not only overthrow natural religion too, and establish in its place a dark and fearful fatalism, but is opposed both to the discoveries of modern science and the most obvious facts of the world's historythat it is as contrary to sound philosophy as to experience, and is therefore false. A narrative may contain accounts of direct divine interposition, and yet may be true and authentic history.

The next criterion of the unhistoric character of a relation, proposed by this author, is its inconsistency with itself or with other accounts. 'A narrative,' he says, 'that lays claim to historic value must not only agree with the laws of possibility, but must further be free from all disagreement with itself and other reports.' But to this assertion it has been replied long since, when brought forward in another form, that if true, it would invalidate all the history that we possess, either of the past or the present. There is scarcely any one fact of ancient or modern history treated by more than one writer, of which the accounts exactly agree. Even important events of our own times, as of the last great war, have been made matter of controversy, and that by persons too who were eye-witnesses and actively engaged in the transactions concerning which they dispute. Whether a critical posterity will reject both the particular events, and the war, of which they form a part, as fabulous, because the accounts of cotemporaries and eye-witnesses do not agree, we know not, but this we do know, that if they should,

their reasoning would be false, and their standard of authenticity altogether erroneous. Indeed, this principle is not merely opposed to fact-it is the very reverse of truth. Agreement in the general outline and variation of detail is the strongest proof of authenticity; the former, as proving that a fact is the basis of the narrative; the latter, as exhibiting the independence of the testimony. Take, for instance, the gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke. Both contain the history of Jesus of Nazareth. In the great outline they agree-in many of the details they differ. Now, there are two suppositions possible; either one evangelist saw the account written by the other, or he did not. If not, if each wrote independently of the other, then their agreement, not only as to the general course of the history, but as to the very words of the discourses uttered, and the identity of the characters described, can only be accounted for either by miraculous interposition or by the authenticity of that which they relate, and the minute fidelity of the sources from whence they drew their narratives. Here the acknowledged independence of the witnesses proves the truth of the history. But even if we adopt the other side of the alternative, and suppose, for instance, that St. Luke saw St. Matthew's gospel and made use of it in writing his own, the proof of independent sources is not materially altered, and the strength of the argument in favour of authenticity is increased. The differences are, then, not merely casual, but deli

berate, and the nature of these deliberate differences proves that the later writer did not merely copy and embellish the earlier, but had another source with which he compared it, and which in many cases he preferred to follow. Thus, for instance, St. Luke gives a different genealogy from that of St. Matthew, and this difference is so great as to show that there must have been some deliberate reason for the variety. Again, both describe the preaching of John the Baptist in the wilderness. But St. Luke has an addition which shows that he had an independent source. He records the questions of the people, the publicans, and the soldiers, saying- Master, what shall we do?' and the particular instructions which John gave to each class, which St. Matthew omits. Again St. Matthew gives a long discourse of our Lord, commonly called the Sermon on the Mount. St. Luke gives one very similar, and yet there are differences, which prove that one is not a mere copy or abridgment of the other. The former tells us, that 'Jesus seeing the multitudes, went up into a mountain;' the latter, that after continuing all night on a mountain in prayer, 'he came down with his disciples, and stood in a plain,' and that when the multitude came, he there addressed them. Luke also inserts what does not appear in the other, and omits much that is there-and in the twelfth chapter of his gospel inserts much of what he here omits. The circumstances, if we suppose both evangelists to refer to one and the same occasion,

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are more fully related by St. Luke, and it is plain that he did not copy; and yet the exact agreement in the nature, sentiments, and even language of the two discourses proves beyond doubt that they are copies of a real original. Another striking proof of the independency of the testimony of these two evangelists is the account which each gives of the long discourse in reference to the destruction of the temple, and Christ's second advent. In the general outline and in many particulars they exactly agree, but one striking passage is omitted by St. Luke and given on a different occasion. In St. Matthew, after our Lord's declaration, that the day and hour of his advent are unknown, he is represented as referring to the days of Noah, and saying 'As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.' This striking passage is omitted by St. Luke in his account of the discourse, and yet evidently not merely for the sake of abbreviation, for he inserts it on another occasion, in the seventeenth chapter of his gospel. 'When he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of

God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. . . . And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it. And they shall say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after them, nor follow them. For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day and as it was in

the days of Noah,' &c., and then follows what is omitted in the twenty-first chapter, with an addition, however, of a reference to the days of Lot and the destruction of Sodom. Here, then, granting that St. Luke had seen St. Matthew's gospel, it is plain that he had another and independent source from which he drew, and yet the difference does not prove any irreconcilable contradiction, but is easily accounted for by the supposition that our Lord repeated the chief part of his instructions on various occasions; and St. Luke having given this passage in the seventeenth chapter, thought it unnecessary to repeat it in the twenty-first. The exact agreement of our Lord's discourses in these gospels, the identity of mind and spirit in the two gospels, derived from independent sources, prove incontestably that there is neither legend nor wilful fabrication, but real and authentic history. If it be possible to suppose that theological opinions, prophetic expectations, and local circumstances,