earth to forgive sins, and institute in every heart that receives him the evidence of sonship.

This is probably the best, because practically the most potent, argument for the truth of Christianity. It was the argument which Christ himself employed. He saved men, and then appealed to the facts. When John sent for proofs of his Messiahship, he said: "Go and tell John what things ye have seen and heard: how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and to the poor the gospel is preached." When John's question invited Jesus to elaborate proofs from Moses and the prophets that he was the Messiah, he calmly appealed to his mighty works.

The apostles followed the same plan. Their preaching was grounded in personal experience of the truth they affirmed. The Lutheran Reformation was a revival of the doctrine of conscious salvation by faith. Luther taught the privilege of every believer to know by experience that the Bible is true, and without that the devil would be sure to cheat him out of his faith. John Wesley, and all the Wesleys, placed vital stress upon the experience of salvation, wrought and attested by the Holy Spirit. Calvin said: "It is preposterous to endeavor to produce a sound faith in the Scriptures by disputations, proofs, reasons, etc., which of themselves are insufficient without the persuasion of the Holy Ghost."

THE POWER OF CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY.

We would not undervalue other forms of evidence. The argument from miracles, showing how God has attested to truth by bringing to pass events varying from the established course of nature, may be made very strong and convincing; for these works were publicly wrought sometimes, as in the case of the Egyptian plagues, the destruction of Pharaoh and his hosts, the feeding of the multitude with five loaves and two fishes in the presence of thousands of witnesses. No one disputed the fact of these miracles when they were performed. They could not deny the evidence of their own senses. When the dumb spake, they heard it; when the blind saw, they witnessed it; and when the dead sat up, they had unquestionable proofs of a genuine resurrection. Though some rejected the revelation which such miracles authenticated, they did not pretend to deny that the miracles occurred. Indeed, their number was so great, and extended through so many years, that skeptics were effectually silenced. The Old

Testament contains the record of fifty-four miracles; the Gospels contain accounts of forty of Christ's miracles, and St. John indicates (chap. xxi, 25) that these were only a fraction of the whole number actually wrought during his ministry. The miracles of which we have particulars were so various, wrought on such appropriate occasions, and so well attested, that to gainsay them is to overthrow every principle of rational historic evidence.

So, too, in regard to the argument from prophecy. This is nothing but a "miracle of knowledge," forecasting an event which the highest human wisdom can not anticipate. These prophecies are so numerous in the Bible, and so completely interwoven in the entire sacred story, that they can not be separated from it without destroying its credibility. Either the prophecies relating to the Jewish and other nations, to the Messiah and his spiritual kingdom, are literally true, else the Bible is false, and we are left in the world without a revelation or a religious guide.

The same may be said respecting the Bible itself. The external, internal, and collateral evidences of its truth are so conclusive that the intelligent and candid mind can not resist them. To be a skeptic concerning the truth of the Scriptures, man must first question or ignore the being of God and the existence in himself of a nature higher than that of the brute. The Bible and the Christian religion. can not be rightfully put to the proper test of their own truthfulness without carrying with them overwhelming evidence of their divine. origin and character. It is for this reason that we assert that the strongest proof of divinity in a human movement-the fact of God, the Bible, and man in co-operation-is the certified experience of saved hearts. When men can face their fellows and declare, by all that is solemn and sacred, by all that is virtuous and pure, by all that is rational and intelligible, that they have experienced a power within removing the sense of guilt and the disposition to sin, changing all their feelings, motives, and aspirations, that were before unholy, and giving them an inward peace, a holy quiet, an approving conscience, and a foretaste of heaven, and that they have the abiding witness in themselves that these things are from God and of God, they exercise a power to convince and win men over to the truth, such as can not otherwise be had. And do not men do this? Are there not thousands living to-day who are thus testifying? We answer, yes; and it is precisely this kind of evidence which is doing most to convert the world, and which should be more generally relied upon. The successful evangelists of the age, are not those profoundly versed in dogmatic

truth, or those who rely on cold and invincible logic, but those whose hearts are on fire with love and zeal, who can narrate a clear religious experience, and who are so practically familiar with the way of life, that they can instantly direct the seekers who throng around them into the blessed experience of pardon and peace. The world needs salvation; sinful hearts are conscious of the need of pardon. Self, under the influence of Satan, and the chilling assertions of skepticism, may resist the dictations of conscience, but the dictations of conscience are nevertheless there, and when the few men of God are found who can bring to bear upon these consciences the ever fresh and new experiences of their own redeemed spirits, the works of Satan are destroyed, and Christ is glorified in the salvation of men. "We are his witnesses of these things," said Peter, "and so is also the Holy Ghost." Other things being favorable, there is a power in pointed religious testimony which is irresistible. It is a power we can ever have by us ready for use. It is God's own appointed weapon for the Christian's defense, the overthrow of error, and the conversion of sinners.

"What we have felt and seen,

With confidence we tell,

And publish to the sons of men

The signs infallible."

CHRISTIANITY GOD'S PLAN FOR SAVING THE WORLD.

Men have had their plans for saving the world, but they have not saved it. Education has been tried, on the theory that if men are taught the bad effects of evil they will shun evil from merely selfish motives; but the scheme does not work. Human nature is so out of joint that some men will do wrong if they know that death and destruction lie before them. The lives of drunkards and murderers are notable illustrations. Education is good, and important in its sphere, but it does not save the soul.

Government has been tried, on the theory that laws of perfect equity and exalting tendency will secure in the subject perfect obedience and perfect love. But nowhere has such a Utopian scheme been realized. It was tested in Rome, and proved there, as elsewhere, a signal failure. Paul's Epistle to the Romans is the most fearful portraiture of human life without the purifying influence of the gospel that can be drawn. You can not legislate men into virtue. Law is a restraint from evil, nothing more. It is a terror to evil-doers, but no particular inspiration to good workers. Laws are important,

but their importance does not consist in any power they possess to regenerate the heart or purge the conscience from dead works to serve the living God. "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit." Make a man spiritual by the grace of God, and he will keep the law; purify his heart by the blood of the Son, and he will then grow in knowledge and attain to all the heights of truth and righteousness. This is God's plan. Man would save the soul by polishing the intellect and restraining the members of the body; God would first purge the heart of sin, and fill it with his Spirit, knowing that the highest wisdom and purest morality are certain to follow. Out of the heart are the issues of life. Purify the fountain, and the streams which flow from it will be pure also. Christianity is precisely the scheme by which God proposes to root sin out of the world and establish holiness in its place. He has his own methods of work; some of these are not such as men would have adopted, even had it been possible for them to invent the Christian scheme. Most likely men would have employed angels to propagate the gospel, instead of themselves, when saved by the gospel. They would have supposed, from the superior powers of the angelic throng, that the world could be more quickly saved by such instrumentality than by feeble human effort. Men are in a hurry; they want to accomplish things quickly. But God is wiser; he never hastes. He moves steadily forward, calling nations and Churches to wait upon his steps, and work diligently, but not to grow impatient or disconsolate or discouraged. It is said of Christ that he shall not fail or be discouraged until he has set judgment in the earth. We look at missionary movements, and evangelical enterprises of every sort, and suppose that by these the world ought to be converted in a few years, or a few generations at longest; but God knows the condition of mankind, and the beneficial character of the agencies he has set in motion for the redemption of the world, and he considers the advantages which the Church derives from her own labors, and the discipline which individual character receives by Christian effort, and he bids us work on, knowing that we shall receive good as well as do good.

The distributors of the gospel are the beneficiaries of the gospel, as well as the beneficiaries the distributors. It is a rule which works both ways. God saves men, and fits them for the skies by inducing them to save others. In this particular we are co-workers together with him.

Angels could not have engaged in such a scheme. They could not have explained the plan of salvation to others, not having experimental knowledge of it themselves. It is said that they desire to look into it, but man is actually brought into it. Man has need of it, while angels have not. The man who has experienced the power of the gospel is best qualified to explain it to others, and urge its acceptance.

THE BENIGN EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY.

The spiritual effects of Christianity are its chief glory, but its indirect influences, in blessing and uplifting humanity, are worthy of its divine origin. Christianity has saved civilization, and been the crowning benefactor of the world. It has subdued the savage nature of man, and implanted in his breast a better view of his mission and destiny. It has shown him his true relation to his fellows, to God, and the future world. It has taught him the value of human life, the necessity of preserving it, and the duty of man to his fellow-man in times of danger and death. History abounds with illustrations of the utter savagery of men in uncivilized conditions when want or woe, famine or pestilence, sweeps the earth. As natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, so unchristianized men treat each other in seasons of great public calamity. When the great pestilence visited Athens, according to Thucydides, the people who felt themselves attacked sank down in total dejection and despair, dying without a struggle, or even an effort to save themselves. Persons who escaped the plague were kept through fear from visiting the sick, and thus they died forlorn and destitute of attendance, by which means whole families became utterly extinct. In some places the corpses lay stretched out upon one another, both in the streets and about the fountains, whither their rage for water had hurried them. The very temples, too, were full of the corpses of those who had expired there; for men fell alike into a neglect of sacred and social duties, and totally disregarded the rites of decent burial. This pestilence, too, gave rise to the most unbridled licentiousness, for when men saw the rich hurried away, and those who were before worth nothing, coming into immediate possession of their property, they began to live solely for pleasure; and seeing a heavy judgment hanging over their heads, they thought it wise before it fell on them to snatch some enjoyment of life; nor did they allow any fear of their gods, or respect for human laws, to be a check on their licentiousness. To the fullest