should read the record to believe that Jesus was the Christ.

"But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name." (John xx. 31.)

Another circumstance that tends strongly to prove the genuineness of the record is the fact that Jesus never performed a miracle as a mere exhibition of power. He often charged those who had been healed by him to keep the matter a secret; and when Pilate sent him to Herod during his trial, he refused to perform a miracle to satisfy even the curiosity of the king.

"And when Herod saw Jesus, he was
exceeding glad: for he was desirous to
see him of a long season, because he had
heard many things of him; and he hoped
to have seen some miracle done by him.
Then he questioned with him in many
words; but he answered him nothing.'
(Luke xxiii. 8, 9.)

A writer of a fictitious story might very reasonably have clothed his hero with supernatural power, but he never would have thought about hiding his glory under a bushel nor of making him refuse the request of a king.

It is a very significant fact that all those who deny the miracles of Jesus also deny his divinity, and all who admit the miracles also admit his divinity. Jesus weighed the credulity of the human mind with wonderful accuracy when he answered John the Baptist that his miracles furnished sufficient evidence of his character as the Christ.

The testimony of St. Paul is highly important and ought not to be overlooked. It is generally conceded that Paul wrote before the year 58 A.D., or only about twenty-five years after the miracle of the resurrection is alleged to have taken place, and the authenticity of his epistles has never been seriously questioned. The four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are claimed to have been written between the years 60 and 90 A.D., or a few years after the date of Paul's epistles. We know that Paul lays great stress upon the doctrine of the resurrection, the greatest of all miracles. If Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead as alleged in the record, why did Paul make the doctrine of the resurrection the foundation of the new Church, when he was bound to know that thousands of persons were living at the time his epistles were written who could utterly refute the whole story?

Churches were established at Corinth, Ephesus, Rome, and other places within twenty-five years of the date of the resurrection as set forth in the record; and judging from the tone of Paul's letters, these Churches had been founded upon the doctrine of the resurrection. History teaches us that communication was constant and comparatively swift between those places and Jerusalem, even at that date. Did not these people know something of the truth about the doctrine they professed to believe?

The story of the miracles is a part of the same testimony upon which the entire Church of Christ is built. If Jesus Christ did not perform the miracles attributed to him, then his biographers are false witnesses, and the entire structure of the Church must crumble and fall. It is impossible to believe, with Renan and others of his ilk, that Jesus himself, as well as his disciples, was deceived and actually believed that he wrought miracles, but did not. When the witnesses say that they actually stood by and saw Lazarus restored to life after having been dead for four days, they either assert a known truth or a known falsehood. There is no middle ground on this question. The testimony as to the miracles of Jesus Christ is either true, or else God,

who thundered the law from Mount Sinai that he would not divide honors with anything, has permitted a false religion, founded upon the most stupendous falsehood ever uttered, to supersede the system of worship established directly by him—the worship of God through sacrifices-and has allowed the worship of an impostor to divide honors with him and to grow into the greatest institution on the earth.

I respectfully submit that the evidence in favor of the miracles of Jesus Christ is of such a character as to command the respect and confidence of all reasonable people.

CHAPTER II

THE INCARNATION

1. The doctrine of the incarnation is proved by prophecy as well as by the story of the Christ as contained in the four Gospels.

The evidence upon which the doctrine of the incarnation is chiefly based is twofold:

(1) The prophecies relating to the Messiah as contained in the Old Testament.

(2) The story of the Christ as contained in the New Testament.

The first of these propositions involves the further issue as to the credibility of prophetic utterances, and the second depends upon the authenticity and genuineness of the record as to the birth and life of Jesus Christ.

If it be granted that there is a God and that he is disposed to reveal his will to human beings at all, then it necessarily follows that things present, past, and future may be disclosed to men through the agency of divinely inspired prophets.

Upon the question of the value and genuineness of prophecy, as well as its relation to Jesus Christ,