that to be wrong which heathendom declared to be right, and that right which heathendom pronounced wrong. Centuries of thought had not advanced one step nearer to the solution of problems with which, child-like, it began-began with child-like question, ended with aged doubt. Jesus solved those problems. In what school had the Jew been taught that he, naturally a most bigoted fanatic, should nevertheless possess highest wisdom and purest faith? The greatest minds have seen no further, nor added one truth to religion, since John, the Jew, wrote of Love to God and man. Sin, Ruin, Redemption, Sanctification, Eternal Life, do now and will for ever form the great matters on which profound minds meditate: all that we know of these things has been learned from the Jews. We look at human science, and trace its hesitating course through ages of uncertainty and imperfection; but, turning to the Bible, we find it plainly stated that man is connected with the Infinite by place and authority; is related to the Eternal in origin; if he falls, it is to rise higher; if he dies, it is that he may live again. Brought down to the depths of humiliation, tried and tempted, the servant of God is nevertheless destined to highest glory. In his spirit, in the depths of his heart, a Divine voice proclaims the final overthrow of evil, the lasting triumph of goodness and righteousness among men.

There are other surprising facts which should not be neglected.

The great and wise of the world stood amazed, while prophets and fishermen did a work which they confessed was not their own-but by the power of the Spirit of God. They appealed to signs and wonders, marvels and miracles, as proof of their Supernatural authority; that powers of the world to come accompanied them, that the continual presence of God and the all-prevailing wisdom of the Holy Ghost gave them the victory.

During many ages we have not seen outer material miracles; but they may be evidenced and tested by the inner and spiritual. In the prophets' days and in time of the fleshly Christ, and in the times of those who had seen Him, visible signs were given; but signs having been given,

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and the world having received a manifestation of the Divine Nature by Personal Presence, further proof was to be that of holy influence. Miracles have never ceased, but their sphere of action has been somewhat changed: they are now wrought within, not without the man. Every regeneration, every conversion from unfaith to faith, is a miracle; Creation is repeated in a new form (Gal. ii. 20).

Nor is that all the "curiosa felicitas" of the Book has not vanished-no not even in its feeblest translations. It fits almost naturally into every language; it is easiest of all books to translate without great loss of energy, of beauty, of specific character; yet let any one who thinks that he can cast it in any mould but its own, endeavour to submit David's Psalms to our metre or rhyme; and his words will be as notes of a whistle to the majestic roll of an organ, or as the trickling of a rill in comparison with the "voice of many waters."

The Hebrews, in this Book, have embalmed the spirit, thought, laws, history, all that constitutes the life of a nation; while the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, whom the world account greater and cleverer people, have no such memorials—and should we at any time discover records, and bring them from out the tomb of centuries, it will be through a spirit of investigation excited by the Bible.

This race have done more for pure literature and true science, both as to God and man, than did the Greeks -celebrated for genius, than the Romans-renowned for government. The paradox is not diminished by their alleged insignificance and obscurity, but is explained when viewed as part of a Divine Plan. No fortuitous collection of tracts— written by men of unaided powers; could win the homage of mankind, and extort the passionate love of ten thousand times ten thousand?

The Book has become universal. It has evoked more literature than all other books in the world. Well-nigh every other book, that works any good, seems connected with this-either for or against; and, in the more than two hundred languages into which it has been translated, it reigns as king. Not only do children love it, the dullest of our race delight in it; the

feminine mind becomes more graceful and womanly by it; the masculine, more manly; and all the troubled find by means of of it a "peace which passeth all understanding." Men, in the front of all science learning and civilization, are everlastingly poring over it, illustrating, interpreting, translating, defending, or attacking. No pains are too great to make plain even its insignificant parts; and the greatest of wicked men, the Lucifers of ungodliness, will shout and roar if they find a mote in the light, or a spot on the face of this Sun. More than any other book it is quoted, it lives a manifold life in every School of Thought, is the delight of Painters, and suggests to Poets their most gorgeous conceptions. “There never was any book like the Bible, and there never will be such another." It is the Book for all men and for all time: as a phenomenon it is unique. Like an old oak, in its days and under its branches, the harvest of thousands of years sprang, ripened, and fell beneath the sickle of Time.

It is of no avail to say-"many sacred books have received admiration and reverence, there are always ignorant people, and nations in a low stage of civilization ”—no book is like this: no other book contains so many writings all written by men of an obscure and illiterate people during the course of many ages, so full of variety as to events, so inimitable in style, and rich in mysterious endowment of the writers. No other book has been received, by power of moral persuasion, amongst nations and races of every conceivable variety as to origin, position, tradition, belief, language; and that, in days when men of loftiest minds guided public opinion. No other book has been so sifted, as to its evidence; so tested, as to its power; so tried, as to its purity. Its errors, if any exist, are not consecrated by law; its doctrines, when opposed, are not fenced in against hostile criticism; its principles, even enemies declare, can never be uprooted from our nature; it alone seems capable of raising a succession of men heroically bent on making it universal. No other book so vividly sets forth the doom of guilty men; and yet, the guilty are wont to read, admire and obey. Men weary and heavy laden, the sick, and those about to die, find rest-healing-life.

When, further, it is considered that the Book is one; yet the product of many men in many ages; by writers-neither conscious nor capable of co-operating; a portion now, and a part then; dreams, centuries separating, yet dreams strangely finding realization; disclosures made piecemeal, but so adjusted that grandest results are obtained from minutest beginnings; the proof of Divinity amounts to demonstration. The cylinder of the world's history-as it unrolls, art and science-as they advance, are found inscribed with hieroglyphics; and in the Bible are corresponding shadows, and depths, and enigmas; we have chosen for verification specially those by which Creation is made part of Revelation: if our proof is adequate the Book is shewn to be of God, who sent forth His Holy Men to be as levers to move the world, and His Holy Book, for a marvellous operation in establishing His kingdom.

When we consider Christ-as the Founder, Exemplar and King of our Faith; and as the Messiah, now refused, but to be accepted of the Jews; the originality and power of His character raise it above the plane of human nature-and yet, how human is it! Not in Roman, Greek, or Jew, can we discover the elements of so rare a creation. The Holy Personality was not the slow combined production of a worldmoving spirit stirring a highly-gifted race; nor a moral development equipped in the school and cultured in the palace. The Child of poor parents, educated as a carpenter's son, nurtured in Nazareth, of almost homeless poverty: was it possible for such a child, if but a child, to become that Godman of work so mighty? Contrast His humility with Jewish pride, His charity with their fanaticism, His expansiveness and their narrowness, and you will say that He is of a nature whom they could neither produce nor invent. For nineteen hundred years He has been the centre and cause of all moral and spiritual development amongst the wisest nations; and outside of these nations exists little real knowledge. Around His life, work, death, the whole world gathers. His profound acquaintance with the human heart, His grand morality, His wonderful knowledge, yet He never stepped beyond the confines of Palestine, render Him the greatest of men.

He declared that the world should bow down to Him, the nations worship Him, that He should judge quick and dead. Are they pretensions of a straw-crowned Bedlam monarch? are they declarations of impious ambition, or midsummer madness? No, beautiful in humility, a little child is symbol of those who enter His kingdom. His bitterest enemies could not convince Him of sin. Around the Nazarene of obscurity, of poverty, of suffering, gathers a halo of glory which no hero, nor history, nor romance, can pretend to. He lived in holiness that knew no frailty, but conciliated human infirmity with heavenly sympathy. With courage that no fear could daunt, and no death dismay, He endured all horrors. His gentleness bound up the broken heart, and poured consolation for every mourner. "If the life and

death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God."

At no other time, by no other man, was so supreme a start from low degree to higher life: none but Jesus could be Jesus. Some thousand workers come up in this century to be forgotten in the next; but the silver cord of Christ is not loosed, nor the golden bowl of His doctrine broken. Time sits as a refiner, the dross is cast away and the pure gold preserved; Time chronicles his centuries, and myriads die; Jesus, imperishable as gold, lives for He binds the heart of the world to Himself with electric chain. He tells how the soul, weak and wandering like a storm-driven bird, may nestle in the bosom of our Holy Father. In the spirits of men, where sin has opened an unfathomable depth of anguish, He causes streams of consolation to flow and fill that depth. His loving touch causes the eye to sparkle with light, and our cheek to glow with the strangely sweet aspect of those who look into far-off worlds and gladly hasten thither.

We have not reasoned as to the evidences of Christ's Deity, nor attempted to unfold the proofs which shew Him to be in a higher sense than science can reveal, the Life of the World. We have been dealing with the erroneous reasonings and false conclusions which would overthrow the foundations of all Religion; which would take from life