calamity under which you commenced life-the calamity of not having a Christian home. Yes," continued the young man, "I do believe in the Bible, in part at least, because my mother did. And it is dearer because it was her Bible, and my God is more reverenced because he was my mother's God, and Christ is loved because he was my mother's Saviour, and heaven is more precious because the heaven of the Bible is my mother's heaven."

And the sceptic was silent. What was there for him to say?

Many a young man educated to believe the Bible is entirely satisfied for himself. He knows that the book, which, universally obeyed, would bring universal joy-for that is its result as far as its precepts are followed-must be God's book. His Bible is true. And yet, he is disturbed sometimes by the objections brought against it. He wishes to be more familiar with the outward evidences of the integrity of the Bible, that he may answer the sneers of opposers, and also that he may feel sure, on other and independent grounds, of the truthfulness of the Scriptures. And there are some young men about whom, early in life, were thrown hosts of difficulties and perplexities; and

these were accompanied with sneers and innuendoes against Christians. Such young men have no appreciation of the moral argument from the elevation of a Christian home, nor can they understand the moral power of those benign influences which make up the moral atmosphere into which the more favoured young men of this country were born. So that the argument to be presented in this chapter, having these two classes of young men in mind, must needs be both historical and moral.

We will ask two questions. One of them is this: "Is the Bible true?" The other, immediately following it in logical order, shall be: "Is the Bible inspired?"

In asking whether the Bible be true, the question is of the same kind as that raised when we inquire whether Macaulay's or Motley's or Bancroft's histories are true. It is an inquiry whether the persons who wrote these books of the Bible were eye-witnesses of the facts, or, if rot, whether they had access to documents which they used so fairly that we can trust them as we do other historians. When they state facts in their narrative, we propose to ask first, as we do about any other writers of history, Are they credible men? Are they men whose character, opportunities for knowledge, whose presumed

motives and whose conduct in life warrant our confidence? Finding them reliable historians, men who state actual historic facts, it is indeed possible that we shall be compelled to go further. It may be that if true, they are true about such things and in such a way true, that we shall be obliged to go on and to own their inspiration. But the inquiries before us now are with reference to their truthfulness, their integrity, their credibility.

Nor can we here take up in order the vast number of facts they state, and examine them in detail. That would be to write a commentary on the Bible. Nor can we quote at length the testimony of travellers in the lands of the Bible, nor recite the evidence accumulating every year from Assyrian, Babylonian, Judæan, and Egyptian tombs and monuments-that vast mass of corroboration of many of the more important statements which are given in the Scriptures. This is a field of unspeakable richness and of unfailing interest. Nor can any man spend an hour with such a book as Rawlinson's "Historical Illustrations of the Old Testament" without wonder at the new evidence, reserved for the investigations of the present generation, of the minute accuracy of many portions of our historical Scriptures. To enter on this field is impossible for

us in this volume. Nor is it needed. For the strictly historical argument is really very simple; is narrowed down to the establishment of a very few facts, which any man of ordinary judgment can easily understand, and about which he can easily make up his mind. The whole inquiry concerns the New Testament. And of the New Testament we need only to consider the integrity of the Four Gospels. For if these biographers of Jesus are to be trusted, our Lord indorsed the Old Testament, and promised subsequent books of the New Testament similar to those which we have now in the Epistles and the Revelation. So that the whole inquiry for us is just this: Have we reason to believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have given us a fair and correct account of what Jesus Christ said and did? To this inquiry the whole matter comes at length, and on this thing depends the historic argument.

Nobody doubts the existence of just these sacred books which we call the Old Testament in the days of Jesus. He quoted that volume, citing those very facts to which most objection is made, viz.: the fall, the flood, the attempted sacrifice of Abraham, the descending manna, the lifted serpent, and the story of Jonah. Sometimes he quotes the volume itself;

sometimes he gives the name of the special book from which he quotes. To a people venerating their sacred writings to the verge of bibliolatry, he said, "Search the Scriptures," and he continually was saying that certain things were done "that the Scriptures might be fulfilled." So that the whole question of the integrity of the Old Testament, though abundantly capable of defence on independent grounds, for us, in our present argument, may be said to be involved in that of the truthfulness of the New Testament. And as the Gospels indorse the Old Testament, so they also carry with them the integrity of the Acts, the Epistles, and the Revelation. Assured that we have a fair record of what Jesus did and said, we find among his undoubted discourses direct promises of a superhuman guidance, not only in bringing to mind what he had said to his disciples, but in guiding them into all truth, even that which he could not tell them while he was in the body. He had more truth to reveal when the Holy Spirit should be given and they were to be shown the things to come. And assuming that these Gospels accurately report him, where shall we find the fulfilment of his promise except in these later New Testament books? These later writers make the claim, and they are the only serious