it is not to be overlooked that the argument from Christ is full of warmth and persuasive grace as well as of cold, stern, syllogistic processes. It carries with it at each step such wonderful disclosures of heaven's compassion, and such uplifting views of the relations existing between the Creator and the creature, that the judgment is charmed and captivated even before the evidence itself has been duly sifted and scrutinized. And it may perhaps add to our appreciation of its worth to remember that the New Testament ascribes to it the conquering force of Christianity. The religion Jesus founded is represented as ever triumphing through his name. At the preaching of his name "every knee shall bow and every tongue confess." He is himself at once the gospel and the proof of the gospel; and that it should have fallen out as predicted only serves to corroborate and confirm the argument by sealing it with the stamp of prophecy fulfilled. When in public worship Christ is exalted and the universality of the homage tendered him is commemorated, testimony is borne to the fact that the predictions concerning his supremacy over thought are being accomplished, and that therefore the faith he proclaimed must be divinely true. Let the reader realize this, and whenever the Te Deum falls upon his ear, or he recalls its stately measures, let him never forget that the combination of praises and the climax reached are evidences irrefragable that Christianity is neither a delusion nor a fraud.

Thou art the King of glory, O Christ;

Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.

As

CHAPTER IV

THE ARGUMENT FROM TESTIMONY

S might have been expected from the distinctive character of Christianity, its earliest adherents, the men and women who were contemporaneous with its gracious Founder, especially the apostles, were from the first set apart to be witnesses. This function of course involved to some extent the necessity of exposition; but the principal business at the beginning was to certify to facts rather than to explain them. Our Lord himself commanded the disciples to testify of his earthly ministry to the uttermost parts of the world, a commission they gladly accepted and sought faithfully to discharge.

For some time after Pentecost this obligation was met orally; the living voice, not the written page, almost exclusively, if not entirely, proclaiming the historical verities of redemption. This method is admirably and graphically portrayed in the Acts of the Apostles, which may be taken as an accurate description of the propagation of the gospel in lands other than those referred to by the author, and through a longer period than is embraced in his treatise. A vivid picture has also descended to us from the pen of Irenæus (died 202 A. D.), who reproduces the days of Polycarp, whose martyrdom occurred 169 A. D.; and shows how the venerable friend of the "one whom Jesus loved," won

the attention of the people by spoken discourse and not by sacred manuscripts, though these were not lacking in his century. He writes:

I can recall the very place where Polycarp used to sit and teach, his manner of speech, his mode of life, his appearance, the style of his address, his frequent references to St. John and to others who had seen our Lord; how he used to repeat from memory the discourses which he had heard from them concerning our Lord, his miracles, and his mode of teaching; and how, being instructed himself by those who were eye-witnesses of the Life of the world, there was in all that he said a strict agreement with the Scriptures.—Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., V. 20.

One can readily imagine how much of charm must have attached to such a speaker, and how conviction must have attended his words. It is not surprising that such witnessing as this should have been cherished as long as it was possible. Some who are living can remember with what absorbing interest they listened to a surviving acquaintance of General Washington, who in his old age, when they were young, delighted to relate anecdotes of the honored father of his country. Even now, when that generation has passed away, the children of those who knew Washington, themselves in extreme old age, as they relate what was told them by their sires, his associates, are heard with more than ordinary attention. They are links that seem to connect us with the olden times more directly and more sensibly than books. We seem to see the images of the noble dead in their faces; and to hear in their voices the echoes of other voices that have long since been hushed in death. In the same way, the testimony of men who had been personally intimate

with Jesus, and who had seen what they affirmed, must have been peculiarly fascinating and convincing. It must have suggested the very presence of the Master himself. Most difficult must it have been not to feel that he had left a touch, an imprint of himself, and that he had imparted something of the virtue which constantly streamed from him to those persons who had become his mouthpiece. In a less degree, this interest must have centered in the utterances of individuals who had been privileged to converse with the highly favored ones who had lived in sweet companionship with Jesus. To listen to John, who had rested his head on the Saviour's bosom, must have been a vivid delight; to hear Polycarp, who had been taught by John, must have been an elevating experience; and then to receive the word from Irenæus, who had welcomed it from the lips of Polycarp, must have been an honor and a pleasure, only the impression must have declined in intensity as the distance increased between the speaker and the close of our Lord's ministry on earth. Here it is that we lay bare the weak spot in the practical working and value of oral testimony. The more remote it is from the time when the events occurred to which it bears witness, the less vivid and less attractive does it become and, what is of more moment, the less reliable and trustworthy.

Indeed, the imperfections and dangers of this method are such that it could only have been contemplated as a temporary measure, to be depended on for a season, and until other and less variable means could be prepared. Of the highest value at the commencement of Christianity, it must in the course of com

paratively a few years have demonstrated its weakness. Unpremeditated errors would probably arise, unwarranted additions be made to the sacred narrative, and exaggerated views of men and things be born of excited imaginations, and these would have gained currency if there had been no fixed standard of appeal by which the accuracy of all statements could be tested. Nothing being recorded, settled, and expressed in permanent form, only a vague, unsatisfactory legend or tradition would have survived, and after a hundred or two years, no one would have been certain what to believe. To avert this peril, and the confusion that might arise from the vagrant fancies of uninstructed enthusiasts, it clearly became the duty of favored individuals who had personal knowledge of the facts to reduce them to writing, and to furnish posterity a clear, compact, and thoroughly authentic account of the events on which rest the spiritual and everlasting hopes of mankind. This has been done, done directly in the Gospels, and indirectly in the Acts and the Epistles; and, as we have no reason to doubt, was done comprehensively and conscientiously. Of this indeed we have evidence in the scrupulous care taken by Luke and John to record only what was certainly believed, and what was in perfect accord with their own experience and observation. Luke's prologue we have this statement:

In

Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most