reading a well-ordered exhibition of the evidences of Christianity.

Have the evidences of the Christian religion been ever answered? Infidels have attacked Christianity; but any thing may be attacked. They have slandered her doctrines, ridiculed her word, reviled her precepts, hated her holiness, and influenced many to go and do likewise; but neither hatred, nor reviling, nor ridicule, nor slander is the test of truth. Have infidels ever resorted to the one only fair and honest mode of meeting, face to face, the whole array of testimony which Christianity advances, and endeavoring coolly to prove, as a matter of historical evidence, that the authenticity of the New Testament and the credibility of its history are not sustained; that the miracles of Jesus have not been supported with adequate testimony; that the prophecies of the Scriptures have met their attestation in no accurate histories; that Christianity was propagated by human force alone, and its fruits are those of a corrupt and deceitful tree? I answer, No. There is no such effort in the books of infidelity. I read of speculations, opposed to our facts; insinuations, in answer to our * testimonies; sneers, in reply to our solemn reasonings; assertions, where we demanded arguments; levity and presumption, where an advocate of truth I would have been serious and humble. But I know of no such thing as a book of infidelity in any sense corresponding in the nature, or grounds, or spirit of its reasoning, with such arguments for Christianity as those of Paley, or Lardner, or Gregory, or Wilson,

and a thousand others, to which no man ever dared to attempt an answer. Infidelity, like an insect on the pillar of some stupendous temple, that can see no further than the microscopic irregularities of the polished marble beneath its feet, may busy itself in hunting for little specks in the surface of the stately edifice of Christianity, but has no such eye, and takes no such elevated stand, as would enable it to survey the whole plan, and judge of its pretensions by the mutual adaptation of its parts, the harmony and grandeur of its proportions.

4. But there is a most important feature in all the evidence we have been considering, to which I now direct your special attention. It is strictly philosophical. By this I mean, that the process by which we have arrived at the truth of Christianity is precisely similar to that by which the astronomer arrives at the most certain truths of the celestial bodies, or the chemist determines the most fundamental doctrines of his important science. The grand characteristic of the philosophy that Bacon illustrated and Newton so nobly applied, and to which all science is so deeply indebted, is, that it discards speculation, places no dependence upon theory, demands fact for every thing, and in every thing submits implicitly to the decision of fact, no matter how incomprehensible, or how opposed by all the speculations of the world. This is called inductive philosophy, in distinction from that of theory and conjecture. It collects its facts by personal experiments and observation, or by the testimony of those whose experi

ments and observations, and whose fidelity in recording them, are worthy of reliance. From these it makes its careful inductions, and determines the laws of science, with a degree of plain, unpresuming authority to which every enlightened mind feels it ought to bow. The great principle of all Newton's Principia, and that on which he set the ladder that raised him to the stars, was this simple axiom: "Whatever is collected from this induction ought to be received, notwithstanding any conjectural hypothesis to the contrary, till such time as it shall be contradicted or limited by further observations." But why is not this self-evident truth as fundamental in religion as in astronomy? If Reid and Stewart have been permitted, with universal consent and approbation, to · apply the simple principles of induction to the philosophy of the mind, on what possible ground can they be excluded from the philosophy of the soul-the religion of the heart? We beg as a favor, what is also demanded as a right, that Christianity may be tried by the strictest application of these principles. You are called upon for no greater effort of credulity, no more implicit reliance on testimony, in order to receive the whole system of Christianity as a divine revelation, than you are obliged daily to exercise in believing those innumerable facts in natural science which you have not the opportunity of testing by your own experiments. In regard to these, you simply ask, What is the statement? Is it accurate? Is it honest? However it may contradict your previous ideas, or seem at variance with previous phenomena,

or even with well-established laws, you only investigate the testimony with the more carefulness. This confirmed, you receive the facts, and instead of squaring them by any of your old theories or speculations, you proceed to measure the latter by their line, with as much submission as if every mystery involved in them were perfectly explained. Only behave thus reasonably in the investigation of the great question we have been considering. Apply to it the measuring rod of sound philosophy. Let every speculation as to its truth be blotted out. Let all conjectural hypotheses, for and against it, be set aside. Let the infidel and the Christian sit together in the chairs of Bacon and Newton, and with that stern rejection of mere theory and that lowly deference to fact which so eminently distinguished those venerable patriarchs of modern science, let the New Testament be brought to the bar. It professes to be the authentic and credible record of the life and doctrine of Christ. In it, Christ professes to have been sent of God. Let the question be put-not, is this religion consistent with our notions of what man wanted, and God might have been expected to reveal? not, does it contain any thing strange, or mysterious, or apparently contradictory to what we have been accustomed to believe? but let it be a plain question of inductive philosophy. Is Christianity supported by a competent number of well-certified facts? Is there so much credible testimony that we are warranted in determining that the New Testament is authentic; that its history is true; that Jesus did work miracles;

that his prophecies have been fulfilled; that no human power, unaided by that of God, can account for the propagation of his gospel; that no corrupt imposture could ever produce the fruit with which its influence has blessed mankind?, If there be, then all true philosophy says, "Christianity ought to be believed, notwithstanding any conjectural hypothesis to the contrary." Only confine yourselves to this mode of investigation, and submit yourselves to this simple law of evidence, and like Newton, you may mount a ladder set on a rock and reaching to the right hand of the throne of God. Proceed on any other principle, and, like the heavenly vortexes and the immense currents of ethereal matter in the philosophy of Des Cartes, it can only lead you into inextricable confusion. But if you adopt the true principles, what becomes of the writings of infidels? They fall amidst the rubbish of vain speculations and ingenious absurdities and scholastic trifling of the dark ages, when to get wealth by the hypothesis of a philosopher's stone, instead of the homely, experimental realities of diligence and common-sense, was the great effort of scientific ambition. Infidelity is all speculation. Reduce it to a residuum of inductive reasoning, and you bring it to nothingness. Strip it of its several envelopes of ingenious hypothesis and bold assertion and scoffing declamation, and you find nothing left but a man of straw-an ugly shape to keep the hungry from the bread of life-which you need only approach to discover that it is made of rags, and stuffed with rottenness.