lapidated pillars and broken arches. The venerable systems of Zoroaster and Confucius have declined, and their temples are mouldering in decay. Pilgrimages now are seldom made to the sacred shrine of Mecca, and the voice of the lonely Muezzin is unheeded, as he proclaims the hour of prayer from the minaret of his mosque. The waters of the holy Ganges are losing their efficacy to save, and the Hindoo no longer heeds his Brahmin when he urges him to lay his bones in the sacred Benares, hoping thereby to gain the boon of immortality. But the Church of God, which existed anterior to all these institutions, and witnessed their rise and prosperity, can now look down from the high eminence of her present glory, on the decay and inevitable dissolution of them all. They form a mournful procession, singing with varied choruses their own funeral marches to the grave; uniting their discordant voices to teach one great truth, that no religion can be enduring, unless it be divine.

Miraculously, therefore, has the religion of the Bible been preserved. By a divine power has it been borne over the storms of ages, and sheltered amid the wreck of nations and of systems. It has received into its bosom the teeming millions of the North, and redeemed them from their barbarism. It has stood, as it were, by the fountain whence issued the streams of modern history, and cast into them the salt of Christian purity, which has thus been conveyed afar to bless the nations of the earth. It has bid defiance to the political, religious, and intellectual convulsions of three thousand years. It is the bridge which connects ancient and modern times, while every other connecting link has been swept away. The world has been its missionary field. Nations have been its pupils. The sciences have delighted to follow in its train. In its presence the demons of war and bloodshed have fled dis

comfited away. Unspeakable blessings have clustered. around its path. Add to these features of its past history her future prospects. The career of the Church of God is not yet run. Survey the world as it now appears, and say whether Christianity does not bid fair to add new triumphs to her former trophies, till she overshadows the world with her glory?

When

One more progressive proof of this inspiration deserves attention. It is the concessions of the professed adversaries of the Bible to its value and its claims. we see this volume, so persecuted and cursed, extorting from its inveterate foes the unwilling tribute of their praise, it surely means something. Several of such testimonies we will adduce. Both ancient and modern infidels have been compelled to admit the claims of Christianity, from the elevated morality, benevolence, and sanctity of its true professors.

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Pliny, in the well-known passage which is extant in his works, admits that the Christians of his day were never guilty of theft, nor robbery, nor adultery, never falsified their word, nor denied a pledge committed to them when called upon to return it." These seem to have been the prevailing vices of his cotemporaries, of which the Christians alone were blameless.

Julian the Apostate, commends the conduct of the Christians of his day to the studious imitation of his friends; for they propagated their religion "by sanctity of life, kindness to strangers, and attention to the burial of the dead." The constancy with which they bore the martyr's doom excited their wonder. The charms of wealth, of power, of ease, of pleasure, were alike unavailing to induce them to deny their master and touch the execrated sacrifice.*

* Porphyry, a zealous opponent of Christianity, writes, "that a

Listen to the language of Rousseau: "I confess that the sanctity of the Gospel is an argument which speaks to my heart, and I should regret to find any good answer to it. Look at the books of the philosophers, with all their pomp; how little they appear by the side of this. Can it be, that a book at once so sublime, and so simple, should be the work of man? Can it be that the person whose history it relates was a mere man? What sweetness, what purity in his deportment! What affecting kindness in his instructions! What profound wisdom in his discourses! What entire command of his passions! Where is the man, where the sage who can act, suffer and die without weakness and without ostentation? Truly if the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God!" Strange admissions ! How wonderful was that character which could adore and blaspheme with the same breath!

Says Byron, "Christianity is the purest and most liberal religion in the world. I have read with attention the book of Christianity, and I admire the liberal and truly charitable principles which Christ has laid down." Bonaparte, when hearing the New Testament read, expressed himself "struck with the highest admiration, at the purity, the sublimity, the beauty of the morality which it contained.” man once inquired of Apollo, what God he must appease, in order to lead his wife to renounce Christianity. The pretended Apollo, who knew the faithfulness of Christians to their belief, answered the inquirer, that he might as well attempt to write on running water, or to fly through the air, as to change the sentiments of his polluted and godless wife. Let her continue to lament her dead God!"-Neander's Church Hist., I. cent. p. 100. Byron says:-If ever man was God, and God was man, Jesus Christ was both. (Keith's Evid., p. 317.) Volney, the French deist, affords more evidences in his Ruins, in favor of the truths of prophecy, than any other writer of his age; although he does it involuntarily.

Many similar concessions might be accumulated, in reference to men who were eminent in the world for their theoretical, or practical opposition to Christianity; who conceded in moments of calm reflection, or of exquisite anguish, the sincere convictions which pervaded their breasts. It is clear that the Bible depends not in the least, on any aid of men or angels for its success in its great mission in the world, yet such admissions, when so perfectly unsolicited, embody a considerable force of argument in its favor.

It is true, we have not here argued the point whether the Bible is itself inspired; or is merely the record and depository of an inspired religion. This last position is held by Unitarians and Socinians. But the connection between the two is so plain, as scarcely deserves to be argued. For the Bible professes to be inspired as a book, or collection of recorded truths. If this assumption be false, then a false and lying medium has been employed to communicate to men an inspired religion; which is absurd. If then the religion of the Bible be inspired, the Bible itself, which indeed is inseparable in this respect from its religion, must be also. The arguments which serve to substantiate the one, inevitably confirm the other.

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CHAPTER V.

THE LOGICAL NECESSITY OF FAITH IN A DIVINE REVELATION.

THE first and most important claim of the Bible is, that it contains a divine revelation. This also implies an additional claim to universal reception among men. But the contents of this volume are such, that some of the most valuable of them cannot be received except by the exercise of Faith; inasmuch as they are above the power of reason to originate, as well as to explain them. Hence it is that many Modern Infidels refuse their credence and confidence to those portions of the Bible, which, because they are closely connected with all the rest of it, they substitute as part for the whole, and treat the remainder with similar indifference. They disclaim the reception of that which is above and independent of reason, or that which, as they affirm, is contradictory to reason. They contend that this characteristic of mysteriousness is an argument against the divinity of any revelation which possesses it; so that if there was no other evidence which could be produced against all such claimants to inspiration, the Bible among the rest, this would afford an unanswerable and insuperable one to it. It is our purpose now to show that this is false reasoning; that mysteries, or whatever demands the exercise of faith, are not an argument against the credibility and authority of any professedly divine revelation; that there is, moreover, a logical, and