nations then unborn, when they were compelled to appeal to the heathen emperors, on the injustice of the sufferings to which they were exposed. Their object was to defend themselves from the calumnies with which they were assailed, and to effect the conversion of their contemporaries. What did Justin Martyr, or Tertullian, or St. Augustine, foresee of the use which would be made of their testimony a thousand or fifteen hundred years after their own times? Still less did Tacitus and Suetonius imagine the important purposes to which their admissions of all the chief facts of Christianity would be turned, after the indignant contempt of the historians themselves had become harmless. What did Julian or Porphyry foresee of the value of those incidental notices of the facts connected with Christianity, which escaped them in the warmth of their invective against the religion? When Celsus, in his enmity against the gospel, overwhelmed Origen with his sophisms and cavils, little did he imagine that, the arguments on either side being disregarded, the facts which were admitted in common, would form a bulwark of the Christian faith. Still less did the Jewish writers conceive that, in attributing the Christian miracles to the powers of an occult magic, they were acknowledging facts on which we should

build our faith, ages after the hypothesis of a false philosophy had been exploded.

In the mean time, the Christian religion marched on,-in the midst of the scorn of the learned, the force of the powerful, the hatred of governments, the malignity of the Heathen and Jewish priesthoods-and, sustained by an invisible hand, made good its cause, till Constantine mounted the throne, and the empire assumed the name of Christian. All was natural, unpretending, honest truth.

Proofs, however, began imperceptibly to be collected. The authenticity of the sacred books was examined; the records of martyrs were searched into; the tradition of ancient facts was investigated; ecclesiastical memoirs were composed; controversies arose; the numbers on each side are mentioned; the councils which assemble are enumerated; the condemnation of heretics is placed on record. Thus, facts and doctrines are incidentally ascertained. Things come out by occasions, by circumstances unforeseen and unplanned. It is only after a lapse of centuries that men's attention. is directed to the collecting into a series the successive proofs. The tide of time rolls down, and bears on its surface the various materials, from which diligent observation culls here and there a particle of unexpected and important

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evidence; as the wild American gathers from the bed of his magnificent rivers the minute but valuable particles of gold and silver. As literature widens, the scattered elements of proof are brought in coins, medals, inscriptions, antiquities, re-written manuscripts discovered in monasteries, contribute their unexpected testimony.

Not only the first occasions are unlooked for, but the subsequent reasons for bringing out and detailing the proofs, are equally incidental.

A literary age abounds with infidelity. The credibility of the gospel history is, after seventeen hundred years, reduced into regular proof,1 for the purpose of meeting the new circumstances of the times. It is shown that the early fathers cite almost all the New Testament; and that the heretics never call in question the authenticity of the books.

Yet further, multitudes of individuals are employed in these works who have given no evidence of personal piety, or of any firm faithin the peculiarities of the religion which they defend. Some from literary curiosity; some from the irritation of controversy; some from professional studies are led to contribute their quota, who yet avow a disbelief in some of the characteristic doctrines of redemption.

By the labours of Lardner and his contemporaries.

How much these points increase the force of the whole argument in favour of Christianity, I need not say. They do this in several ways.

They show that there has been NO EFFORT IN CHRISTIANITY TO MAKE OUT A CASE; no provision for petty difficulties; no timidity in passing through the succession of ages and nations. No: Christianity walks on her way, strong in her native authority, and conscious that, on whatever side she is contemplated, there is evidence enough for every sincere inquirer.

They also demonstrate the secret CARE OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE over the religion, which, in ways unseen by man, and over which he had no control, laid up these materials of proof. Enough has been preserved of the earliest Christian writers-enough of other kinds of evidence, to furnish us in these latter days with abundant sources of testimony.

It likewise shows that we are in a SERIES OF CONTINUAL ACCESSIONS to the evidences of religion. The case is not closed. New incidents may arise, as they have done in every preceding age, to confirm the proof; new manuscripts may be found; new notices in heathen authors; new series of quotations in the fathers; new monuments of antiquity; new lights from the actual state of mankind.

III. But let us contemplate the stream of evidence IN ITS ACTUAL MASS AND VOLUME BEFORE OUR EYES, AND PRESENTING THE HOPE OF ITS BEING ABOUT TO VISIT AND FERTILIZE THE WHOLE EARTH.

Let us view the present flow and course of the stream; let us see how far it is now more unimpeded than in former periods; more cleared of obstructions; more ready to burst out into new regions, and bless the most distant shores.

Yes; never was the great Christian argument so disembarrassed from extraneous matter; never did it bear so directly upon the consciences of men; never was there a period of the world when all seemed waiting for those secret operations of the divine mercy, to which all argument is subordinate, and without which no evidences can convince or persuade.

1. For, do we not stand on the ELEVATION OF EIGHTEEN CENTURIES, or rather of six THOUSAND YEARS? Does not what we have noticed of the incidental manner in which the Christian proofs were collected, and the immense aggregation of them, place us on a vantage-ground for the further prosecution of the argument? Does not all past experience, all past history, all the divisions and heresies in the visible church, all the noble virtues in the invisible, all the changes: