awe, but to lessons of truth, of wisdom, and of duty, of which the most astonishing miracles were but the subordinate circumstances. For this end they give all those precise details of the remarkable history which may serve to authenticate it, and thus to secure its acceptance among men; but they avoid all idle declamation upon the physical wonders which they recount. There is no effort at labored description. Simple, natural touches there are, which are full of life, but no pomp of narration. On the contrary, it is evident that the writers of the Scriptures regarded the miracles which they narrate as of wholly inferior moment, and spend but a brief phrase of explanation, or a modest line of description, upon the most signal prodigies which it ever fell to the lot of men to record. Even the intensest sentiment of nationality, the strongest impulses of patriotic pride, are checked and rebuked into utter silence, in recounting such wonders as the plagues of Egypt, the Exodus, the journey through the wilderness, guided by that pillar of cloud and fire which was the token of God's peculiar presence, the capture of Jericho, the conquest of Canaan, and the whole series of astonishing events which have been in every subsequent age the study and the wonder of mankind. In all these narratives, the character of the description is ever the same, simple, brief, and subdued; while all the real interest and effort of the writer are bestowed upon the spiritual truths which he has to disclose, the duties which he is to enforce, and, above all, the God of holiness and majesty, whom it is his grandest privilege and obligation to reveal to men.

The rationalistic view derives very much of its credibility— perhaps we might say with truth, the whole of its credibilityfrom its denial, or at least, its oversight, of this important characteristic. Reckless and superficial writers have chosen to confound the evangelists and prophets with those poets and fabulists of antiquity from whom they were separated by the widest distinctions. The superstitious imagination and the poetic fancy of the latter class, have been confounded with the profound wisdom and the literal fact of the former. Worse than this, though this seems a difference which naught but willful blindness could overlook,-the moral purity and spiritual elevation of God's messengers have been placed on a level

with the idolatries and impurities of the most degrading superstitions. When a writer of this class has succeeded in ignoring all the characteristic and important facts of the biblical history, it is no wonder that he feels prepared to account for the production of the Bible by the ordinary agencies of superstition. Overlooking the authentic character of the biblical style, disregarding the caution, simplicity, and love of truth, which are so conspicuous in the inspired writers, it is easy for him to maintain that they were fond of seeing miracles, and expected to see them; that miracles, when an anticipated Messiah appeared, were a thing of course. See with what easy confidence a writer of this class can approach the subject, and in all the assurance which self-esteem can entertain of the profoundness of its own insight, dispose, without investigation, of the grandest subject of human concern, and settle, by his mere dictum, a question which the noblest intellects have pondered and discussed with anxious concern. We quote from Harwood, one of the English followers and expounders of Strauss:

"Miracles in the life and work of the Messiah! it was a thing of course. It was all settled long before any Messiah was born to them. Any Hebrew man could have sketched a life of the Christ, so far as making it miraculous went. It was all in type before ever Jesus of Nazareth came into the world. They knew he was to be a prophet-a child of promise. That meant that he would be born out of the course of nature,-pre-announced by messengers from the sky, or otherwise, miraculously before birth, like other prophets and other children of promise,—Isaac, and Samson, and Samuel. He was to be the Son of David; that meant that he would come out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was. . . .. Like Moses, he would feed his people miraculously in a desert, and walk dryshod through the sea, or on the sea. Like Elisha, he would cleanse the lepers and raise the dead: Like Elisha's master, he would ascend visibly to heaven. All these things, and many more like them, were settled points before ever Christ came.'

Now, every devout reader of the Scriptures must feel that this flippant assumption that the evangelical writers were a set of superstitious bigots, gaping after the miraculous, and finding it, of course, as a servant girl does ghosts, because she was looking for them, is at variance with all the most marked characteristics of the Divine word. The state of mind which

* Lectures on German Anti-Supernaturalism.

could offer such an explanation of the miracles of the Gospels, can be none other than the very profound of ignorance. Compare with it the simple and honest caution with which miracles were judged by the devout minds of that age. If ever there was a man in whom mere expectation and wonder could breed the easy faith of his own miraculous power, or in whose behalf such power would be likely to be claimed by admiring disciples, it was John the Baptist. Himself the object of a promise which had come down through the ages, and had incorporated itself into the life of his nation,-the child of celestial vision and divine announcement,-the very name he bore given him by an angel of God,-reared in obscurity, "in the deserts," and nurtured upon these marvels from his youth,—of a fervid and enthusiastic disposition for such things to work upon,-impelled to declare himself to Israel as the forerunner of the Messiah,-received with solemn reverence and awe-inspiring hope, by the multitudes who crowded to his baptism,—if ever there was a man among the chosen messengers of heaven, in whom the preparation of great antecedents, and the expectation of mighty things to come, could beget the conviction of a divine authority, this were he. Yet with what a cautious exactness of fact does the Evangelist record of him the general report of the Jews who came to Jesus," John did no miracle, but all things that John spake of this man were And many believed on him there."

true.

Prof. Lewis's application of this method of reasoning is developed through a series of comments, upon the miraculous. phenomena of the New Testament which possess very great beauty. The clearness with which he conceives the rationalistic theory, and the vividness of imagination with which he portrays it, give a charm to many of his passages. Nowhere is that theory presented with greater distinctness or with superior force, in the writings even of its advocates; while its essential inadequacy to furnish satisfactory explanation of the facts of the Gospels becomes only the more obvious and hopeless with every new illustration of it. Take, for instance, the following argument upon the miraculous announcement of the Saviour's birth.

"There were Shepherds watching their flocks by night, and discoursing with each other about certain strange rumors that then filled the whole hill country of Judea.' They had heard the story of Zachariah. They knew the universal expectation in regard to the Son of David, and the universal feeling that his advent was near at hand. Their views of him may have been very erroneous, but their hearts were full of the expected glory. It is strange that they saw a light in the heavens? Call it fancy if you will, an excited imagination; we are only arguing here for the subjective truthfulness of the narrative. Is it strange that they heard voices in the air around and above them? Say if you will that their awed feelings, and their wondrously elated hopes, shaped those sounds into the glorious words that are recorded. Here is the great, the real wonder. It is the spiritual marvel that throws in the background the physical strangeness. We believe in the miracle, on the ground of the doctrine conveyed; we find it easy to give credence to an outward supernatural as attested by the sublimity of such a message. It is nothing so strange that shepherds should see lights in the heaven, that they should hear voices in the air; but such voices, such words, arranged in such a sentence that has not yet ceased, and never will cease, to vibrate on the heart of humanity— Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy which shall be to all people,-Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace and good will toward men.' What was there in the common thought

of those shepherds, in their culture, in their associations, that should have so shaped the vision, and brought out upon the airy undulations the sublimest collocation of words the world had ever heard, that message of Divine peace so far beyond what philosophy had ever conceived, or poetry had ever dreamed? It drives us to the outward supernatural as the easier explanation of the mystery. Why should there not have been a light from heaven, and a voice from heaven, when such a truth was uttered."

The appeal which this passage makes must be felt to be powerful by every thoughtful mind. Whether we regard this event as the exaggeration of a fact, as having some basis of reality more or less remarkable, or as a purely mythical and poetical conception, the same difficulty presents itself. Here was a company of shepherds watching their flocks-or it may be, only the idea of such a thing in the fancy of credulous and superstitious disciples-they heard a heavenly voice and received celestial communications-an announcement of the birth of a Prince and Saviour was made to them-they saw heaven opened, and caught a glimpse of its glories; nay, they heard its sublime worship, and caught the strain in which a multitude of the heavenly host were pouring forth their praises before the throne of God. And what was the song which in fancy they heard, or in this conception of men as ignorant as themselves, were supposed to hear? Was it an utterance of

some one of the narrow superstitions which such minds would be sure to deem appropriate to such an event? Was it some tribute to their national pride? Some sanction of their narrow and fanatical forms of thought? To such things as these their fancy, either then or later, might indeed have prompted; but anything like this it was not. On the contrary we have here a sentiment which angels might well utter, and God himself might stoop to hear; a hymn of praise and joy before which all after ages have stood in reverent wonder and awe, deeming that they too almost caught glimpses of celestial glory, and heard the very music of heaven, in the strain of unequaled loftiness and sweetness which sounds in those simple words; a strain not only above all fanaticism, but above all philosophy. And what is it that this sublime song, which not even the worship of Heaven could surpass, ushers into our world? Some trivial event exalted by the excited expectation of unreflecting minds into an unreal importance soon to pass away? Nay, it was, indeed, the very life of the world that then and there was born; that without which human history in every age since is a mere delusion, and which alone gives dignity this day to anything in human society, or the human soul. It will be long before the world can imagine that such fancies as these can give adequate account of the fact that it has now in its bosom so much of heaven.

It would afford us pleasure, did our limits allow, to present more ample illustration of the reasoning of Prof. Lewis, but these specimens must suffice. We must refer our readers to the work itself for the full presentation of his views. They will find it rich in suggestions which bear with great force upon the argument in behalf of the authentic and reliable character of the Christian Scriptures. His deep sense of the moral sublimity of the Bible, and of its immeasurable value to mankind, renders him keenly alive to the insufficiency of every attempt to account for its origin by the common agencies of delusion and error in our world. These convictions seem to be strengthened in him by his familiarity with those moral and metaphysical systems of antiquity, which, in even