God in his Word have made them men of a higher purpose and a better aim. The lowly have come and made God's truth their comfort and hope, and it has lifted them to a higher manhood. And think of how many of the most lordly souls the world has seen have brought their treasures of learning and of science to the feet of him to whom the Magi bowed. For the world's scholarship and science and art and culture are on the side of the Bible. Little eddies of opposition there are in "Who founded Prague and Vienna and Heidelberg and Leipsic and Tubingen and Jena and Halle and Berlin and Bonn? Who founded Salamanca and Valladolid and Oxford and Cambridge and Aberdeen? They were Bible men. When the rest of mankind were caring for the mere necessities of the physical life, Bible men were holding the torch of science; and these men were the predecessors of the Bacons and Newtons. Who founded American colleges? With very few exceptions, they were Bible men. Newton was only one of hundreds, who, given to science, loved his Bible. From his day to this the succession has been complete. And the science that in our day boasts such Bible men as its Faraday, its Forbes, its Carpenter, its Hitchcock, its Dana, and its Torrey, cannot be considered as occupying a position hostile to the Bible."-Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D., Lectures before New York Association for Science and Art. Now, if Christianity is the foe of science, has she not taken a singular method of demonstrating her enmity? Christianity was the first, as she still remains the fast and fostering, friend of science. The devotion of the Christian church in this century to education is one of the notable facts, and it points with pride and satisfaction to its educational institutions."J. G. Holland. every age; "the opposition of science falsely so called." But the little eddy near the bank could not exist if there were not further out, even in the broad and deep channel, a vast volume of water floating steadily down towards the sea. And these great souls, the real leaders of the world's thought, have weighed all the difficulties that any sceptic has ever raised; for the modern objections have little of newness. And these men have gone through all this sea of difficulties, and did not stay weak and floundering in that Slough of Despond, as feebler souls have done. They have landed on the further shore of a careful belief. They know why they believe the Bible. But, over and above every other reason, they can say with Coleridge—and men in every grade of intellectual and moral development can join in the utterance- "I know the Bible is inspired, because it finds me at greater depths of my being than any other book." CHAPTER IV. DIFFICULTIES AS TO MIRACLES AND TEACHINGS. N Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," midway be IN tween the city of Destruction which Christian must leave and the wicket-gate opening into the narrow way where he would enter, there was a certain bad piece of ground called the "Slough of Despond." Into it every pilgrim must go. Some retreated after a few steps, coming out on the same side on which they had entered. Some remained hopelessly fastened in the terrible quagmire and perished there. Some, also, went on, went through, and came out safely, nor did the mud cleave to their garments when they stood once more on the firm ground. In like manner there is a period, more or less definite and continued, in every young man's life, which may be termed the period of natural scepticism. It is the time when doubts come up like thick banks of cloud in the eastern horizon from a wintry sea; the time when |