either the evidence of mathematical demonstration or of the senses.

Not only is there a separate department for each of these species of evidence, but each is sufficient, in its appropriate place, for the complete establishment of truth. By this I mean, that when the quantity of an angle is proved by mathematical demonstration, we have a result of no more practical confidence than when the existence of this house is proved by the senses, or that of the city of London is proved by testimony. Proof in either case is the foundation of entire belief. We are just as certain that such a man as Napoleon once lived, as that any proposition in geometry is true, though one is a matter of testimony, the other of demonstration. We are quite as sure that arsenic is poisonous as that food is nutritious, though one is, to most of us at least, a matter of testimony only, while the other is to all a matter of sense. We are perfectly certain of all these things.

It is likely that some minds are led into erroneous notions of the comparative conclusiveness of testimony on one side, and that of mathematical demonstration and of the senses on the other, on account of the technical name by which the former is distinguished in philosophical discussions.* It is called probable evidence. It would seem to some as if, because probable, it must be less satisfactory, since in common speech what is merely probable is not certain. But in philosophical language, the word.

* Stewart's Phil. 2, p. 179.

probable is used, not in distinction from certain evidence, but simply from that which is sensible or demonstrative, without reference to the measure of certainty attached to it. Thus, our belief that the sun will rise to-morrow, or that we are all to die, or that London was once visited with a dreadful plague, is founded on what is called probable evidence, though we should be suspected of lunacy did we question the propriety of acting upon it with perfect assurance. Such, then, being the sufficiency of testimony to convey a perfect assurance of any thing in its appropriate sphere, however distant in point of time or place, I return to the proposition that if miracles were wrought by Christ and his apostles, they can be rendered credible to us of the nineteenth century by no other evidence than that of testimony. Mathematical evidence is evidently inapplicable to the question. It is a matter of fact belonging to another century, and therefore intangible by sense. Nothing remains but testimony. This kind of evidence is perfectly appropriate to the subject of proof. If, therefore, the gospel miracles are true, they must be substantiated by testimony, or not at all. We proceed to the next proposition.

3. Miracles are capable of being proved by testimony. This I consider to be as true and obvious as that miracles are capable of being proved by the evidence of the senses. That a certain person was dead and buried yesterday, and that he is alive and walking the streets to-day, the senses are perfectly competent to decide. I never heard of this being

questioned. But if I and twenty others saw these facts, is there no way of making them credible to my neighbor who did not see them? Will it be pretended, that if twenty men of unquestionable honesty and intelligence should solemnly and by every means of conviction in their power assure me that they saw the man dead, buried, and in corruption, I would have no sufficient reason to believe their assertion? Will it be pretended, that if the same men should in the same way assure me that subsequently they saw the same man alive and conversed with him, I should have no reason to believe their assertion? I think there are none among us who could avoid belief in such a case. It would evidently be a case of miracle, believed on testimony; and to maintain that it would be believed without reason, and that no conceivable addition of honest testimony could furnish reason for the belief of those two simple facts, that the man was dead yesterday and is alive to-day, would seem an absurdity too gross to be touched by argument.

Here I should leave the matter, confident in the common-sense of my hearers, were it not that the very absurdity in view has been so mystified with the drugs of false philosophy, so disguised under the dress of logical forms and ceremonies, and so followed in its circulation with the influence of one of the chief names in modern scepticism, as to perplex many minds unaccustomed to the entanglements of sophistry. The principle that no conceivable amount of testimony can prove a miracle, with David Hume for its original champion, has been eagerly adopted by

the many whose convenience makes them unbelievers, but whose convenience it would not suit to attempt an honest, manly answer to the abounding testimony by which the miracles of the gospel are proved. A labor-saving machine was wanted, by which the whole business of silencing the inconvenient variety and troublesome multitude of Christian evidences might be done at once, as well by the ignorant as the learned. Hume invented it. Any body can work it. It is not necessary any more that a man should study the Bible, to refute its claims. He may never have seen it; but if he can only retain in his memory these few talismanic words, "No testimony can prove a miracle," it is enough. At the rubbing of this marvellous lamp, the fabric of Christianity passes away; the terrible genii of the gospel mysteries dissolve in air. Like a similar assertion, and equally philosophical doctrine of the same writer, that there is no external world-that this house is nothing but an idea, built not of matter, but only of mind-this happy invention of sceptical ingenuity digs so far below the foundations of all truth and common-sense, that the man whose convenience bids him use it, may feel assured that not many advocates of Christianity will descend low enough to spoil him of his consolation!

A brief attention to this matter will not be out of place at present.

The argument of the writer referred to is abridged in the Encyclopedia Britannica, as follows: "Our belief of any fact from the testimony of eye-witnesses is derived from no other principle than our experience

of the veracity of human testimony. If the fact attested be miraculous, there arises a contest of two opposite experiences, or proof against proof. Now, a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very. nature of the fact, is as complete as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined; and if so, it is an undeniable consequence that it cannot be surmounted by any proof whatever, derived from human testimony."

Now, all this is very conclusive, provided we admit its premises. The grand hinge of the whole is this, that our belief in testimony is founded on no other principle than OUR EXPERIENCE OF THE VERACITY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. Hence the reasoning is that a miracle, being in the author's estimation contrary to experience, opposes and contradicts the very foundation of its evidence, and therefore destroys itself. But let me ask, admitting that a miracle is contrary to experience which is not true-what experience is it contrary to? The argument requires that it should be contrary to our experience of the veracity of human testimony. To say merely that it is contrary to experience of some sort, without specifying this particular sort, does not touch the question. It is its contrariety to that particular kind of experience on which our faith in testimony, according to Hume, is built, that must destroy the credibility of a miracle, if it is to be destroyed at all. But this it would be ridiculous to assert. So far from miracles being in