of notice that the uncertainties of science increase just in proportion to our interest in it. About what does not concern us, it is very positive; but very uncertain about our dearest interests. The astronomer may calculate with considerable certainty the movements of distant planets with which we have no intercourse; but he cannot predict the heat or cold, clouds or sunshine, and other phenomena continually occurring on our earth. The forces of heat may be measured, to some extent, but what physician can measure the strength of the malignant fever that is destroying the life of his patient. The chemist can thoroughly analyze any foreign substance, but the disease of his own body, which is bringing him to the grave, he can neither weigh, measure nor remove. Science is very positive about distant stars and remote ages, but stammers and hesitates about the very lives of its professors.

If such are the uncertainties of science to the actual investigators, what shall we say to him who has learned his science at school? When we meet with such an infidel, who denounces religion while he extols the certainties of science, would it not be well to ask a few questions such as the following? Have you personally measured the diameter of the earth, observed the transit of Venus, or calculated the distance of the moon? Or, further, would you feel yourself competent to perform such labor; or is it possible that, after all your boasting, you have taken your science at second-hand, and on the testimony of another? Again, perhaps you are a student of the stone book (as scientists sometimes call the strata of the earth's crust), with its enduring records graven in the rock forever; and perhaps you profess to believe that under these ponderous strata the Bible has found an everlasting tomb! But how many of the volumes of this stone book have you perused personally! Have you ever visited the many localities in our own country, to say nothing of the instructive lessons to be learned from the strata of England, Scotland, Wales, the Himalayas, the Andes and the Lauretian rocks of Canada, where the different formations are to be seen? Have you personally excavated from their beds, the various fossils that form, as it were, the very alphabet of the science; or, is it possible that all you know of geology is from the specimens of collectors, and the statements of lecturers aided by maps of ideal stratification in rose-pink, brimstone-yellow and indigo-blue?

But perhaps you are a chemist, and proud, as most chemists are, of the accuracy attainable in that most demonstrative science. But how much of it is really science to you? Of the nine hundred and forty-two substances mentioned in Turner's Chemistry, how many have you analyzed? Could you truthfully say one-half, one-fourth, or even one-tenth? Much less, would you face the laughter of a college class, to-morrow, upon the experiment of taking nine out of the nine hundred, reducing them to their primitive elements, and giving an accurate analysis of their component parts?

In fact, do you know anything worth mentioning of the facts of science upon your own knowledge, except those of the trade by which you make your living? Or, after all your boasting about scientific certainty, is it true that you have been obliged to receive your science upon faith, at second-hand, and on the word of another, and to save your life you could not tell who that other is, or even name the discoverers of half the scientific truths you believe? Therefore, whatever precision may be attained by scientific men—and we have seen that it is not much—it is very certain you have none of it. The very best you can have to wrap yourself in is a second-hand assurance, grievously torn by rival schools, and needing to be patched every month by later discoveries.

But this is not all. Most sciences are not only uncertain, but also insufficient. We demand the knowledge of truths of which science is profoundly ignorant. Of all the great problems and precious interests which belong to me as a mortal or immortal being, science knows nothing. I ask her whence I came. She points to her pinions stretched over the abyss of primeval fire, her eyes blinded by its awful glare, and remains silent. I inquire what I am; but the strange and questioning I is a mystery which she can neither analyze nor measure. I tell her of the voice of conscience within—she never heard it and does not pretend to understand it. I tell her of my anxieties about the future—she is learned only in the past. I inquire how I may be happy hereafter—but happiness is not a scientific term, and she cannot even tell me how to be happy here! Poor, blind science!

Further still, all our dearest interests lie beyond the domains of physical science, in the regions of faith. Science treats of things—faith is confidence in persons. Take away the persons and of what value are the things? The world becomes at once a vast desert, a dreary solitude. I can live, and love, and be happy without science; but not without companionship whose bond is faith. In its sunshine alone can happiness grow. It is faith sends man out in the morning to his work, nerves his arms through the toils of the day, brings him home in the evening, gathers the children around the table, inspires the oft-repeated efforts of the little prattler to ascend his parent's knee, clasps the chubby arms around his neck, looks with the most confiding innocence into his eye and puts forth the little hand to catch his bread and share his cup. Undoubting faith is happiness even here below. Need we marvel, then, that man must be converted from his pride of empty, barren science, and casting himself with all his powers into the arms of faith, become as a little child before he can enter into the kingdom of heaven?

* * * * *

CHAPTER IV.
DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF?

MANIFESTATIONS OF POWER—MOUNTAIN CHAINS—PHENOMENA THE EFFECT OF CAUSE—EXTENT OF UNIVERSE—MANIFESTATIONS OF DESIGN—THE HUMAN EYE—MATTER INERT—DID THE PAVING-STONES MAKE THEMSELVES?—THEORIES OF BUFFON—OF DR. OLBERS—HISTORY DECLARES GOD'S GOVERNMENT.

"Nature is but the name of an effect whose cause is God."—COWPER.

"The infidel astronomer is mad."—HERSCHEL.

Had the world a Creator, or did it make itself? Let us look out upon nature, and see what there is to suggest the idea of God. Infidels tell us that faith is destined to be left behind in the onward march of intellect; that it belongs to an infantile stage of intellectual development; that children and childish notions are prone to superstition, which is only another name for religion. To account for the wonders of creation they will coolly talk of the eternity of matter, and the action of natural laws, as if these assertions would lead them out of their dilemma.

One of the most impressive lessons that a person ever learns, is from the manifestation of power as shown in the phenomena of nature, as, for example, when he gazes upon the phenomena of a thunder storm. The dark and thickening cloud, the flashes of the lightning, the roaring of thunder, the dashing of the rain and the wild sweep of the winds, sometimes crushing forests in their pathway, are all manifestations of an unseen power. Among the works of human hands, the traveler gazes with amazement at the ponderous bulk of the pyramids. But what are the pyramids to the Alps, which have been lifted by some power to an altitude thirty-three times the hight of the largest pyramid? And yet the Alps are little more than half the hight of the Andes, and not more than a hundredth part of their mass. These ponderous mountain chains have been upheaved bodily, tearing their way through masses of solid rock miles in thickness, uplifting, crushing, tilting and dislocating the solid floor of half a continent. Here is a power which may well amaze us.

Again, no strain, that man has ever applied, has compressed or stretched, in the least perceptible degree, a block of building stone. In fact, the architects and builders of the most ponderous edifices, such as the Salt Lake Temple, make not the least allowance for the compression of the stones which lie at their very base. Yet such is the strain which nature exerts upon the rocky slabs built into the hill-sides, that they yield like india-rubber to the pressure; and when, by quarrying, the strain is relieved, the crushed rocks, with a groan, ease themselves back to their original dimensions. (See Winchel's Reconciliation of Science and Religion, page 334.)

[IDEAL SECTION OF THE UINTAH MOUNTAINS, SHOWING UPHEAVAL OF STRATA AND UNDERLYING GRANITE—AFTER POWELL.]

And yet, after all, this is but one of nature's feeblest efforts. Look beyond the phenomena of uplifted mountain-masses, deep-scooped ocean basins, forest-laying tempests and land-consuming waves. Look out into limitless space! There hang worlds of ponderous bulk. They were fashioned by some skillful hand; they are upheld by some mighty agency; and moved onward in their majestic course by some mysterious power. We cannot bring our minds to comprehend that power; but let us raise our thoughts and try to understand something concerning it. There is the sun whose bulk is so great that, if its center was placed where the center of the earth is, its body would extend in every direction as far as the moon. Nay, farther, it would extend beyond the moon a distance of twenty-four times the diameter of the earth. This vast sun, still in the fiery vigor of its youth, imparting light and life to all that dwell on the planets which revolve around it, is only one of the numberless orbs that shine in the abyss of heaven.

Now, what is this power that has formed these glorious suns and sent them whirling onward through the cycles of the ages? The infidel tells us it is gravity. But what is gravity? Whence proceeds that mighty force which men call by that name? Matter is inert, that is, it does not possess the power of moving itself. It is evident, then, that matter is acted upon by some power outside of itself. In human affairs we can find no result without a cause, no design without a designer; and, on thinking carefully, we find that every designer is under the control of a will. So, in the field of nature, every phenomenon is but the effect of some cause, and that cause must have acted under the control of some intelligent will.

We are still more amazed when we consider the inconceivable space over which this power extends. The bulk of the sun is beyond our mental grasp. How then shall we comprehend its distance from us? It is generally considered that the sun is about ninety-two millions of miles distant. It is easy to say these words, but difficult to realize their meaning. Our express trains move at the rate of thirty miles an hour. Now if a railway stretched from the earth to the sun, it would require three hundred and fifty years for an express train to pass over it. If Champlain, the founder of Quebec, and Capt. John Smith and Pocahontas, so famous in early Virginia history, had stepped on board this train it would still require nearly eighty years more for their descendants to reach the end of their journey. The distance would still be so great, that only the great grand-children of the present generation could expect to reach the sun. And yet there is a power that reaches across this vast distance, swings the world around its orbit like a haltered colt trotting around a hitching post, lifts the ocean into a mighty tide and lashes the rocky shores with the fury of the angry waves. But this is not all. Light flashes across this mighty chasm in the brief space of eight minutes and a half. The light by which we read these lines started from the sun about the time we read the heading of this article. What shall we say of a space so vast, that this light must travel a year, a hundred, aye, even a thousand years before it reaches its destination? And yet there is a power that governs even there, a power so mighty that He "grasps the whole frame-work of stars and systems, and sends them whirling and wheeling through the depths of boundless space like a handful of pebbles thrown through the air." Well might the great philosopher and poet, Addison, exclaim:

"The spacious firmament on high
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.
"In Reason's ear they all rejoice
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine."

While we are amazed at the manifestations of power in creation, let us not forget the indications of intelligence and design that exist all around us. For example, I see a friend walking along the street in the rain, with an umbrella over his head, and I feel that somebody contrived that instrument with the design of keeping off the rain. In one word, it was intended for that purpose. In like manner we perceive marks of design and intelligence in the countless contrivances and instruments used in every-day life. In fact, we cannot look upon the simplest invention without feeling that it is the result of design and intelligence. Now the world is full of contrivances, which were not made by human hands, nor invented by human brains. The hand that wrote these words or the hand that set up the type to print them is a more ingenious contrivance than was ever made by human skill. If it required intelligence to make a pen, did it not require still greater intelligence to make the hand that wields the pen? If it required design to fashion a metal type, did it not require a still greater design to form the hand that manipulates that type? not to speak of that subtle and mysterious power, called the mind, which guides the hand under both these circumstances.

In like manner we might observe the marks of design and mechanical skill displayed in the formation of the eye. First, there is the cavity in which it is placed, composed of seven little bones nicely fitted and glued together, lined with the softest fat and enveloped in a tissue, compared with which the softest silk is only coarse canvas. Then the cavity is so shaped as to exactly fit the eye, while the brow projects over like the roof of a veranda and the lids close down over it to protect it from injury. Again, we find that the ropes and pulleys used in the rigging of a ship are simplicity indeed as compared with the nerves and muscles used in the movements of the eye.

Most persons have seen a ship, and know the way in which the yards are moved, and the sails squared by means of ropes and pulleys. Now, there is a tackle called a muscle to pull the eye down when you want to look down; another to pull it up when you have done; there is one to pull it to the right, and another to pull it to the left. There is one fastened to the eyeball in two places, and so arranged that it will move the eye in any direction, as when we roll our eyes; and a sixth fastened to the under side of the eye to keep it steady when we do not need to move it. Then the eyelids are provided with suitable gearing, and it needs to be durable too, for it is said to be used thirty thousand times a day, in fact, every time we wink.

Not less wonderful is the construction of the eye itself. The optic nerve is the part of the eye which conveys visions to the mind. Suppose instead of it being where you observe it, at the back part of the eye, it had been brought out to the front, and that reflections from objects had fallen directly upon it. It is obvious that it would have been exposed to injury from every floating particle of dust, and we would always have felt such a sensation as is caused by a burn or scald when the skin peels off and leaves the ends of the nerves exposed to the air. Also the tender points of the fibres of the optic nerve would soon become blunted and the eye of course useless. How then is the nerve to be protected, and yet the sight not obstructed? If it were covered with skin as the other nerves are, we could not see through it. For thousands of years after men had eyes and used them, they knew no substance at once hard and transparent, which could answer the double purpose of vision and protection. To this day man knows no substance clear enough for vision, hard enough for protection, and elastic enough to resume its form after a blow. Now observe in the eye, that forward part, called the cornea, is as it were the watch-glass. It it is made of a substance at once hard, transparent and elastic; something which man has never been able to imitate.

It may be asked, what is the use of so many lenses in the eye? Light when refracted through a lens, becomes separated into its component colors—red, yellow, green, blue and violet. So that if the crystalline lens of the eye alone were used, we should see every white object, bluish in the middle, and yellowish and reddish at the edges. This difficulty perplexed Sir Isaac Newton all his life, and he never discovered the mode of making a refracting telescope which would obviate it. That remained for M. Dolland, a celebrated physician, to do; and he did it by studying and imitating the formation of the eye. Now what absurdity to say that a law of nature, such as gravity, or electricity has such a knowledge of the principles of optics and mechanics as the eye proclaims its Former to have! In all this we see marks of the most admirable design. The eye is fitted both to gaze at the stars millions of miles away and minutely examine objects only a few inches distant. In the brightness of sunshine the pupil contracts in order to protect the optic nerve from injury; in twilight it expands so as to admit a greater amount of light. When we wish to regulate the admission of light to our rooms we have recourse to very clumsy contrivances. A self-acting window which shall expand in the twilight and partially close of its own accord as the light increases towards noon, has never been manufactured by man. In short, anatomists have already observed more than eight hundred contrivances in the dead eye, while the greatest contrivance of all, the power of seeing, is utterly beyond their ken.

Similar arguments might be brought from every department of nature to prove the marks of design in creation. The question therefore returns with double force, had the world a creator or did it make itself? There are persons who say it did, and with a brazen-faced impudence declare that the Bible tells a falsehood when it says that, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." "Whereas," say they, "we know that matter is eternal, and the world being wholly composed of matter, therefore, the heavens and the earth are eternal—never had a beginning nor a creator." Profound reasoning indeed! In the same manner we might say, "Here is a well-burned brick, fresh from the kiln, which may last for a thousand years to come; therefore, it has always existed."

Again, it is claimed by some that matter is indestructible. The foundation of the argument is as rotten as the superstructure. Who knows that fact? for the very reason that no one can tell what matter in its own nature is. We may heat water to a certain degree and change it into steam, but it is all there in the steam. We may burn coal and thus change is appearance, but its particles are all there, in the form of gas, ashes or tar. All that any one can say is, that matter is indestructible by any power or agency known to man. But to assert that matter is eternal, because man cannot destroy it, is as if a child should try to beat a locomotive to pieces with his stick, and failing in the attempt should say, "I am sure this locomotive existed from eternity, because I am unable to destroy it."

But, supposing that matter is eternal, how does that account for the formation of this beautiful world? The earth consists not of one substance known by that name, but of a great variety of material substances as oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, sulphur, iron, and some fifty-two or three others already discovered (see Turner's Chemistry, section 341). Now which of these is the eternal matter referred to? Is it iron, or sulphur, or carbon, or oxygen? If it is any one of them, where did the others come from? Did a mass of iron, for example, becoming discontented with its condition, suddenly change itself into a cloud of gas or a pail of water? Or are all the elements eternal? Have we fifty-eight eternal substances? Are they all eternal in their present combinations, or is it only the simple elements that are eternal? Whatever may be the answers to these questions, they give no light on the formation of this world, which is not a shapeless mass called matter, but a beautiful building composed of a variety of substances. Has this earth existed as it is from eternity? No man who ever was in a quarry or gravel pit will say so, much less one who has the least smattering of chemistry or geology. If the elements which compose the earth have not always existed as we now find them, then how came they to put themselves in their present shapes? Matter has no power of putting itself in motion when at rest, nor of coming to rest when in motion. A body will never change its place unless moved, and if once started will move on forever unless stopped. For example, if we leave our room, and on our return find a book missing, we know that some one has taken it—the book could not have gone off at its own suggestion.

Now will the infidels presume to tell us, that the fifty-eight primary elements danced about till the air, sea and earth somehow jumbled themselves together into the present shape of this glorious and beautiful world, with all its regularity of day and night, Summer and Winter, with all its beautiful flowers and lofty trees, with all its variety of birds, beasts and fishes, not to speak of the beauties of the morning, the gorgeous dyes of sunset, or the silent glories of the midnight sky. Or to bring the question down to the level of the intellect of the most stupid atheist, tell us in plain English, did the paving stones make themselves?

Absurd as it seems, there are persons claiming to be philosophers who not only assert that they did, but will tell you how they did it. One class of them think they found it out by supposing everything in the universe reduced to very fine powder, consisting of very fine grains, which they call atoms; or, if that is not fine enough, into gas, of which it is supposed the particles are too fine to be perceived, and then by different arrangements of these atoms, according to the laws of attraction, electricity, or some other law, the various elements of the world were made, and arranged in their present forms. But then the difficulty is only multiplied millions of times. Each bit of paving stone, no matter how small you break it, can no more make itself or move itself, than could the whole stone composed of all these bits. So we are landed back at the sublime question, did the paving stones make themselves?

Others will tell you that millions of years ago the world existed as a vast cloud of fire-mist. What this fire-mist is they do not know, but only that there are certain comets, which come within fifty or sixty millions of miles of this earth, which they suppose may be composed of fire-mist. Hence they imagine that the earth also may have been made from the same fire-mist. But where did the mist come from? Did the mist make itself? Where did the fire come from? Did it kindle of its own accord? Who put the fire and the mist together? Was it red hot enough from all eternity to melt granite? Then why is it any cooler now? If it existed as a red hot fire-mist from eternity, why should it ever begin to cool at all? Infidels claim that there was nothing else in all the universe except this fire-mist. Then the cause of all this must have been in the mist itself. In other words, the fire-mist made itself, then the paving stones and the infidels afterwards.

Others suppose that the world was once in a stage of solution, in primeval oceans, and that the mixing of these waters caused them to deposit a sediment, which hardened into rock, then vegetated into plants and trees, then grew into animals, these in turn developed into monkeys, and finally the monkeys into men. Thus it is clearly demonstrated that there is no need for the Creator if we only had somebody to make these primeval oceans, somebody to mix them together, and somebody to establish these laws of development.

Another favorite theory among infidels, is that of Buffon, the vain-glorious French philosopher. His theory was that the sun is a vast melted mass, and that once on a time a huge comet struck the sun in such a manner, that portions of it splashed off, just as a stone thrown in a slanting direction into a bucket of water would cause portions of the water to splash out of the vessel. These portions of matter (acting under certain laws) then formed themselves into spheres and being condensed by cold have become solid planets and satellites. Thus, according to this idea, creation was only an accident after all. Still, as might be expected, thinking men kept asking: "Where did the sun come from? What melted it down into a fluid state fit to be splashed about? Where did the comet come from? And who threw it with so correct an aim, as to hit the sun exactly in an oblique direction."

[SOLAR SYSTEM]

This idea received considerable encouragement from a certain class of scientific men during the early part of this century. Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter is a vast space which was supposed to be unoccupied. In the first seven years of this century, three small planets were discovered revolving in orbits midway between Mars and Jupiter. Afterwards many others were discovered until now the number exceeds two hundred. Dr. Olbers, the discoverer of two of them, Pallas and Vesta, finding that their orbits were comparatively near together and sometimes crossed each other, imagined that they were formed by the explosion of a large planet or by a comet coming in contact with a large planet and thus shattering it to pieces. This theory seemed all the more plausible seeing that these minor worlds or "pocket planets," as Herschel styles them, are exceedingly diminutive. So, to use a familiar illustration, he imagined the boiler of a large locomotive had burst and the fragments had all alighted on the track in the shape of hand-cars; much more, that the hand-cars had magnanimously resolved to keep running and do the business of the line. At first sight this theory seemed strengthened by every new discovery. It is true, reflecting men could not help wondering at such a strange event, that would produce beautiful little planets all by accident. They never heard of the blowing up of a palace producing cottages, or the fragments of a steam-ship changing into yawl-boats, nor even the pieces of a wrecked locomotive becoming neat little engines or even respectable hand-cars. However, as the theory removed God out of sight, it was generally accepted by the infidels and freely used by them, to show that the world has no need of a Creator.

Genuine scientists, however, were not long in seeing the absurdity and demonstrating the impossibility of such a theory. It was found that their orbits did not coincide by more than twenty millions of miles. Again, it has been proven that comets are incapable of greatly affecting a sun or planet. Herschel says, "It is evident that the most unsubstantial clouds which float in the highest region of our atmosphere must be looked upon as dense and massy bodies compared with the filmy texture of a comet."

Thus Reason declares, that the world did not make itself. The soul of man did not make itself. The body of man did not make itself. They must have had an intelligent Creator, who is God. The work is not the workman; the house is not the builder; the watch is not the watchmaker. The maker is always distinct from the thing made and superior to it. You, and I, and the universe have been made; therefore, our Creator is distinct from us, and superior to us.

The consciousness of our ignorance and weakness confirms this fact. The soul of man is not the highest intelligence in the universe. In his present state he has not yet acquired a knowledge of the laws and functions of the body he inhabits, much less the laws that sway the universe. He may know much about what does not concern him; but he feels his weakness where his dearest interests are concerned. He may be able to tell the place of a distant planet a century hence; but he cannot tell where he himself will be next year. He may calculate for years the motion of the tides; but he cannot tell how his own pulse will beat to-morrow, or whether it will beat at all. Ever as his knowledge of the laws of nature increases, his conviction deepens that a wiser head and a stronger hand than his planned and rules the world.

The world's history declares the existence and government of God. History is but the record of men's acts and God's providences, of men's crimes and God's punishments. Once He swept away the human race with a flood of water because the wickedness of man was great upon the earth. Again, He testified His displeasure against the wicked of Sodom and Gomorrah by consuming those cities by fire from heaven, and leaving the Dead Sea to roll its solemn waves of warning to the end of time. No amount of learning or skill, wealth or commerce, power of arms, or extent of territory, has ever secured a wicked nation against the sword of God's justice. Read the black record of the past. Where is the greatness of Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon and Petra? Tyre had ships, colonies and commerce, Rome an empire of half a hemisphere; Greece had philosophy, arts and liberty secured by a confederation of republics, Spain the treasures of the earth's gold and silver? but these did not exempt them from the moral government of God. His laws sway the universe, and link together sin with misery, and crime with punishment, in the brazen fetters of eternal justice. These nations have been hurled down from the pinnacle of their greatness, to dash themselves in pieces against each other in the valley of destruction; and there they lie, wrecks of nations, ruins of empires, naught remaining, save some shivered fragments of former greatness, to show that they once existed and were the enemies of God.

[THE DEAD SEA]

CHAPTER V.
OUR NEED OF REVELATION.

REVELATION PROGRESSIVE—ITS RELATION TO CIVILIZATION—SOLOMON—HIS PROVERBS—NEWMAN'S ABSURDITIES—CARLYLE—PARKER—HEATHEN PHILOSOPHY IMMORAL—ANCIENT ROMAN SONGS—CHARACTER OF HEATHEN DEITIES—RELIGION OF INDIA—COMPTE—BRADLAUGH—CHESTERFIELD—PAINE.

The philosopher finds only two books in all the world—two divine, original books, viz., the Volume of Nature, and the Revelations of God. All others are mere commentaries upon these two original, divine books. To these pertain all that has been thought, said or written, in all the ages past; and, we might add, all that ever will be written in all the ages to come. That which explains, delineates or illustrates the volume of nature is called Science. That which unfolds to us the attributes of God, our own nature and destiny is revelation. It treats of that which man cannot otherwise perceive; its records are called the Scriptures or Books of Inspiration. The volume of nature is written upon the rocks, fields, forests and all the varied forms of animal life, in symbolic characters, which it is the province of science to decipher. The volume of revelation is the impress of the divine will on man's spiritual nature. Thus both are the handwriting of Deity Himself. Science teaches us material laws in relation to time. Revelation instructs not merely in these, but likewise includes spiritual laws and eternal duration. The lessons that man learns from age to age are progressive even as a school boy's. Science and revelation are therefore progressive, though in somewhat different ways. The former advances mainly through the exercise of human reason; the latter through man's more favored circumstances, and the increased divine illumination of his spiritual nature. How vain, how arrogant the babblings of the sectarians who tell us that the book of revelation is forever closed! That man, in this puerile state, has already taken possession of the whole treasure of divine truth! That the human mind with its poor plummet has already sounded the depths of the divine oracles! Still more benighted are they who do not see that there is a divine as well as human element in all our progress, that purity of heart is necessary for the clearest perception even of the truths of science. Thus the nations as well as the individuals who have the highest spiritual light are precisely those who have made the greatest intellectual progress. If we look over a map of the world we find that those nations which possess the purest religious ideas are precisely those which have made the greatest intellectual, social and political progress. Now religious ideas emanate from God. They are the result of the action of the divine will on the minds of men. Thus the progress of the nations depends upon the revelations of God.

Thousands of years ago, Solomon perceived this fact. He was a man of great learning as well as practical common sense. He understood not merely the science of government, but likewise botany, or the science of plants, from the mighty trees that grew on Mount Lebanon, to the tiny hyssop that grew in crevices of the garden wall: and the natural history of beasts and birds, reptiles and fishes. He was also skilled in literature; he is said to have made "three thousand proverbs, and his songs were a thousand and five" (see I. Kings, iv chap). Better than all this, in the opinion of many, especially infidels, he made money, and tells us how to make and keep it. Any young man will make hundreds of dollars by reading his Proverbs and acting on them. They would have saved some of us many a thousand. Of course Solomon knew something of the world. He was a wide-awake trader; his ships coasted the shores of Asia and Africa, from Madagascar to Japan; and the overland caravans from India and China drew up in the depots he built for them in the heart of the desert. He knew the well-doing people with whom trade was profitable, and the savages who could only send apes and peacocks (see I. Kings, chap. x). Solomon was a philosopher as well as a trader, and could not help being deeply impressed with the great fact that there was a wide difference between the nations of the earth. Some were enlightened, enterprising, civilized and flourishing; others were naked savages, perpetually at war with each other, living in ignorance, poverty, vice and on the verge of starvation.

[GIANT CITIES OF BASHAN, BUILT BY SOLOMON]

Solomon also noticed another fact, that the nations which were favored with the revelations of God, were the civilized, enterprising and comparatively prosperous nations. In Palestine, Chaldea and Mesopotamia, God had revealed His will to certain persons for the benefit of the race. Even Egypt, it is now generally admitted, passed through the era of her greatest prosperity at the time she was in close relationship and communication with the Hebrew Patriarchs, Abraham, Jacob and Joseph, who were the living oracles of God, and whose influence greatly increased for a time her national prosperity. On the other hand the nations that were uninfluenced by the revelations of God, were the idolatrous savages, who were but little above the level of the brutes. Solomon epitomized these great facts in the proverb, "Where there is no vision the people perish, but he that keepeth the law, happy is he" (Proverbs xxix, 18).

"O," says the skeptic, "the world is wiser now than it was in Solomon's days. He lived in the old times of ignorance and superstition, when men attributed everything extraordinary to the gods. But we are too wise now to believe in revelation."

Again, Straus says, "No just notion of philosophy or history is possible which includes a belief of those things that we do not understand." Depth of wisdom indeed! We do not understand how a blade of grass grows, therefore we must deny its existence.

One cannot help being amazed at the cool impudence with which these men take for granted the very point to be proved, and set aside as unworthy of serious examination, the most authentic records of history, simply because they do not coincide with their so-called philosophy; and at the credulity with which their followers swallow these arrogant assertions, as if they were self-evident truths. Let us look at this argument for a moment. Pagan religions have their fables, therefore, the Hebrew and Christian records are fables. In other words, since counterfeit bank bills exist therefore none are genuine.

Skeptics offer no proofs that miracles are impossible. Yet, surely, if they imply a contradiction, that contradiction could be shown. The creation of this world is the most stupendous of all miracles; yet all men admit that this miracle occurred. The experience of man is not the limit of knowledge. Revelation is not impossible because supernatural. The world is as full of supernatural works as of natural. The miracles recorded in the strata of the earth's crust are as great as any recorded in the Bible.

If, as the infidel asserts, religion and superstition are identical, and ignorance is the cause, how happens it that the most intellectual and progressive nations are those which have the clearest religious ideas? The history of nations universally and unequivocally declares this fact. Even among the so-called Christian nations of Europe and America we find their intellectual culture and general progress in exact proportion to the purity of their respective faiths. While we look in vain, among the heathen nations of Africa to find a single benefactor of the race, or one worthy to be distinguished among the millions of her population in all the countless generations past.

In the face of all this we find a sort of spiritualistic philosophers who tell us that we have no need of communication from God. Newman, in his Phases of Faith, page 157, says, "Miraculous phenomena will never prove the attributes of God if we do not know these things in and of ourselves." Carlyle, in his Past and Present, page 307, exclaims, "Revelations! inspirations! indeed! and thy own mighty transcendent, god-like soul, dost thou not call that a revelation?" Such sort of trash, which passes for profound philosophy, is taught in hundreds of colleges, and is echoed from thousands of pulpits by men who call themselves Christian ministers, but who could not reap their rich salaries if they would openly avow their atheism.

Theodore Parker says, "If a fact depends upon revelation, it is not eternally true, and if it is not eternally true it is no truth at all." Profound philosophy indeed!—as if eternally true, and sufficiently known were just the same thing. To use a familiar illustration, because vaccination would always have prevented the small pox, if it had been known, therefore the world is under no obligation to Jenner for informing us of the fact. Newman adds in another place, "I cannot receive instruction from another being." Again, "Neither God nor man can reveal any religious truths to our minds." Parker says, "On His (God's) word or as His second, be he whom he may, I can accept nothing" (Parker's Discourse page 209).

Now we are tempted to ask, who are these wonderful prodigies, so incapable of receiving instruction from anybody? And to our amazement we learn that some forty or fifty years ago, they made their appearance among mankind as little squalling babies, without insight enough to know their own names or who they were, or where they came from, and were actually dependent on an external revelation, from their nurses, for sense enough to find their mothers' breasts. And as they grew a little larger, they learned the art of speaking articulate sounds, by external revelation: viz., hearing and repeating sounds made by others. Further, on a certain day they had a book revelation made to them, in the shape of a ten cent primer, and received their first lessons by the instructions of another. They had not then the least "insight," or "spiritual faculty," or "mighty transcendent soul," by which they could learn all things in and of themselves. Faith in the word of their teachers was absolutely the only means by which they learned to speak, read and write.

But this is not half their indebtedness to external revelation. They admit that a Feejee cannibal has just the same "mighty and transcendent soul" that they themselves have. How, then, does it happen that Newman, Emerson and Parker, and all their followers, who are too proud to be taught of God, are not assembled around a cannibal's oven, smearing their faces with the blood and feasting themselves on the limbs of women and children? Is it not, after all, the revelations of God and the teachings depending thereon that make the whole difference between the civilized American and his Feejee brother?

It is amusing to see how these modern atheists, who reject Moses and the Prophets, as well as Christ and His Apostles, will permit themselves to go into ecstacies over the supposed wisdom of ancient heathen philosophers, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. But on examination we find that the teachings of all these philosophers were immoral. The gratification of the sensual appetites was openly taught. "He may steal," says Plato, "who knows how to do it." Oaths are frequent in the writings of Plato and Seneca. Anstippus taught that a wise man had a right to commit adultery. Aristotle vindicated the awful crimes of foeticide and infanticide. Even suicide was defended by Cicero and Seneca as the mark of a hero, and Demosthenes, Cato, Brutus and Cassius carried the means of self-destruction about them, that they might not fall alive into the hands of their enemies.

The laws of the best-regulated heathen states commended or approved of vice. The student of the classics need not be reminded that the songs of Ovid, Horace and Virgil would not be tolerated in the vilest theater of New York or Chicago. The laws of Sparta required theft, and the murder of unhealthy children. The Carthaginian law required human sacrifices; and in ancient Babylon, prostitution was compulsory on every female. Plato, dissatisfied with the laws of his country, wrote out a code of morals and laws which he thought much better. In this heathen Utopia the ideas of home and family were ignored. Marriage was to be unknown; women's rights were to be maintained by having the women trained to war. Children were still to be murdered if convenience called for it. Little boys and girls were to be led to battle at a safe distance, "that the young whelps may early scent carnage and be inured to slaughter." Such were the loftiest ideas of the greatest philosopher of antiquity. After all his speculations and writing, Plato admitted, "We cannot know of ourselves what petition will be pleasing to God, or what worship we should pay to Him; but it is necessary that a lawgiver should be sent from heaven to instruct us. Oh, how greatly do I long to see that man!" He further adds, "This lawgiver must be more than man, that he may teach us things man cannot know by his own nature." Who has not dropped a tear over the dying words of Socrates? "I am going out of the world, and you are to continue in it, but which of us has the better part is a secret to every one but God!" Also those memorable words, "We must of necessity wait till some one, who careth for us, shall come and instruct us how we ought to behave toward God and toward man."

Nor is it to be expected that the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and other heathen nations should have an exalted idea of virtue, when we consider the character of the gods they worshiped. The Egyptian deities consisted of bulls and dogs, cats and rats, snakes and crocodiles. When a dog died the whole house went into mourning and fasted till night. A Roman soldier who had accidentally killed a cat was punished with death (see Diodorus Siculus, Book I). The "great, mighty and transcendent soul," as Carlyle terms it, had been degraded so low that there is a picture in one of the pyramids, of an Egyptian king worshiping his own coffin.

The Greeks from their intercourse with the Jews learned some correct religious ideas, especially after the conquest of Palestine by Alexander, and the translation of the scriptures into the Greek language, in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, B. C. 240. Before this period little sense can be found in their religion. Their gods were as detestable as they were numerous. Hesiod tells us they had thirty thousand. Their supreme god, Jupiter, was an adulterer. Mars, a murderer. Mercury, a thief, Bacchus, a drunkard and Venus, a prostitute. To their inferior gods they attributed other crimes too horrible to be mentioned. These gods they worshiped with ceremonies of lust, drunkenness and bloodshed unfit to be described.

If any one supposes that the condition of the modern heathens is any better than it was in ancient times, let him turn to India, where he will find one hundred and fifty millions of rational beings, possessing, as Theodore Parker says, "all needful spiritual light," who worship three hundred and thirty millions of gods in the form of hills and trees, rivers and rocks, elephants and tigers, monkeys and rats, serpents and crocodiles, and monsters unlike anything in heaven or on earth. The monster idol, Juggernaut, will do as a specimen of all. Around his temple countless multitudes from all parts of India, congregate annually, many of them having measured with their own bodies the whole distance of their weary pilgrimage. Within the temple, the monster idol, with its frightful grim and distorted visage, sits enthroned, amid thousands of massive sculptures, the representative emblem of that cruelty and vice which constitute the very essence of his worship. There in their sacred city of Benares may be seen at all times crowds of religious devotees and mendicants; some remaining all day with their heads on the ground and their feet in the air; some cramming their eyes with mud and their mouths with straw; others with their limbs fastened in unnatural positions, and still others with little pots of fire placed upon their breasts, hoping by these self-inflicted tortures to win the favor of the god. When the day of the high festival arrives, the horrid idol is dragged forth from his temple and mounted on a lofty car in the presence of hundreds of thousands who rend the air with their shouts, "Victory to Juggernaut!" Then the officiating priest commences the ceremonies by a loathsome pantomimic exhibition accompanied by the utterance of obscene and filthy songs, to which the vast multitude at intervals respond, not in the strains of tuneful melody, but in loud yells of approbation. After this the terrible carnage commences; for as the car is dragged through the streets, the more enthusiastic devotees throw themselves beneath the wheels, and are instantly crushed to pieces, the infatuated victims of hellish superstition. On the neighboring hills, the so-called sacred vultures may be seen feasting on these corpses and the bleak and barren sands on the roadside are forever whitened with the skulls and bones of deluded pilgrims, which lie bleaching in the sun (see Duff's India, page 222).

Of course, high-toned infidels do not consider themselves as debased as the natives of India. What then is the tendency of their teachings? M. Compte, a leading skeptical writer, tells us, "Childhood should be taught to worship idols, youth to believe in one God, and full grown men (like himself) to adore the resultant of all the forces of the universe, not forgetting their worthy friends the animals" (see Politique Positive, Vol. II. page 60). If this is not the teachings of idolatry, what is it?

Again, we find that the whole school of infidel writers vindicate and apologize for the very worst of crimes. Bradlaugh, the leading atheist of England, declares that, "A man is no more to be blamed for the indulgence of lust or anger, than he is for thirst or drowsiness." Hume, whose arguments are so often used by American infidels, taught that "adultery must be practiced by mankind, if they would obtain all the advantages of life." Lord Chesterfield, another prominent infidel, in his letters to his son (which were designed for publication) instructs him in the art of seduction, as part of a polite education.

Nor is the character of infidels any better than their teachings. Take, for example, Thomas Paine, the author of the Age of Reason, whose birth-day is annually celebrated, and who is held up by infidels as a model for the young. A few extracts from a letter written to him, by his fellow-infidel, and co-worker, William Carver, may not be out of place.

"New Rochelle, December 2nd, 1803.

"Mr. Thomas Paine.
"Sir:—I received your letter dated the 25th ult., and after minutely examining its contents, I found that you had taken to the pitiful subterfuge of lying for your defense. You say that you paid me four dollars per week for your board and lodging, during the time you were with me, prior to the first of June last; which was the day that I went up, by your order, to take you to New York, from New Rochelle. It is fortunate for me that I have a living witness who saw you give me five guineas, and no more in my shop at your departure at that time. Now you have means, why do you not pay me the remainder? You said you would have given me more, but that you had no more with you at that time. You say, also, that you found your own liquors during the time you boarded with me; but you should have said that you found only a small part of the liquor you drank during your stay with me. That part you purchased of John Fellows and consisted of a demi-john of brandy containing four gallons, and that did not serve you three weeks. This can be proved, and I mean not to say anything that I cannot prove, for I hold truth as a precious jewel. It is a well-known fact, that you drank one quart of brandy per day at my expense, during the different times you boarded with me, besides the demi-john above mentioned, and the last fourteen weeks you were sick. Was not this a sufficient supply for dinner and supper? * * * * *
"I have often wondered that a French woman and three children should leave France and all their connections to follow Thomas Paine to America. Suppose I were to go to my native country, England, and take another man's wife, and three children of his and leave my wife and children in this country; what would be the natural conclusion in the minds of the people, but that there was some criminal connection between the woman and myself?"

Such is the morality of those who denounce the Bible as an immoral book, and blaspheme the God of revelation as too vile to be reverenced or worshiped. Not even the friends of Paine have ever denied the genuineness of this and other letters that clearly reveal his private character. (For full particulars see Discussion Between Dr. Berg and Mr. Barker, published by W. S. Young, Philadelphia, 1854.)

Once in modern times a nation had the opportunity of showing the world a specimen of an infidel republic. The Bible was publicly burned. Death was declared an eternal sleep; God was declared a fiction, the Sabbath was abolished and religious worship denounced. And what was the consequence? Revolution after revolution occurred. Thousands, aye millions, of the sons of France were slain in the wars that ensued. Wave after wave of blood rolled through the guilty streets of Paris, and the people were clothed in mourning from one end of the land to the other. In the Declaration of Independence it is declared that, "Mankind are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." It is well said: the law of God is the only secure basis for the rights of man.

CHAPTER VI.
VALIDITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT AS SHOWN BY INTERNAL EVIDENCE.

INFLUENCE OF THE SCRIPTURES—THEIR AGREEMENT WITH SECULAR HISTORY—COLONY OF PHILIPPI—ANCIENT COIN—CERTAINTY OF BIBLE HISTORY—GIBBON'S TESTIMONY—QUOTATIONS OF CELSUS—MARCION THE APOSTATE—CLASSIFICATION OF NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS—AVOCATIONS OF THE APOSTLES—THEIR MANNER OF PREACHING—THEY CHALLENGED CRITICISM—DENIAL OF MIRACLES, A MODERN INVENTION—SUFFERINGS OF THE APOSTLES—THEY SEALED THEIR TESTIMONY WITH THEIR BLOOD.

Faith rests upon facts, superstition on theories. Faith is increased by intelligence, superstition by ignorance, Faith courts investigation for thereby it is strengthened; superstition shuns it as fatal to its existence. Thousands can bear witness to the truth of the words of the Savior, "If any man will do His will he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself;" yet surrounded as we are by skeptics and cavilers of every sort, it is well that we should be prepared to ward off the fiery darts of the wicked, to meet them with their own arguments, and as the youthful David did to Goliath in days of old, cut off the boastful atheistic giant's head with his own sword.

In looking over the history of the world, we find that those books, which collectively are called the scriptures, have in all ages, exerted a controlling influence over the destinies of mankind. Their teachings are perused with pleasure by the child, and pondered with patience by the philosopher. Their practical wisdom has guided the judgment of the wisest kings of antiquity and still teach the humblest peasant his duty to his neighbor. Their precious promises have lighted the prophetic eyes of old; they are still chanted by the mother over her cradle, and by the orphan over the tomb. Here, thousands of miles distant from the places where they were first revealed, in a language unknown alike at Cumorah and Jerusalem, they rule as lovingly and as powerfully as in their native soil.

With all these palpable facts in view, let us enquire into the origin of the book which has produced such results. On looking at the Bible we find it composed of a number of separate treatises written by different authors, at various times; some parts fifteen hundred years before the others. We find also, that it treats of the very beginning of the world before man was made and of matters of which we have no other authentic history. Again, we find portions which treat of events connected in a thousand places with the affairs of the Medo-Persian, Macedonian and Roman empires, of which we have several credible histories. Now the statements made in these works, so far as they refer to subjects mentioned in the Bible agree with the Biblical record, in every particular. Further, the inscriptions on monuments and ancient coins have often settled mooted questions in history and invariably have been found to agree with the scriptural narrative. For example, we are told in Acts, xiv 12, that Paul went "to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony." "Now," says the infidel, "Greece at that time was a conquered country; and it was contrary to Roman customs to form colonies of Roman citizens in conquered countries. Besides, we have no account by any Roman historian that Philippi was a colony. Hence we may conclude that the New Testament account is incorrect."

[FACSIMILE OF COIN FOUND AT PHILIPPI]

At first all this seemed plausible, but a few years ago, a scientific association was formed to excavate among the ruins of eastern cities, and, among others, Philippi came in for a share of attention. In excavating around one of the ruins an ancient coin was unearthed, which bore upon its surface the effigy of a Roman emperor, surrounded by the following inscription: "PHILIPPI COLONA, CLAUDIUS IMPERATOR," which signifies in plain English, "Colony of Philippi, Claudius being emperor."

Here, then, we have an ancient Roman coin bearing testimony to the truth of God's word. Further, by means of this coin we see a depth of meaning, in the last five verses of the 16th chapter of Acts, not at first perceptible. We are thus able to perceive, in some degree, the terror of the Philippian magistrates when they learned that Paul and Silas were also Romans.

Day by day as scientific investigation proceeds we hear of additional corroborative evidence. Every year throws some new light on oriental manners and customs, while from the ruins of Nineveh and the sepulchres of Egypt, we receive unlooked-for testimonies to the minute accuracy of the inspired penmen. The objection that the scriptures contain mysteries, or statements which are difficult to be understood, is in reality one of the strongest proofs of their divine source and authority. The words of a teacher are often misunderstood by the pupil, because the pupil's mind is not sufficiently developed to comprehend them. Sometimes, indeed, they are entirely misapprehended for the same reason. So also, it is to be expected that the full import of the divine communications would sometimes transcend the partially-developed intellect of man. The thoughts and methods of infinite wisdom, expressed in the plainest of human words, must sometimes remain inscrutible. After all that can be said in reference to the weakness of the human medium, through which the divine will has been communicated, we find in the scriptures, a wonderful agreement with the development of truths which have come to man in the progress of the ages. Science has never successfully impeached any statement of the scriptures when rightly interpreted. For example, "in the first chapter of Genesis we find a brief account of the creation of the world. Until modern times, it was the popular opinion that this narrative taught that the earth and heavens were created during an interval of six days of twenty-four hours each and that the work dates back but a few thousand years. These views were entertained when our Bible was translated into English. Since that date, several sciences have sprung into existence which throw a vast amount of light on the history of the creation; and if King James' translators had their work to perform to-day, they would see meanings in Genesis of which the world had not dreamed two hundred years ago; and they would make the translation read a little differently, in order to make it agree more exactly with the original Hebrew." (Winchell's Reconciliations page 357).

Have we not here one of the plainest admissions of the total apostasy of the so-called Christian church? Had the translators of the scriptures been in possession of the Holy Spirit, they would have had no difficulty in translating the sentiments dictated by that same Spirit to the seers and prophets in ages past. Then, too, we would have had a translation which would have furnished a key by which to detect the true science from the false. In Genesis we have an account, to which, when rightly understood, the latest indications of science admirably conform. This circumstance alone, ought to be strong evidence, even to a skeptic, of its super-human origin. Written ages before the birth of modern sciences, there was the utmost liability for mere human authorship to fall into the most egregious misstatements respecting the phenomena of the natural world; but in point of fact some of its statements were so far in advance of the highest human knowledge in all the ages past, and even the boasted science of the nineteenth century, that we are only just beginning to understand them.

Now, the only way for us to know anything beyond our eyesight, is to examine it, and gather testimony about it. All the blessings of education, civilization, law and liberty have come to us through the channel of abundant, reliable testimony. There is perhaps, not a man living who was present at the battle of Quebec, in the encampment of Valley Forge, or heard Washington deliver his farewell address; yet the fact that these things transpired as they are related, no one will doubt. Few persons now living ever saw Washington, yet no one doubts that he lived. Certainty about the Bible history is just as attainable as certainty about American history. Let us begin at the present and trace the records back to the times in which the New Testament was written. We presume there are few persons as ignorant as an infidel lecturer we once heard, who, when asked, "Who compiled the scriptures?" answered, after some hesitation, "The American Bible Society."

Sometimes infidels tell us that the Emperor Constantine called various councils which compiled the New Testament, in the fourth century. We can scarcely wonder at this statement coming from those who look upon the Catholic church as representing Christianity. Constantine, the man who had murdered two of his sons, and strangled, while in a bath, the wife who had trusted in him, was surely a worthy representative of that church whom the Apostle John styles the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. Still we cannot help asking how it was that this murderer who had made himself obnoxious even in pagan Rome on account of his crimes and his confederates equally wicked, was able to dictate words of such sublime virtue as are everywhere found in the New Testament. The infidel, Gibbon, attempts to explain, and tells us "The austerity, purity and zeal of the first Christians, their good discipline, their belief in the resurrection of the body, and the general judgment, and their persuasion that Christ and His apostles wrought miracles, had made a great many converts." But how came they to have this "belief, purity and zeal?" Just as if we should enquire how the Chicago fire originated, and you should tell us, that it burned very fast because it was very hot. What we want to know is how it happened that frivolous Greeks, licentious Asiatics and warlike Romans at once became pure and adopted the humble life of the early Christians? What implanted the belief of a judgment to come in the minds of these heathen scoffers? Gibbon admits that, "Christian churches were sufficiently numerous in the Roman empire, to make it politic for the emperor to profess Christianity, and sufficiently powerful to secure his success." Thus according to the admissions of an infidel writer the Christians were already numerous, and the story of Constantine forming the New Testament, which had been read in churches and believed in for two hundred years, is as absurd as to hear it stated that the saloon keepers, prize-fighters and hoodlums of New York had just assembled in the Large Tabernacle in Salt Lake City to construct the revelations contained in the book of Doctrine and Covenants, which have been already accepted and believed by the Saints, for more than fifty years.

If, on the other hand, we consult any or all of the hundreds of manuscripts mentioned by Mosheim, Neander and Lardner in their ecclesiastical histories we shall find that there were thousands, aye millions, who believed in a teacher sent from God who had appeared in Palestine and taught this religion which they had embraced, and who had performed wonderful miracles such as opening the eyes of the blind, healing lepers and raising the dead. They believed also that this Teacher had been put to death by Pontius Pilate, a Roman governor, had risen again from the dead, had spoken to hundreds of people and gone out and in among them for six weeks after His resurrection, had ascended up to heaven in the sight of numbers of witnesses, and had promised that He would come again in the clouds of heaven to raise the dead and judge every man according to his works. Further, that before He went away he appointed twelve of His intimate companions to teach His religion to the world; that they and their followers did so in spite of persecutions, sufferings and death, with so much success, that immense numbers gave up idolatry and embraced Christianity, braving the fury of the heathen mob, and the vengeance of the Roman law. Afterwards, when persecution had destroyed great numbers, and through apostasy they had lost the divine authority and priesthood we hear of various councils wherein they assembled for the settling of their disputes. These, so far from giving authority to the books of the New Testament, constantly quoted the words of these books and referred to them for proof and authority.

Again, one hundred years before the time of Constantine we find Celsus, a celebrated infidel writer and sensualist, disputing the teachings of the gospel because they interfered with his depraved appetites; and in his writings he quotes freely from the New Testament. So numerous are his quotations that from them alone, the student might gain all the principal facts of the Christian religion. As Paine quotes the New Testament to ridicule it, no man can deny that such a book was in existence at the time he wrote; so the quotations of Celsus are conclusive proofs that the books he referred to were considered authority at the time he wrote. Yet in all his writings, Celsus never once casts a doubt on the authority of the scriptures, never questions the gospels as books of history nor denies the miracles recorded in them. It may also be added that the student who will examine the writings of Celsus, will cease to admire the professed wisdom of our modern skeptics. The objections made by Hume, Voltaire, Hobles and Paine are frequently only the arguments of Celsus served up in a modern style.

Going back still another hundred years we come to the times of the notorious apostate, Marcion. Several of the apostles were alive at the time Marcion was born; and his works date back to within twenty years of the latest apostolical writings. Having been cut off from the church, he was greatly enraged and said the worst he could about it. He traveled all the way from Sinope, on the Black Sea, to Rome, through Galatia, Bythynia, Asia-Minor, Greece and Italy, the very countries where the apostles preached, and the churches to which they wrote. He endeavored in many places to wrest the scriptures from their rightful meaning; but nowhere attempted to deny their authority (see Lardner, Vol. ix, page 358). Thus in the writings of Celsus and Marcion we have the most indubitable evidence, even the admission of enemies, that these books were in existence and universally received as true, by the early Christians, within twenty years of the time when they were written and by the very churches to which they were addressed. As printing was then unknown, and all important doctrines were written upon parchment, the books of that period presented rather a bulky appearance. Probably for this reason the four books, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, were commonly joined together in one volume and named The Gospel. The Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles to the churches of Thessalonica, Galatia, Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Collosse, the First Epistle of Peter, the First Epistle of John, together with those written to Philemon, Timothy and Titus, comprised a second volume called The Apostles. The remaining books of the New Testament, being the last written, usually formed a third volume and were known as Apostolical Writings. This arrangement did not injure the meaning but rather benefitted it by showing the relative dates of the various books comprising the New Testament.

It is evident that the gospels were not copied from each other, for they often relate different events, and when they relate the same occurrence, each man relates those parts of it which he saw himself, and which impressed him most. This agreement of independent writers is the more remarkable, as the writers were persons of various degrees of education, of different professions and ranks of life, born in different countries and writing from various places in Italy, Greece, Palestine and Assyria, without any communication with each other. Matthew was a tax collector in the province of Galilee; Mark, a Hebrew citizen of Jerusalem; Luke, a Greek physician of Antioch; James and John owned and sailed a fishing boat on Lake Tiberias; Jude left his home and shop in Galilee in order to preach the gospel; college-bred Paul cast his parchments and popularity aside, carried his sturdy independence in his breast, and his sail needles in his pocket, and dictated epistles and cut out jib sails and awnings in the tent factory of "Aquila, Paul & Co.," at Corinth; several of Paul's letters were written in a dungeon at Rome; the last of Peter's is dated at Babylon; Matthew's gospel was penned at Jerusalem, and John's gospels and epistles were written at Ephesus. The agreement of eight such witnesses, of different pursuits, and so scattered over the world, in relation to the same story is a convincing: proof of its veracity.

The manner in which the Apostles published their testimony to the world, bears every mark of truthfulness. Strong in the consciousness of right, they dared to assert that Jesus had risen from the dead, in the very streets of the city where he was crucified—in the temple, the most public place of resort of the Jews who saw him crucified—and to the teeth of the very men who put him to death. "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hung on a tree. Him that God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins. And we are His witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost which God hath given to them that obey him" (Acts. v, 30). Had Paul been conscious that he was relating falsehood, would he have dared to appeal to the judge, before whom he was on trial for his life, as one who knew the notoriety of these facts? "For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner" (Acts xxvi, 26).

The boldness of their preaching, however, is little, compared with the boldness of their design, which was nothing less than to convert the world. The heathens never dreamed of such a thing. The Jews were so indignant at the project, that when Paul hinted it to them, they cried, "Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live" (Acts xxii, 22).

It is remarkable, that while in addressing the Saints, the apostles rarely allude to their power of working miracles (fourteen of the epistles make no allusion to apostolic miracles), but dwell on the subject of a holy life. Yet they never hesitate to confront a Simon Magus, or a schismatical church at Corinth, or a persecuting high priest and sanhedrim with this power of the Holy Ghost.

Read the story of the miraculous healing of the poor, lame beggar, who laid at the gate of the temple, as recorded in the third and fourth chapters of Acts. Who ever heard of an impostor standing up before the tribunal of his judges, and pleading his cause in the following manner, "If we this day be examined of the good deed done unto the impotent man, by what means he is made whole, be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand before you whole." Such an appeal was unanswerable. "Beholding the man who was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it." Nay, they were compelled to acknowledge, "That indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem—we cannot deny it."

The denial of the miracles of the gospel is a modern invention. The Scribes and priests, emperors and philosophers of the first century, who had the best opportunity of proving their falsehood, were unable to do so. Why, then, it may be asked, did they not all become Christians? Because a miracle cannot convert a man against his will. The religion of the gospel is not merely a belief in miracles, but the love of Christ and a life in conformity with His commands.

The labors and sufferings of the apostles themselves furnish strong proof of the facts of gospel history. To preach another king, one Jesus, to the Romans, was to bring down the power of the empire upon them. Nothing could be more absurd in the eyes of Grecian philosophers, than to speak of the resurrection of the body. Nor could any plan be devised more certain to arouse the fury of the pagan priesthood than to denounce that by which they had their wealth. The most degraded wretch who perishes on the scaffold is not more contemptible in our eyes than the crucified Redeemer was to the Jewish and Roman peoples.

What, then, could induce any men in their senses to stem the tide of such opposition if they were manufacturing falsehoods to gain popularity and power. The religion they preached was not adapted to please sensual men; even infidels admit that they preached a pure morality. No provision was made for making money by their preaching. One of their first acts was to cause the church to elect deacons who might manage its money matters, and allow the apostles to give themselves wholly to prayer and the ministry of the word (Acts vi, 2-5). Twenty-five years after they could appeal to the world that, "Even to this present hour, we (the apostles), both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place, and labor, working with our hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day" (I. Cor. iv, 11-13).

The New Testament opens with the story of the Savior's birth in a stable, with the manger for his cradle, and one of its last pictures, is that of His venerable apostle chained in a dungeon, and begging his friend to bring his old cloak from Troas, and to do his diligence to come before Winter (II. Tim. iv chap.).

Unpopular and penniless, if the gospel story were not true, how could it have had preachers? When Paul was changed from a persecutor to a disciple, behold the prospect the Savior presents to him, "I will show him how great things he must suffer for my sake." Paul declares, "The Holy Ghost testifieth that in every city bonds and afflictions abide me. Yet none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I may finish my course with joy" (Acts xx, 23, 24). In another place he adds, "Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day T have been in the deep: in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness" (II. Cor. xi, 24-27).

Man can give no higher proof of his veracity, save to seal his testimony with his blood. This the apostles did. All, except John, suffered martyrdom for the truth of the gospel.

CHAPTER VII.
NEW TESTAMENT FACTS CORROBORATED BY SECULAR WRITERS.

TERTULIAN'S WORKS—EXTRACT FROM TACITUS—VALUE OF COTEMPORARY CORRESPONDENCE—PLINY'S LETTER—PROOF OF THE SAINTS' MORALITY—GOSPEL DISTINCTIVE FROM ALL OTHER RELIGIONS—NO OTHER SYSTEM DEPENDS UPON SIMILAR INFLUENCES.

In a former chapter was shown some of the internal evidences of the validity of the New Testament. By continuing our investigations we find other and valuable proofs of its authenticity. There was no printing in those days; therefore the people to whom the gospels and epistles were addressed, had the opportunity of knowing by the handwriting whether these documents were genuine or not. For example, Paul in his second epistle to the Thessalonians, says: "The salutation of Paul with my own hand, which is the token in every epistle: so I write. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen." These words show indeed the heart of an apostle; but what a business man would most appreciate is the fact how greatly these few lines add to the security against forgery. It is a hard thing to forge a signature, but give a business man two lines of any man's writing besides that, and he is perfectly secure against imposition. The churches to whom the epistles were written and to whom the gospels were delivered consisted largely of business men, merchants, traders, city chamberlains and officers of Caesar's household. Does any one think that such men could not tell the handwriting of the apostle who had lived among them for years or that they cared less for the documents of the gospel, for which they risked their lives, than we would care about the genuineness of a ten dollar check? Tertulian, who lived from A. D. 145 to 222, was one of the most learned men of that age. He was well versed in Roman law, in ancient philosophy, history and poetry. He had been brought up a heathen, and was not therefore likely to favor the teachings of the apostles without due investigation. His writings are interesting, throwing much light on the circumstances and social questions of that age. He traveled extensively among the churches which the apostles had planted and claims to have seen the original copies of Matthew and John and the epistles written to the churches at Rome, Corinth, Thessalonica, Ephesus and Philippi, and refers skeptics to the places where these documents could be found. That these writings contained the same words as are in our present New Testament is evident from the numerous quotations in Tertulian's works.

In the British and other museums may be found thousands of manuscripts on every conceivable subject embracing every age for the past sixteen hundred years and even some still earlier. Among these manuscripts are over two thousand copies of the New Testament, some of them dating back to apostolic times. These manuscripts have been scrutinized by the most critical scholars; yet the result of this examination is merely the suggestion of thirteen unimportant alterations in the seven thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine verses of the New Testament. This is a fact utterly unexampled in the history of manuscripts. We are thus, by the special providence of God, as undoubtedly in possession of genuine copies of the gospels and epistles, some of which were written while the companions of the Savior were still living and the divine authority and Priesthood were still upon the earth, as we are of genuine copies of the Constitution of the United States and of the Declaration of Independence.

There is no history so trustworthy as that prepared by cotemporary writers, especially by those who have themselves been actively engaged in the events which they relate. Such history never loses its interest, nor does the lapse of ages, in the least degree, impair its credibility. While the documents can be preserved, Xenophon's "Retreat of the Ten Thousand," Wellington's dispatches, and Washington's letters to Congress, will be as trustworthy as on the day they were written. Of the great facts described in these documents addressed to their cotemporaries, able at a glance to detect a falsehood, we never entertain the least suspicion. Many such historical allusions might be quoted.

We have selected one from the well-known works of Tacitus, the celebrated Roman historian, who lived between A. D. 60 and 120, and wrote a history of Rome up to the reign of the emperor Trajan. Concerning this extract from the history of Tacitus the infidel, Gibbon, says, "The most skeptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth of this important fact and the integrity of this important passage of Tacitus." After relating the burning of the city of Rome by order of Nero, and his attempt to transfer the odium of it to the Christians, Tacitus says:

"The author of that name was Christ, who in the reign of Tiberius, was put to death as a criminal, under the procurator Pontius Pilate. But this pestilent superstition, checked for a while, broke out afresh and spread not only over Judea, where the evil originated, but also in Rome, where all that is evil on the earth finds its way, and is practiced. At first, those only were apprehended who confessed themselves of that sect; afterwards, a vast multitude were discovered by them; all of whom were condemned, not so much for the crime of the burning of the city, as for their enmity to mankind. Their executions were so contrived as to expose them to derision and contempt. Some were covered over with the skins of wild beasts, that they might be torn to pieces by dogs; some were crucified; while others having been daubed over with combustible materials, were set up for lights in the night time and thus burned to death. For these spectacles Nero gave his own gardens, and, at the same time, exhibited there the diversions of the circus; sometimes standing in the crowd as a spectator, in the habit of a charioteer, and, at other times driving a chariot himself; until at length these men, though really criminal and deserving of exemplary punishment, began to be commiserated as people who were destroyed, not out of regard to the public welfare, but only to gratify the cruelty of one man."

Now let the reader take up the New Testament and read the last six chapters of Acts and the letters of Paul to Philemon, Titus and the second to Timothy. These letters were written when the aged prisoner was ready to be martyred, and the time of his departure was at hand. Then let the reader form his opinion of the origin and nature of that faith which enabled Paul to say, "None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto me, that I may finish my course with joy, and the testimony which I have received of the Lord Jesus."

There is still another kind of cotemporary history, which does not even propose to relate history at all; but is for that very reason entirely removed from the suspicion of making a false statement. By this is meant cotemporary correspondence. The undersigned and incidental use of a name, a date or a quotation often flashes conviction upon the reader's mind in the most forcible manner. If we have the private letters of celebrated men laid before us, we are enabled to look right into them, and see their true characters. Thus Macaulay exhibits to the world the proud, lying, stupid tyrant King, James, displayed in his own letters. Thus the celebrated Voltaire records himself an adulterer, and begs his friend D'Alembert to lie for him, and his friend replies that he has done so. Thus the correspondence of Thomas Paine exhibits him drinking a quart of brandy daily at his friend's expense and refusing to pay his bill for boarding. In the unguarded freedom of confidential correspondence the veil is taken from the heart. We see men as they are. The true man stands out in his native dignity and the gilding is rubbed off the hypocrite. Give to the world their letters, and no just person would hesitate to pronounce Hume a sensualist, or Washington, "the noblest work of God," an honest man.

Now we are in possession of this same kind of indisputable evidence concerning the great facts of the New Testament. From the abundant notices of the faith, teachings and practices of the early saints, which are to be found in the works of cotemporaneous writers, historians and poets, philosophers and magistrates, Jewish, Christian and heathen; it may be well to select one, to corroborate and compare with the statements of the New Testament. Lest we should be accused of partiality, let us take the celebrated letter of Pliny to Trajan. This letter is utterly undeniable and admitted by the most skeptical to be beyond suspicion, Pliny, the younger, was born A. D. 61. He lived and died a pagan. In A. D. 106, when a little more than forty-five years of age, he was appointed by the emperor Trajan to be governor of the Roman provinces of Pontus and Bithynia—a vast tract of Asia-Minor, in which were situated the cities and churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis and Philadelphia. The Epistles of Peter "to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia Asia, and Bithynia," brings us to the same mountainous region. Pliny, having taken up his residence in Ephesus, wrote the following letter to the Roman emperor:

"Pliny to the Emperor Trajan wishes health and happiness.

"It is my constant custom, sire, to refer myself to you in all matters concerning which I have any doubt. For who can better direct me when I hesitate, or instruct me when I am ignorant? T have never been present at any trials of Christians, so that I know not well what is the subject matter of punishment, or of inquiry, or what strictures ought to be used in either. Nor have I been a little perplexed to determine whether any difference ought to be made upon account of age, or whether the young and tender, and the full-grown and robust, ought to be treated all alike; whether repentance should entitle to pardon, or whether all who have once been Christians ought to be punished though they are now no longer so.

"In the meantime I have taken this course with all who have been brought before me, and have been accused as Christians. I have put the question to them whether they were Christians. Upon their confessing to me that they were, I repeated the question a second and a third time, threatening also to punish them with death. Such as still persisted, I ordered away to be punished; for it was no doubt with me, whatever might be the nature of their opinion, that contumacy and inflexible obstinacy ought to be punished. There were others of the same infatuation, whom, because they are Roman citizens, I have noted down to be sent to the city (Rome).

"In a short time, the crime spreading itself even while under persecutions, as is usual in such cases, divers sorts of people came in my way. And information was presented to me, without mentioning the author, containing the names of many persons, who, upon examination denied that they were Christians, or had ever been so; who repeated after me an invocation to the gods, and with wine and frankincense made supplication to your image, which, for that purpose, I have caused to be brought and set before them, together with the statues of the deities. Moreover they reviled the name of Christ. None of which things, as is said, they who are really Christians can by any means be compelled to do. These, therefore, I thought proper to discharge.

"Others were named by an informer, who at first confessed themselves Christians, and afterwards denied it. The rest said they had been Christians, but had left them; some three years ago, some longer, and one or more above twenty years. They all worshiped your image, and the statues of the gods; these also reviled Christ. They affirmed that the whole of their fault or error lay in this: that they were wont to meet together, on a stated day before it was light, and sing among themselves alternately, a hymn to Christ as a God and bind themselves by a sacrament, not to the commission of any wickedness, but not to be guilty of theft, or robbery, or adultery; never to falsify their word nor to deny a pledge committed to them when called upon to return it. When these things were performed, it was their custom to separate, and then to come together again to a meal which they ate in common, without any disorder; but this they had forborne since the publication of my edict, by which, according to your command, I prohibited assemblies. After receiving this account, I judged it the more necessary to examine two maid servants, who were called ministers, by torture. But I have discovered nothing besides a bad and excessive superstition.

"Suspending, therefore, all judicial proceedings, I have recourse to you for advice; for it has appeared to me a matter highly deserving consideration especially upon account of the great number of persons who are in danger of suffering. For many of all ages and every rank, of both sexes likewise, are accused, and will be accused. Nor has the contagion of this superstition seized cities only, but the lesser towns also, and the open country. Nevertheless, it seems that it may be restrained and arrested. It is certain that the temples which were almost forsaken, begin to be frequented. And the sacred solemnities, after a long intermission, are revived. Victims, likewise, are everywhere brought up, whereas, for some time, there were few purchasers. Whence, it is easy to imagine, what numbers of men might be reclaimed, if pardon were granted to those who shall repent."

To this the Emperor Trajan replied:

"Trajan to Pliny wisheth health and happiness:

"You have taken the right course, my Pliny, in your proceedings with those who have been brought before you as Christians; for it is impossible to establish any one rule that shall hold universally. They are not to be sought after. If any are brought before you, and are convicted, they ought to be punished. However, he that denies his being a Christian, and makes it evident in fact, that is, by supplication to our gods, though he be suspected to have been so formerly, let him be pardoned upon repentance. But in no case of any crime whatever, may a bill of information be received without being signed by him who presents it. For that would be a dangerous precedent, and unworthy of my government."

Now let us read the First General Epistle of Peter, the First General Epistle of John, and the second and third chapters of Revelation and we will be able to see the force of the various allusions, to the numbers, doctrines, morals and persecutions of the Saints as mentioned in this letter. The doctrines of the Christian faith then are not the gradual growth of centuries, as the infidel would make us believe. On the other hand the primitive churches possessed a perfection of doctrine and organization unknown to the so-called Christian churches of the present day. In the life time of those who had seen the Savior crucified, and in countries a thousand miles distant from Jerusalem, we find the Saints scattered over Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, as well as in the world's proud capital, the city of Rome. In this letter also we have the testimony of apostates, eager to save their lives by giving such information as they knew would be acceptable to the persecuting governor, the testimony of the two servants under torture, and the unwilling, yet express testimony; of their torturer, that all his cruel ingenuity could discover nothing worse than what he called "a bad and excessive superstition." Now, what was it that this heathen governor called a "superstition?" Why simply that they bound themselves by the most solemn religious services, not to be guilty of theft, robbery or adultery; not to falsify their word nor deny a pledge committed to them; and when a statue of the emperor was presented to them they refused to make supplication to it. For this refusal, and this alone, he ordered them away to death. And as these martyrs went away to torture and to death, may they not have heard tingling in their ears the words of Peter which had been written to them a few years previous: "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evil-doer, or as a busybody in other men's matters" (I. Peter iv, 12-15). Pliny says that there were apostates twenty years previous, that is in the year 86. Now does not that exactly coincide with what John wrote to them in the year 90: "They went out from us but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us" (I. John ii. 19). So Pliny speaks of the apostates, "They all worshiped your image and statues of the gods; these also reviled Christ. None of which things, as is said, they who are really Christians can by any means be compelled to do." What was it that enabled the early Saints of all ranks and all ages, of both sexes likewise, to joyfully meet death in its most horrid forms? It was the power of truth—it was the power of God.

Now, the grand idea that strikes us in the testimony of the Saints, both of primitive and modern times, is that it stands out utterly different from all other religions. There is nothing in the world like it, not even its counterfeits. The great central fact of Christianity—that Christ died for our sins, and rose again from the dead—stands absolutely alone in the history of religions. The priests of Baal, Brahma or Jupiter never dreamed of such a thing. Confucius, Buddha or Zoroaster never attained to such sublime ideas. Our modern positivists and spiritualists perceiving the grandeur of this doctrine, have vainly attempted to destroy this, the key-stone of the gospel arch.

There is no instance in the whole world's history of any other religion ever producing the same effects; no other instance of men destitute of wealth, arms, power and learning, converting multitudes of lying, lustful, murdering idolators into honest, peaceable Christians, simply by prayer and preaching. When the skeptic tells us of the rapid spread of impostures which enlist disciples by promising free license to lust, robbery and murder, and retain them by the terror of scimetar and rifle ball, he simply insults our common sense, by ignoring the difference between the degrading practices of vice, and the ennobling principles of virtue. The gospel stands alone in its doctrines, singular in its operation, unequalled in its success.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VIII,
HISTORICAL GLIMPSES OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES.

PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF OUR SAVIOR—BY MARCUS—BY JOSEPHUS—CONDITION OF THE WORLD AT—THE BIRTH OF CHRIST—INFLUENCE OF JUDAISM HEATHEN TRADITIONS CONCERNING THE SAVIOR'S ADVENT—CHARACTER OF BARNABAS—APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER OF PAUL—PETER, THE LEADER OF THE APOSTLES—CHARACTER OF JOHN AND JAMES—STATEMENT CONCERNING MARY—HISTORY EPITOMIZED IN THE GOSPELS—DESCRIPTION OF THE CATACOMBS—INSCRIPTIONS OF THEM.

The living or written testimony of those who have been actively engaged in the great latter-day work will ever have a weight far superior to any given by inimical or disinterested parties. Still, the descriptions given and the historical facts and incidents related by such persons are often highly interesting as furnishing glimpses of scenes and facts unmentioned by more prominent actors. For example, the discourse delivered by Thomas L. Kane before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, throws a flood of light upon the manners and customs of the Latter-day Saints and the scenes attending their expulsion from Nauvoo, which no history of the Church has exceeded; and this is all the more valuable as it corroborates many of the statements made by the Saints. So in like manner there are many references made by secular writers which throw light on New Testament history, and by this light we see a new beauty and force in the language of the inspired writers.

No man of sense will for a moment hesitate to acknowledge the superiority of the narratives written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to any merely human composition. The biographies of the Savior, written by Fleetwood and others bear no comparison to the simple, yet sublime records of the evangelists. But it does not militate against the authority of the scriptures to read a description of the personal appearance of the Savior as described by Marcus, a Roman lawyer who resided at Jerusalem, and still preserved in the works of Origen:

"Jesus of Nazareth, sometimes called the Galilean, was a most remarkable person. In stature He was above the medium hight, straight and tall. His complexion was fair: His hair was of a brown color, and fell in heavy curls upon His shoulders. His eyes were blue, and possessed such a penetrating power that no man could meet His gaze. His beard was of a deep wine color, fine and full: it is said that He was never shaved. His countenance was majestic, calm and serene, bearing the impress of wisdom, justice and love."

Again, we have the testimony of Josephus, the celebrated Jewish historian who flourished between the thirty-seventh and ninety-eighth year of the Christian era. He was a Jewish priest and had no connection with the early saints; yet in the History of the Antiquities of the Jews, Book xviii, he declares:

"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 receive 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 on 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."

In the time of Christ, Palestine was in the very center of the then known world. To the north and north-east lay the decaying remnants of the Medo-Persian and still more ancient Babylonian and Assyrian empires; on the east were the powerful tribes of Arabia, who, fearless of any foreign power, had built their capital in the rugged defiles of Arabia-Petrea, the magnificent ruins of which astonish the travelers of the present day.

On the south lay Egypt reposing in gloomy grandeur and already boasting a hoary antiquity; yet even this ancient civilization was to a great extent indebted to the founders of the Jewish commonwealth. On the west lay the classic countries of Greece and Italy.

As is well known, after the Babylonish captivity, the Jews were widely scattered. Comparatively few of them availed themselves of the permission granted by Cyrus, to return to Palestine. The majority remained in Babylonia or wandered into other lands. In Alexandria, for example, at the time of Christ, fully one-half the inhabitants were Jews, who by trading had become rich and powerful. At that time the coasts of Arabia and even India were visited by Jewish merchants. In Asia Minor and Greece there was scarcely a town without its Jewish synagogue. In Rome the Jews possessed the greater part of the Trastevere, or right bank of the Tiber. From the time of Julius Caesar they were allowed to build synagogues and granted many other privileges. All these Jews who lived outside of Palestine and formed a majority of the whole nation were commonly called the Dispersion, It was this class of persons to which the Jews referred, when in speaking of Christ, they said, "Will He go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles and teach the Gentiles?" (John vii, 25). Yet these Jews still considered Jerusalem as their center, regarded the Sanhedrim (or high council) as their highest church court, sent yearly gifts of money and sacrifices to the temple, and visited it from time to time at the great festivals.

It is easy to see how this state of things aided the spread of the gospel. The feasts of the Passover and of Pentecost brought many of these dispersed Jews from the neighboring countries to Jerusalem. Thus thousands, who were not residents of Palestine, had an opportunity at these yearly feasts to become acquainted with the teachings and miracles of Jesus. It was also at the time of the great feast of the Passover, that the crucifixion took place. Fifty days later was the feast of Pentecost at which time occurred those wonderful events recorded in the second chapter of Acts.

Thus, we perceive, how it was that people from various nations had gathered together; and how important the gift of tongues whereby each could hear in his own language the wonderful works of God. (See Acts ii, 5, 9-11.)

These men on their return carried the news of Christianity to their homes. Then again the apostles in their missionary travels found synagogues in all the principal towns and cities; likewise, devout persons who were looking forward to the advent of the Messiah and the redemption of Israel. Of these might be mentioned Dorcas, and Cornelius, (Acts ix, 10.) Lydia (Acts xvi, 14.), Aquilla and Priscilla, (Acts xviii), Eunice and Lois, the mother and grandmother of Timothy, and many others.

Every synagogue was, as it were, a missionary station in readiness for them with friends and inquirers already there to welcome them. The influence of the Jews had helped also to undermine heathenism and thus to prepare the ground for Christianity. So much was this the case that the Roman philosopher, Seneca, in speaking of the Jews, says, "The conquered have given laws to the conquerors." Josephus, in his Antiquities, Book 18, says, "Many of the Jews held high offices, and lived at the courts of princes. Even the empress Poppea, wife of Nero was a proselyte to Judaism." In his autobiography, he relates that, when in Rome, he made the acquaintance of this empress through a Jewish favorite of Nero, and at once received from her the release of some imprisoned Jewish priests together with large presents. Through her influence also was due much of that bitterness which characterized the persecutions of the saints in the reign of Nero.

Juvenal, a Latin poet, ridicules the prevalence of Jewish customs; also many of the Greeks, following the teachings of Socrates, believed in the existence of an "unknown God." It is in the very nature of man to believe in something. When the absurdities of heathenism became apparent, men fell into other superstitions. More and more was felt the want of a true religion. Even the Samaritans who were so carried away by the sorceries of Simon Magus, as to call him "the great power of God," readily received the preaching of the gospel. (Act viii, 5.) So also Sergius Paulus, who, dissatisfied with heathenism, had with him the Jewish sorcerer and false prophet Elymas, was won to the Christian faith by the preaching of Paul (Acts xiii, 6-11). Indeed the best feature of that age was a strong religious yearning. Expectations of a coming Messiah, in various forms and degrees of clearness, were at that time, by the political collision of the nations and by their intellectual and religious contact, spread over all the nations; and, like the first red streaks upon the horizon, announced the approach of day. The Persians were looking for their Sosiosch, who should conquer Ahriman and his kingdom of darkness. The Chinese sage, Confucius, pointed his disciples to a Holy One who should appear in the west. The wise men who came to worship the new-born king of the Jews, we must look upon as representatives of the Messianic hopes of oriental heathens.

The western nations, on the contrary, looked toward the east for the dawn of a better day. The Roman historians, Suetonius and Tacitus, both speak of a current saying in the Roman empire, that in the east, and more particularly in Judea, a new universal empire would soon be set up.

Thus, in a time, the like of which history before or since has never seen, appeared the Savior of men. Amid the dying and decaying forms of ancient society, while those things that had been the objects of man's enthusiastic love were withering away, Christ came that through Him humanity should receive a new, youthful life.

Impenitent Judaism, it is true, still wanders, ghost like through all ages and countries: but only as an incontrovertible living witness of the divinity of the Christian religion.

The Jews who were scattered through the various countries of the east came in contact with the manners and customs of those various countries, and this had a tendency to break down Jewish exclusiveness and prepare the minds of many for broader and more liberal views. Hence we find that several of the most useful men of the apostolic church, such as Stephen, the martyr, Philip, the deacon, Paul and Barnabas were of this class. Barnabas was, indeed one, of the most remarkable men of the age in which he lived. He was born in the island of Cyprus, but removed to Jerusalem where he became one of the active members of the apostolic church.

After the martyrdom of Stephen and in consequence of the persecution which followed, some of the disciples were scattered as far as Antioch, whither Barnabas was sent to organize a church, and here the disciples first received the name of Christians. (Acts xi, 26.) It was Barnabas who first introduced Paul to the rest of the apostles and removed the mistrust which was felt towards him. Afterwards, when Paul was living a retired life in his native city of Tarsus, Barnabas sought him out and brought him to Antioch. To win over this great reticent and susceptible soul, to labor with him and even to take a subordinate place under him, indicate both wisdom and humanity; and this is what Barnabas did for Paul.

Saul, afterwards Latinized into Paul, was born at Tarsus in Cilicia, in the tenth or twelfth year of our era. Paul's father early intended that he should become a religious teacher, but, according to the customs of that age, taught him a trade also, by which he afterwards supported himself without becoming a burden to the church. He came to Jerusalem at an early age and entered the school of Gamaliel the elder. This Gamaliel was one of the most learned men in Jerusalem, and the youthful Paul soon became a leader in society. This is evident from the position he held at the death of Stephen. Paul was short in stature, somewhat stooping and at the middle age his hair was thin, inclining to baldness. His countenance was pale and half hidden by a dark beard. His nose was aquiline, his eyes piercing and his eyebrows heavy. It is said that he possessed one of those strange visages which though plain, yet, when lighted up by emotion, assumes a deep brilliancy and grandeur. Paul was a man of great politeness and exquisite manners. His letters show that he was a man of rare intelligence, who formed for his lofty sentiments, expressions of great beauty. No correspondence exhibits more careful attention, finer shades of meaning or more amiable pleasantries. What animation! What a wealth of charming sayings! What simplicity! It is easy to see that his character is that of a polite, earnest and affectionate man.

Simon, or Peter, as he was afterwards called, was a son of the fisherman, Jonas. He resided at Capernaum, on the shore of the sea of Galilee, where he followed his father's occupation. His brother, Andrew, who had been a disciple of John the Baptist, first brought him to Jesus by whom he was called to be a fisher of men. He was one of the witnesses of the transfiguration on Mount Tabor, and the agony of the Savior in the garden of Gethsemane. He was evidently the leader of the ancient apostles. In the four places where a list of the twelve is given, he is invariably placed at the beginning; and in many other places he is mentioned as the leading speaker. In Peter's character we have a remarkable combination of great natural talents and virtues, with peculiar weaknesses. This apostle was distinguished from the other eleven by an ardent, impulsive, sanguine temperament, and an open, shrewd, practical nature. He was always ready to speak out his mind, to resolve and to act. His excitable, impulsive disposition led him sometimes to over-estimate his powers, to trust too much to himself, and, in the hour of danger, to yield to opposite impressions. Thus we find that, in spite of his usual firmness and joy in confessing his faith, he actually denied the Savior when arraigned in the palace of Caiphas. In learning he was inferior to Paul, and in loving character, to John; but he possessed, in an eminent degree, the gift of inspiration which enabled him to act with promptness and decision.

The apostle and evangelist, John, was the son of Zebedee, and the brother of the elder James. His mother was one of the women who supported Jesus with their property, and brought spices to embalm Him. John himself owned a house in Jerusalem, into which he received the mother of the Savior after the crucifixion. He was the only one of the apostles who was present at the cross, and to him Jesus committed the care of his mother. (John xix, 26, 27.) Nicephorus states that Mary continued to live with John until her death, which occurred about fourteen years after the crucifixion. After this, John went to preside over the church at Ephesus. Here he wrote the gospel and epistle that bear his name. In the reign of Domitian, about the year 84, he was called to Rome where he was condemned to be put to death by being thrust into a caldron of boiling oil. From this he miraculously escaped, even as the three Hebrews who were cast into the fiery furnace. Afterwards he was banished to the solitary, rocky island, Patmos, where he received that wonderful prophetic history of the conflicts and conquests of the church, which is called the Apocalypse, or Revelation. In the opening chapter he says, "I, John, who also am your brother and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ."

When Peter asked the manner of John's death, the Savior replied, "'If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?'

"Then went this saying abroad among the brethren that that disciple should not die."

Peter, James and John were the chosen among the chosen, upon whom the Savior bestowed special favor. Peter was a man of great energy, fitted to be a leader in the church and in society. John possessed a deep, affectionate nature, which made him the dearest of the Savior's three chosen friends.

Of James we know very little. He seems to have been of a quiet, earnest, meditative turn. He presided over the church at Jerusalem until the year forty-four of our era, when he sealed his testimony with his blood, being the first of that glorious band of apostolic martyrs.

Such were the chief actors in New Testament times. The great facts of their lives are corroborated both by Jewish and heathen writers, and admitted to be true by the most eminent of modern infidels, such as Volney, Straus and Renan. Christianity did not take its rise in an obscure corner of the earth. On the other hand, from the very first it attracted the attention of the good, the wise and the learned, and aroused the opposition of the wicked, though they were powerful kings and potentates of the earth. Yet, in spite of all, it has won its way, both in ancient times and at the present day among the honest in heart by the simplicity, grandeur and harmony of its truths.

We must, therefore, accept the New Testament as a whole. We cannot accept the writings of one, and say they are true, and reject the writings of another, teaching the same doctrine, and say it is false. Neither can we accept the gospel and reject the epistles, for there is not a doctrine of the gospel which is not taught in the very first of them, that written by Matthew.

He who writes forgeries must needs be well posted in the matter of names, dates and places, or else he will contradict some well-known facts and so expose his forgery to the world. Men who write falsehoods do not write as follows:

"Now, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother, Philip, tetrarch of Iturea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanius tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiphas being high priests, the word of God came unto John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness."

Here, in one sentence, are twenty historical, geographical, political and family references, every one of which can be proven true by the statements of cotemporaneous secular writers. Infidels have utterly failed in their attempts to disprove one of the hundreds of such statements in the New Testament.

Among the various historical evidences of primitive Christianity, none seem more authentic or possess a deeper interest than those connected with the catacombs of ancient Rome. These were subterraneous chambers or excavations which were made in the soft, sandy rock which underlies the hills on which stood ancient Rome. To these dreary vaults the early saints were in the habit of retiring, in order to celebrate their worship in times of persecution, and in them were buried many of the saints and martyrs of the primitive church. They consist of long, narrow galleries, usually about eight feet high and five feet wide, which twist and turn in all directions, very much resembling mines. The graves were constructed by hollowing out a portion of the rock at the side of the gallery, large enough to contain the body. The entrance was then built up, and generally an inscription was placed upon it.

[SECTION OF THE CATACOMB OF CALIXTUS.]

These excavations were first formed by quarrying the volcanic, sandy rock, in order to supply the materials necessary for the building of ancient Rome. They were afterwards increased in order to procure the sand used for cement, until, at length, they formed an area of very extensive dimensions. They are mentioned by the Roman writers, Horace and Varro, by Cicero and Seutonius. Jerome, writing about the middle of the fourth century, describes them as they existed in his day, declaring that he "was accustomed, as a youth, when studying in Rome, to visit these dark and dreary spots on Sundays, in order to see the tombs of apostles and martyrs."

[BURIAL PLACE IN THE CATACOMBS.]