his one care not to omit any thing that he heard, or to set down any false statement therein.'

"We now turn to the Gospel of St. John, and we find the pri mary evidence to its authorship is peculiarly definite and direct. Irenæus, who became bishop of Lyons about 177 A. D., was a pupil of a famous disciple of St. John, Polycarp, who died as a martyr in the year 155 or 156. Irenæus tells us, in a letter of remonstrance he wrote to a fellow-pupil, Florinus, who had lapsed into heresy, how vividly he remembered Polycarp's instructions and conversation :

"I distinctly remember,' he says, 'the incidents of that time better than events of recent occurrence; for the lessons received in childhood, growing with the growth of the soul, become identified with it; so that I can describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp used to sit when he discoursed, and his goings out and his comings in, and his manner of life, and his personal appearance, and the discourses which he held before the people, and how he would describe his intercourse with John and with the rest who had seen the Lord, and how he would relate their words. And whatsoever things he had heard from them about the Lord, and about his miracles, and about his teaching, Polycarp, as having received them from eye-witnesses of the life of the Word, would relate altogether in accordance with the Scriptures.' (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. V, 20.)

"Now when Irenæus thus tells us that Polycarp used to describe 'his intercourse with John and with the rest who had seen the Lord,' and that 'whatsoever things he had heard from them about the Lord and about his miracles, and about his teaching' he would relate 'altogether in accordance with the Scriptures,' he tells us nothing else than that what Polycarp had heard from John and from the rest who had seen the Lord was in complete agreement with our present Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John. That Irenæus used precisely the same Gospels as are now in our possession is disputed by no one; and these very books he says are in full agreement with what he heard from Polycarp and Polycarp heard from St. John.

"Now this testimony to the first three Gospels is of immense weight, for it gives at all events the sanction of Polycarp, and goes far to give the sanction and recognition of St. John himself to those three books. But with respect to the Gospel of St. John it would seem overwhelming. The one point upon which Polycarp was specially qualified to bear testimony to Irenæus, and on which he did bear testimony, was the teaching of St. John, and that apostle's account of our Lord's words and works."

Such evidence as the foregoing can not be rejected. Infidels may attempt to explain away the divine authority of the Gospels, but they are compelled to admit that all attempts to trace their authorship to a later age than that of the apostles, or in the main to other hands than those of their traditional authors, have failed. St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John were the real authors of the four books which bear their names, and they are faithful witnesses to what actually occurred. Rénan says: "To sum up, I admit the four canonical Gospels as serious documents. All go back to the age which followed the death of Jesus." He gives his own opinion of their value; but his admission is sufficient, in the light of other evidence, to stamp his opinion as utterly valueless. As the late Chief-Justice Sharswood, of Pennsylvania, said: "No doubt can be entertained of what the decision of any tribunal would be upon the testimony of the evangelists if produced as living witnesses, and there can be as little doubt of the genuineness and authenticity of the writings in which their testimony is recorded."

THE EPISTLES.

The epistolary writings of the New Testament are just as authentic and credible as the evangelical narratives. Some of them have scarcely ever been seriously assailed by skeptical scholars. In his one hundred and seventy-second lecture in Tremont Temple, Boston, Mr. Joseph Cook dwelt at length upon this point. He proved very conclusively that four of Paul's epistles are undisputed. He read, word for word, the recent testimonies and concessions of learned unbelievers showing this fact. Here is a part of his quotation from Rénan :

"The Epistles of Paul possess in their absolute authenticity an unequaled advantage in this history. Not the slightest doubt has been raised by serious criticism against the authenticity of the Epistle to the Galatians, the two Epistles to the Corinthians, or the Epistle to the Romans, while the arguments on which are founded the attacks on the two Epistles to the Thessalonians and that to the Philippians are without value."

Following is the use he made of the latest and ablest rationalistic life of Christ, viz.: the celebrated work entitled "Jesus of Nazareth," by Professor Keim, of Zurich. He said: "I read this extract for two purposes: First, to show how reverent this author is concerning the facts of the New Testament; and next, to show what his chronology of the New Testament literature is. The first Epistle of the

Apostle Paul to the Corinthians was written at the beginning of Easter, A. D. 58. This epistle points back beyond the year 58 to the year 54, and still further back to the year 39, to a date which was separated by only four years from the great events of the death and resurrection of Jesus.' Mr. Cook then said:

"According to Keim, the date of the crucifixion was 35. This rationalistic life of Christ carries back the testimony of Paul to within five years of the date of the crucifixion. The assertion of the infidels, not many years ago, was, that there is no testimony on record from those who were actually eye-witnesses of the miracles. All this is set aside by such a series of dates. It is admitted that myths can not grow up in five years, nor in twenty-five; and, therefore, the mythical theory as to the origin of the New Testament literature has been abandoned. The epistles which I am now discussing all came into existence, according even to these rationalistic critics themselves, within twenty-five years of the date of the crucifixion.

"Keim says nothing of the inspiration of Paul. He is sufficiently bold, sometimes atrociously unfair, in his discussions of the Gospels; but he is silenced by these four undisputed epistles, and he stands on them as historic authority. I would have you stand there, and feel that your feet are on adamant; for you are standing on what has been attacked again and again in vain through eighteen centuries.

"Let me now raise the question: What do these four disputed epistles, taken together, prove?

"In the first place they prove that, within twenty-five years of the date of the crucifixion, or, as Keim would have it, within considerably less, there existed a set of organizations called Christian Churches, extending all the way from Jerusalem to Antioch and Corinth and Rome, throughout the whole breadth of what was then the civilized world. In the second place, these four epistles prove that, in the Churches, a body of doctrines was received and a series of facts believed that was identical with those which now constitute the basis of Christianity."

Mr. Cook concluded: "A long line of rationalistic lives of Christ ends in this supreme concession. This author speaks after Strauss, after Baur, after Rénan, after Schenkel, and a score of others, who have endeavored by the acutest criticism to cast discredit upon the testimony of the New Testament Scriptures to matters of fact. This is an outcome of the freshest rationalistic research; silence, conscientious reverence! And, if you read the final pages of Keim, you will see there is something here like adoration. Keim was born at Stutt

gart in 1825, and died at Giessen in 1878. He was a pupil of Ewald. He belonged to the school of Baur, but outgrew it. His final opinion is, that the person of Jesus is not only a phenomenon among the many phenomena of God; it is a special work of God; the crown of all the divine revelations.""

THE BIBLE FOR THE WHOLE WORLD AND TO CONTINUE FOREVER.

The Bible is the world's book. It treats subjects of equal importance to all mankind. One nation or generation is just as much interested in it as another. Its themes never grow old and its truths never die. The knowledge it reveals could have been obtained nowhere else. Science can tell us nothing of our souls or of our future state. Philosophy can devise no plan of salvation that saves. For what we know of God, redemption, and future rewards and punishments, we are indebted to this old book. The same is true, to a large extent, of creation. Some infidels object to the Bible account of creation, but they appear to find no better one. After all is said, we are compelled to choose between two hypotheses: either matter is eternal or self-originating, and all these wonderful systems of worlds with their marvelous plannings and adaptations, which devout science so much loves to trace, grew of themselves or bounded into being by chance; or else there is a superintending God, all-wise and eternal, who planned the universe in all its parts, spoke it into being by his almighty fiat, and sustains it by his omnipotent power. Men sneer at what they call the "rib story," but whether is it easier to believe that woman was taken from the side and nearest the heart of man? or that she sprang from an ape, a toad, a worm? The account may be literal or allegorical, but in either case it is as reasonable as any infidel postulate. Infidels can deny that there is a God, but they can affect to believe that nothing created something. If you should tell a child that a locomotive came into being of itself, how it would wonder at your simplicity! But the atheist's theory of creation is just as stupid as this. He would have us think that these wonderful bodies of ours came into being of themselves, and that our mysterious souls are simply ingrowths of these accidental formations of clay. A child can learn more truth about itself from one page of the Bible than all the infidel philosophers of earth can teach. So of the story of the Flood. Men may ridicule this account, but they do so in the light of universal tradition as well as revealed truth. Every nation,

civilized and barbarian, has its tradition of the Deluge. No fact of history, as old as this, is better authenticated. Profane authorities agree with the sacred record in every essential particular. Berosus of Babylon, the great historian who flourished about 250 B. C., and who compiled his works from the temple archives of Babylon, of which he was the keeper, and whose work was still extant at the time of Josephus, gives an account of the Deluge strikingly in accordance with the narrative of Scripture. Another ancient writer, Abydenus, of whom less is known, but whose fragments of history are generally of great value and importance, also describes the Flood substantially the same as Berosus, and Rawlinson says of them both that their tradition could not have been derived either from the Hebrew record or from the foundation of that record, and that the many exact coincidences between the inspired and uninspired accounts could not have been the result of chance, but must have sprung from the facts of the Deluge itself.

There are many other Bible truths that shallow infidels make light of, but which will stand the test of investigation. The Bible was not written to display the historic precision or scientific information of its composers, but solely as a spiritual guide; nevertheless its truths are found to harmonize with the indubitable facts of history and science as they are from time to time unfolded. The profoundest scholars never deride the stories of the Bible. Only the ignorant and superficial skimmers of its pages rail at it. Those who ridicule most are either the most ignorant or the most shameless. Thoughtful minds find in the truths of the Bible a depth which they can not fathom. So far as the spiritual import of these truths is concerned they are easily comprehended, but they admit of exploration far be yond this. No believer in the Bible has ever yet lived who felt that he had fully sounded the depths of this immortal book, and it is not likely that any Bible student will ever live who can truthfully say he has explored all the heights and depths and lengths and breadths of the unknown truths which it contains. There can be little doubt that it will furnish food and light to the strongest and most progressive minds throughout the eternal years. Heaven and earth may pass away, but God's Word shall not fail. It is imperishable. As Dr. Luther Lee observes:

"Its origin involves its imperishable character. The Bible assumes to be a revelation from God, and it can not be accounted for on any other ground than its own assumption. If the Bible was not written by the persons and at the times and in the places and in the circum