and with the songs of devotion, are references to the way in which God had made himself known by things done for the welfare of his people. The doctrinal part of Scripture rests upon an underlying foundation of facts. Doctrine sets forth the significance of that his tory in which, from age to age, the just and merciful God had manifested himself to men.

When this view is taken of Revelation, it no longer wears the appearance of having sprung from an afterthought of the Creator. Revelation inheres essentially in phenomena which form an integral part of the history of mankind. That history is a connected whole. As such, Revelation is the realization of an eternal purpose in the divine mind. In this light it is regarded by the writers of the New Testament. To be sure, inasmuch as sin is no part of the creation, but is the perverse act of the creature, and since the consequences of sin in the natural order are thus brought in, it may be said with truth that redemption is the remedy of a disorder. It may be truly affirmed that Revelation, in the forms which it actually assumed, is made possible and necessary by the infraction of an ideal order. In this sense it may be called a provision for an emergency. It was, however, none the less pre-ordained. It entered into the original plan of human history, conditioned on the foreseen fact of sin, as that plan was formed from eternity by the Creator. The Christian believer finds in the purpose of redemption through Jesus Christ the only clew to the understanding of history in its entire compass.

Miracles are thus seen to be, not appendages, but constitutive parts, of Revelation. It is in the deviation of nature from its ordinary course that, the personal agency the justice, the mercy, the benevolent pur

pose, of God-is revealed, and the deliverance of men from their ignorance, and wilful desertion of God, and from its penal consequences, is effected. Through the agency of God immediately and manifestly exerted at the proper junctures, the kingdom of God is introduced, and built up in its consecutive stages. Miracles, it is true, may be called "the credentials" of apostles. As such, they are auxiliaries in the first promulgation of Christianity. They procure a hearing and credence for the founders of the Church. They are a visible sanction given by God to their teaching and work. But the primary office of miracles in connection with Revelation is that before defined.

These views render it easy to point out the relation of miracles to the uniformities of nature. Were the vision not clouded, the regular sequences of nature, its wise and beneficent order, would discover its Author, and call out emotions of love and adoration. The departure of nature from its beaten path is required to impress on the minds of men the half-forgotten fact, that behind the forces of nature, even in its ordinary movement, is the will of God. What are natural laws? They are not a code super-imposed upon natural objects. They are a generalized statement of the way in which the objects of nature are observed to act and interact. Thus the miracle does not clash with natural laws. It is a modification in the effect due to a change in the antecedents. If there is a new phenomenon, it is due to the interposition of an external cause. There is not a violation of the law of gravitation when a ball is thrown into the air. A force is counteracted and overcome by the interposition of a force that is superior. The forces of nature are, within limits, subject to the human will. The intervention of the human will gives

rise to phenomena which the forces of matter, independ ently of the heterogeneous agent, would never produce. Yet such effects following upon volition are not properly considered violations of law. Law describes the action of natural forces when that action is not modified and controlled by voluntary agency. If the efficiency of the divine will infinitely outstrips that of the will of man, still miracles are no more inconsistent with natural laws than is the lifting of a man's hand in obedience to a volition.

The question whether the miracles described in the New Testament, by which it is alleged that Christianity was ushered into the world, actually occurred, is to be settled by an examination of the evidence. It is an historical question, and is to be determined by an application of the canons applicable to historical inquiry. The great sceptical philosopher of the last century displayed his ingenuity in an attempt to show that a miracle is from its very nature, and therefore under all circumstances, incapable of proof. His argument has often been reviewed, and its fallacies have been repeatedly pointed out. It is only a late discussion of Hume's argument by Professor Huxley that prompts us to subject it anew to a brief examination.

It will be remembered that Hume founds our belief in testimony solely on experience. "The reason," he says, "why we place any credit in witnesses and histo rians is not derived from any connection which we perceive a priori between testimony and reality, but because we are accustomed to find a conformity between them." This is far from being a correct account of the origin of our belief in testimony. Custom is not the source of credence. The truth is, that we instinctively give credit to what is told us; that is, we assume that the facts

accord with testimony. Experience serves to modify this natural expectation, and we learn to give or withhold credence according to circumstances. The circumstance which determines us to believe or disbelieve is our conviction respecting the capacity of the witness for ascertaining the truth on the subject of his narration, and respecting his honesty. If we are persuaded that he could not have been deceived, and that he is truthful, we believe his story. No doubt one thing which helps to determine his title to credit is the probability or improbability of the occurrences related. The circumstance that such occurrences have never taken place before, or are "contrary to experience" in Hume's sense of the phrase, does not of necessity destroy the credibility of testimony to them. An event is not rendered incapable of proof because it occurs, if it occurs at all, for the first time. Unless it can be shown to be impossible, or incredible on some other account than because it is an unexampled event, it is capable of being proved by witnesses. Hume is not justified in assuming that miracles are "contrary to experience," as he defines this term. This is the very question in dispute. The evidence fɔ the affirmative, as Mill has correctly stated, is diminished in force by whatever weight belongs to the evidence that certain miracles have taken place. The gist of Hume's argumentation is contained in this remark: "Let us suppose that the fact which they [the witnesses] affirm, instead of being only marvellous, is really miraculous; and suppose, also, that the testimony, considered apart and in itself, amounts to an entire proof: in that case, there is proof against proof, of which the strongest must prevail," etc. At the best, according to Hume, in every instance where a miracle is alleged, proof balances proof. One flaw in this argument has just been pointed

out. The fundamental fallacy of this reasoning is in the premises, which base belief on naked “experience divorced from all rational expectations drawn from any other source. The argument proceeds on the assump tion that a miracle is just as likely to occur in one place as in another; that a miracle whereby the marks of truthfulness are transformed into a mask of error and falsehood is as likely to occur, as (for example) the healing of a blind man by a touch of the hand. This might be so if the Power that governs the world were destitute of moral attributes. "The presumption against miracles as mere physical phenomena is rebutted by the presumption in favor of miracles as related to infinite benevolence."1 Hume's argument is valid only on the theory of Atheism.

We give credit to our own senses when we have taken the requisite pains to test the accuracy of the observations made by them, and have convinced ourselves that these organs are in a sound and healthy condition. If a number of witnesses, in whose carefulness and honesty we have entire confidence, testify to phenomena which they declare that they have witnessed, we lend, and are bound to lend, to their testimony the same credence which we give to our own eyes and ears. Whether the phenomena are of natural or supernatural origin is a subsequent question, to be decided upon a consideration of all the circumstances.

Professor Huxley objects to Hume's definition of a miracle as a violation of the order of nature, "because all we know of the order of nature is derived from our observation of the course of events of which the so-called miracle is a part."2 The laws of nature, he

1 Professor E. A. Park, Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, iii. 1965. Huxley's Hume, p. 131.