which they were originally written; and it may be fairly claimed that men of culture shall so study them before criticising them. Such study would require careful attention, and careful attention would undoubtedly save them occasionally from palpable mistakes.* Certain it is that those who have studied it most constantly, and have most thoroughly wrought it into the fabric of their life, have most confidence in it. It was said by the Great Teacher, that if any man would do the will of God, he should know of the doctrine whether it is divine or human. And in matters of morals and conduct, this is the only method that yields results worth noting. To a certain extent all practical science rests on the same principle. So does all legislation. But it is certain that those who have put Christianity, as revealed in the New Testament, to a practical test, are so fully satisfied that they would rather part with life than with it. Years of experiment, in all the varying circumstances of life, only confirm their faith. They may doubt when young. To pass through a process of intellectual doubt is a common experience amongst young men, even while holding to Christianity as a practical rule. But it is almost invariably the case that, with increasing experience of life, enlarged knowledge of men and things, and a wider acquaintance with the world and themselves, the things which once perplexed their reason and staggered their faith are seen to be parts of a great harmonious whole, instinct with the deepest and truest wisdom. The universal regret amongst Christians (here one may appeal to knowledge) is, that they have not more fully and unreservedly. followed it. And the universal testimony is, that in those * For example, in an article in the CANADIAN MONTHLY, the parable of the Unjust Steward was referred to as showing an approval by the Saviour of roguery and chicanery. A man of literary culture, reading the parable, even in English, would scarcely fall into the mistake of confounding the "lord himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly, if he read carefully, and as a literary man, he would see that it is the lord or master of the steward that commended him, not the Lord Jesus. In modern language he would have said, "Although the rascal has cheated me, I cannot but commend his forethought." To represent the parable as indicating approval of roguery by the Lord Jesus Christ, is a violent straining of its language. One may add, also, with much sadness, that it indicates a bias that is painful to witness.

referred to in the 8th verse with the narrator

times when the soul has rested in it most confidently, and followed it most implicitly, there has been most light, and virtue, and fruit.

The question of Miracles is simply a question of a personal and conscious power, operating for an adequate reason. That there is Force is indisputable. That this force, in its ultimate form, is one, and stable, and homogeneous, is a conclusion reached by the profoundest thinkers of the advanced school of to-day.* If this stable and homogeneous force is conscious, then it is competent to produce the results we call miracles. One of these thinkers,+ repudiating the Scriptures as a revelation, has nevertheless reached the conclusion that the power of the Universe is "a power, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness.' Here is a conscious personality operating for an end which none but such a personality could appreciate. Now, whether this conclusion is true or false, it is certainly impossible to prove it not true. Any negative is difficult of proof; but of all negatives this is the most impossible (if such an expression may be allowed), to prove that the power of the Universe is not conscious. In the face of a vast amount of positive evidence in the affirmative, to prove absolutely and scientifically that consciousness is not one of the modes of the ultimate force of the Universe, implies a knowledge far beyond that of any human intellect. The intellect that knows enough to prove that, is an intellect to be worshipped. But if the conscious personality of the power of the Universe cannot be disproved, then miracles per se cannot be disproved. And the rationale of Biblical miracles is this-that they are the working of the conscious power of the Universe for an adequate reason. The Being -the mysterious I AM-whose essence is represented as unknowable, but whose relations are revealed, is represented as "a Power working for righteousness." And the distinction between this and the doings of Jupiter or the gods of Olympus is that the latter are not so represented. It is not pretended that they work for righteousness. They are magnified men, and, truth to say, they are such men as we should be sorry to

admit into our homes. Certainly we do not want incarnations of Jupiter or Venus in our drawing-rooms, or of Mercury and Bacchus in our counting houses. We get them, unfortunately, at times; but they are our grief. But the miracles of the Scriptures are for righteousness. Retribution for wrong-doing, the carrying on of a purpose of planting and establishing a people who should be ruled on righteous principles; the healing of the sorrows and wounds of humanity,-these are the purposes of the great works that are represented to have been wrought by the "Power." The rationale of every event is not always clear, but the purpose is plainly revealed. And these miracles were not a setting aside of the laws of nature, for the very essence of the sign, or marvellous work, is that the properties of matter meanwhile remain unchanged. Else there would have been no wonder at all.

An alleged historical event may be disproved by the testimony of credible men, having no interest in the denial, who were on the spot at the time and saw nothing of it. Or it may be disproved by the demonstration of its impossibility. The latter kind of disproof, however, cannot be satisfactory without being absolute. The reasoning must be strict and mathematical to be conclusive. As to disproof on the ground of improbability, this is an extremely unreliable method. History is full of improbable events. Our own times have been fruitful-on both sides of the Atlantic-in events that were antecedently improbable in a very high degree. It is always (says a French proverb) the unexpected that happens. No one can read Whately's book on the non-existence of Napoleon without a conviction that no argument from improbability can lie against Scripture history.

Now, of the two methods of disproof, we have no record of any Scripture miracle being disproved by the first.§ No credible

It is extremely unsafe to infer that events of a religious character did not happen, because ordinary historians make no reference to them. The preaching of Moody and Sankey in London, last year, made some little commotion, and one would have thought it an event to leave an impression even in a secular chronicle; but the summary of events for 1875, in the London Times, elaborate as it was, made not the shadow of a reference to it. How easy, a century hence, to infer that it was a mere myth!

witnesses who were on the spot at the time have testified that these things did not come under their observation. And alleged disproof by the second is most incomplete. It mainly rests on the supposed absolute uniformity of nature. But the absolute uniformity of nature cannot be proved scientifically. A high degree of probability is all that can be attained. The argument is as fatally defective as the proposed defence in an assault case; against the testimony of the one man who had seen the deed done, the defendant said he could bring five hundred who would swear that they had not. And the ordinary uniformity of the operations of what we call nature is not impugned by the Scriptures. This uniformity is strongly asserted and fully illustrated in Scripture itself. But the word uniformity, as used by sceptical reasoners in this connection, is a misnomer. What is really meant, if we analyze the thought, is the blindness, or deadness, or absence of a conscious will, from nature. This certainly cannot be scientifically proved. As to the narrative of the flood, if reasoners would pass by mere human comments, (and commentators are sometimes mere learned fools) and go to the word itself, they would find both adequate power and adequate reason. the impossibility of specimens of all the species of animated nature being housed within the ark, can only be proved when it can be demonstrated that genera and species were as numerous four thousand years ago as they are now. No man who has any scientific knowledge, and is aware of the difficulty that besets the question of genera and species, will assert that this can be proved. The whole human race are represented as being at that early age confined to the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris; and certain it is that all our knowledge (using the word advisedly) of the races that now people the earth leads us finally up to that region as the centre of dispersion. That region was the whole inhabited world of the time, and there is nothing in the narrative to contradict the supposition that only that region was submerged. A depression of the country between the Persian Gulf, and the Black and Caspian Seas, combined with continuous rain, would account for all that is described. The waters of these seas would unite. The land would gradually disappear, and even the top of Ararat

And

would be no more seen. The description of the phenomena is that "the fountains of the great deep"-evidently the sea-were "broken up," and "the windows of heaven were opened." On the supposition of a conscious Power working for righteousness, we have all the forces requisite for the production of these phenomena, and an adequate reason for their exercise.* As to the difficulty of getting the animals into the ark, considering the impossibility of proving the absence of adequate power to impel them, we may remember that it is also impossible to prove that their numbers rendered it impossible. The same reasoning will apply to the falling of the walls of Jericho. It is not disproved by the testimony of men who were there at the time, and it cannot be proved impossible. An inaccurate reader of the narrative has stated that the Scriptures represent Rahab as escaping, notwithstanding she was in her home on the wall at the time. Closer attention would have prevented this mistake. The narrative states that Joshua had sent forth the woman, and got her away.

There is this finally to be said. The miracles of Scripture are fruitful in the highest instruction. The narratives themselves have been proved, and are now being proved, to work for righteousness. There are eternal principles underlying them, and vast numbers of persons now living can testify that their lives have been consciously influenced for good by lessons drawn from these events. The writers of the Fortnightly and the Westminster probably do not know this; and very naturally; for these things take place in a society in which they never mix. Their world is another sphere altogether. As one of themselves wrote some years ago :* "These things cannot be surely deduced, as is too often fancied, from certain fixed rules and principles which may be learned à priori; they depend in a great measure on observation and experience, on knowledge of the world, and of the characters that move and act there." Now, the men of this school do not and cannot live in the religious world; for which reason, to quote further from the same author, "whole spheres of observation, whole branches of character and conduct, are almost inevitably closed" to them. They

*The above, of course, is simply a suggestion of what is possible, amidst other possibilities.

* Greg, "Literary and Social Judgments."

might be inclined to doubt, therefore, that the lessons deducible from Bible miracles were appreciably affecting the lives of thousands of people now living. But no one who has mixed much in the religious world could doubt it for a moment.

And this leads on to another branch of thought. The longer a man lives, the more thoroughly does he appreciate the saying, that one-half the world does not know how the other half lives. And this saying may be expanded into the realm of thought, for certainly, as we live longer and acquire a wider range of observation, we see how true it is that one-half the world does know what the other half thinks. And if we are ready to learn by experience, we come to be more careful of assertions about men and things of whom we have not the knowledge which comes by actual contact. Writers will sometimes talk incautiously of "the world's opinion," or the "sentiment of the age," or the influence of "modern thought," imagining, honestly enough, no doubt, that the circle of men and books in which they revolve comprises all of "the world" or the age," or of " modern culture" that is worth caring for. But as experience and observation are enlarged, they usually become more and more chary of committing themselves to assertions respecting "the age," or "the world," or "the universal sentiments of mankind." For travel as we will, we only live and think in a little world of our own, after all. It is only a very few things that any man really understands. Even such a fearful book-devourer as John Stuart Mill only digested a few things out of the enormous masses he read, and there were whole realms of life, which cannot be got at by reading books, of which it is evident he knew nothing. In Herbert Spencer's great work, where he lays down with so broad and firm a hand the principles of his new philosophy, there is a chapter on religion. Nothing can be more marked than the difference between this chapter and those in which he treats of Force, Space, Time, and Evolution. In these he treads with the step of a giant; in the other he is feeble, commonplace, and most inexact. There is scarcely a page in which one who has made religion a special study in its complicated developments, would not have to mark sentence after sentence with "not true" or

not proven." The reason for the difference is evident enough. Nothing is more common

than for literary men of eminence-even such as the famous old philosopher of Chelseato be marvellously ignorant of the life of the world at their very doors, while they take a most perfect grasp of the life of past centuries. Carlyle was wonderfully appreciative of the Puritan life of Cromwell's days, and put a very broad seal of approval on it. Yet this is a life which has now, and has long had, in its essential principles, thousands of counterparts in the men and women of his own city. He declared, however, that this life was dead in these modern days, and mourned over the fact. In this he spoke according to his light. Of the religious life of the London of this day, he is, to adopt a mild word, singularly unappreciative. If one were to use a phraseology as vigorous as his own, we should have to say, blindly ignorant.

Men of a certain literary school are fond of saying that "the age " is becoming increasingly sceptical. Scepticism, it is said, prevails in all literary circles, and has penetrated even to the august purlieus of the peerage. Even a Duke has written a book in disparagement of Christianity. Men in these days do not hesitate to avow their unbelief. Religious ideas are becoming increasingly weak in their hold upon the best minds of the day, and the time is apparently approaching fast, when none but very young men and old women will cling to the Bible as a divine revelation, or to Christianity as a supernatural system. Yet, along with all this, we find numbers of men, not at all deficient in power of vision or range of observation, to whom this present working world is an age of extraordinary religious force, both of belief and action. The world, as they see it, is becoming filled with religious books. No mortal man could read a quarter or a tenth part of the ever-advancing multitude. They pour from the press in England, Germany, and the United States in an increasing stream, and constitute a whole literature in themselves. Yet the immense majority of them are avowedly mere satellites revolving round the great central sun, The Book, which is in itself a religious microcosm. To read even the Christian periodical literature of the day would far more than occupy the time of any one man. Religion—that is, the Christian religion, in its many developments, more or less true and pure-seems to them the grand force and chief factor of modern life. And un

less observation and experience wholly deceive them, that development of it which is represented, say by Moody and Sankey, is proving itself the power of God' to the salvation of multitudes. The agencies at work in London alone have lifted up many thousands of men and lads from rags and misery to cleanliness, industry, and intelligence, during the last twenty years. These are the invariable concomitants of earnest Christianity, as many observers know it. In speaking thus, the observer might be thought somewhat enthusiastic. But he is, at any rate, speaking of the world in which he lives. He may be presumed, therefore, to understand it. And if, out of many observers, one such, of mature years, were asked whether religion—that is, the Christian religion-is more of a dominant force now than formerly, say forty or fifty years ago, or whether its influence is on the wane, he would certainly reply that religion appeared to be enormously more influential now than in his younger days. The extent of the awakening of the dormant force of religious life in the Church of England alone has been incalculable, and not in one school of thought only, but in all. Religious thought, culture, and life within the Establishment in England is inconceivably more potent at the present day than it was thirty or forty years ago. An observer might fairly askWhen were there so many men and women in the highest walks of life taking an active part in church life and church work as now? When were so many peers of the realm known as earnest Christians? And certainly these men are no simpletons. The Duke of Argyll is unquestionably on as high an intellectual level as the Duke of Manchester. Mr. Gladstone's culture might be put beside that of Mr. Frederick Harrison, and not suffer much by the comparison. If scepticism is bold, religion is certainly very bold too. It manifests itself in a thousand ways entirely unknown in former days. It was never more bold, more daring, more self-sacrificing (especially among those who work apart from the ordinary spheres of the

*

*This awakening is not confined to the Establishment or to England. The very fact of such a cultured community as Edinburgh being so moved by Moody and Sankey proves the existence of an extraordinary amount of religious susceptibility, along with such culture.

church life) than at present.

Those forces of Christian philanthropy which go down to the depths to rescue men from the slums of vice are marvellously aggressive and marvellously successful in these days. Such an observer might call attention to the fact, that in Canada itself there are at the present moment more than a thousand lads, an immense majority conducting themselves well, all of whom have been rescued from the lowest depths by the force of Christian benevolence, set in motion by one devoted lady. And the force was simply and purely Christian, and of the strictest evangelical type. Illustrations, however, need not be multiplied. The truth appears to be that every phase of life takes on in these days a more pronounced form. Whatever view we may take of the relative positions of good and evil, it is certain that if evil is prominent and bold, the forces of goodness

are so too.

One or two more jottings and I have

done. One of the most curious instances

of this want of appreciation of the thoughts of other people has been furnished in a recent comparison between Aristotle and Ezekiel. Aristotle, it is said, would be almost perfectly at home in modern life; Ezekiel would find himself in another world. Now, there is no more certain fact than this, that the teachings of Ezekiel's prophecy are potent forces in the lives of multitudes of people in England and America to-day. The prophet, if living, would find himself read in thousands of churches, and could, in

them all, listen to teaching based on his own stirring appeals and trenchant denunciations. And if the rugged old man were here in person, he would find abundant scope for his powers of reproving evil and exhorting to righteousness, in the daily doings of the stock exchange, the clubs, the taverns, and many other scenes of modern life. Aristotle's influence on modern thought, after all that has elapsed since the time when he held undisputed sway, would be exceedingly difficult to estimate. But it is certain that if he would find himself at home at the Athenæum; Ezekiel would be equally at home in the Churches. He probably might not approve of all he saw, and it might do some good, here and there, to have an Ezekiel testifying.

Modern culture is a very large word. It is enormously diversified both in substance and in form. All the educational forces and agencies of the day must be included in it.

too.

All literature has a reasonable claim And certainly the multiplied teaching agencies of Christian churches ought not to be excluded. If anything less than this is meant by modern culture, then the word is used in a non-natural sense; some technical and narrow signification is attached to it. The school represented, say, by the Westminster Review or the Fortnightly cannot claim to include the whole compass of modern thinking. If modern culture be considered under the figure of a circle, sceptical thought is certainly only a small arc of it.