public; that, moreover, it is, in most cases, the people themselves who, from the undeniable need which they feel of seeing in great events and great men something divine, create the marvelous legends afterward.”

It may be added, as illustrating this feeling, that the world is beginning to demand an altogether different class of evidences of Christianity from that which satisfied the generations that preceded us, and although the authors, some of them at least, who satisfied those generations of the truth of the Bible, have scarcely passed away, yet that Grotius de Veritate, and Paley's Evidences, and Lardner's Credibility, and Chalmers's Evidences of Christianity, are beginning to be regarded as books pertaining to the past-books that performed their work well enough in their own time, but which are soon to be reckoned with the obsolete defenses of Christianity in the times of Porphyry, Celsus, and Julian, or in the times of the British deists of the seventeenth century. Whatever might have been the value of that evidence, and that mode of argumentation, in a former age, and however such arguments may have convinced the world in former times, it is now held that we are not at liberty to demand that the same credit shall be given to the arguments in this age. “Let the thaumaturgist,” Renan would say, “work over the miracle in our times in such a manner as to satisfy an age far different from that when the miracles were pretended to have been wrought.”

It becomes, therefore, very important to inquire whether, on the alleged facts on which Christianity was first propagated, and which were regarded eighteen hundred years ago as sufficient evidence to prove that the religion was from God, and under which the religion actually spread over the world, it may be commend

C

ed to mankind now? Or has time so rectified the judgment of mankind on the subject of testimony as to show that the evidence was valueless then, and should be regarded as valueless now, and that the religion was in fact propagated under a delusion?

This is a fair question. This introduces the subject of this Lecture. It will be illustrated under two heads :

The general principles on the subject.

The application of those principles to the Christian testimony.

The general subject to be illustrated is, EVIDENCE AS AFFECTED BY TIME.

Evidence as bearing on things to be believed—which is its proper province-must pertain to subjects as mathematical, as legal, as scientific, as moral, as historical.

No one would pretend that on these subjects precisely the same kind of testimony would be demanded; no one would maintain that the evidence, to be satisfactory to the mind, must be precisely the same; no one would affirm that all would be equally affected by time, or that the same rules are to be applied in estimating their value.

In mathematics, time makes no change in the force and value of the evidence by which a proposition is established. If it be granted that shorter methods may be used, or that new methods of demonstration

may

be discovered, as the Algebraic process, or Logarithms, or Fluxions, or the Differential Calculus, yet these do not demonstrate that the former evidence was false, or unreliable as far as it went, or that that for which it was employed as a demonstration was false. It must beit can not be otherwise—that Euclid believed that in a right angled triangle the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the two sides, on the same evidence on which we believe it, and the proof on which he relied, as far as it was proof, is as forcible now as it was then. Time does nothing to affect that evidence. It neither confirms nor impairs it. The evidence is to us precisely what it was to the human mind eighteen hundred years ago, and it will be the same to the end of the world. We believe it not because Euclid believed it, or because there is evidence that it was believed then, or because the truth of the proposition was propagated on the ground of the evidence then employed, but because the proof to our minds is precisely, neither more nor less, what it was to the first mind on which the truth of the “forty-seventh” proposition dawned. The proof can not be added to or diminished; and that proof will go down to the end of the world, whatever changes may occur in the laws of criticism, or in any advances which may be made in the capability of judging of evidence. Many new truths may be discovered and added to this, but time does not change the faith of mankind in this.

In legal matters, time does not necessarily or materially affect evidence. It affects the manner of arriving at it; the question as to what is legal testimony; the determination about the credibility of witnesses; the question how far interest in the case, or relationship to the parties, shall affect their credibility; the mode of examination, in open court or in secret; the credit due to the young, to those of feeble mind, or to those who may be partially insane; the competency of witnesses in general; but the evidence itself is not affected by time. The evidence that Titus killed Gaius in the time of Augustus, and that he was properly convicted and punished, is not modified by the lapse of eighteen hundred years, and by all the changes which have occurred in the world in that time. If the evidence then relied on established the fact so that, under the laws, Titus was justly punished, it establishes it now, so that it ought to go into history, and to be believed in all coming time; to become one of the cases of precedents establishing the principles on which justice is to be administered in every future age.

In scientific matters, the principles are the same. Testimony or evidence is not likely to be affected in any way on these subjects; for, in general, we do not believe the facts of science on the evidence of testimony. Although it is true that the mass of men credit the facts of science-in Astronomy, Geology, Chemistry, and in the kindred sciences—so far as they come before them at all for belief, on the ground of testimony, yet it is also true that these great truths and facts can be subjected to experiment and observation by any one that chooses. Galileo testified that there were moons appertaining to Jupiter. That he did so testify can be easily established by history; that there are moons revolving around the planet is a matter, however, not depending on the credibility of his testimony, or on the historical records of that time, but can be verified by any one by looking through a telescope.

Time sets aside, indeed, many things in science which were once assuredly believed. But is not done because the testimony is doubtful; it is because the observations were not accurately made, or because there were false theories, or because better instruments, and a more varied and prolonged observation, have shown exactly what the facts were and are. But time, for example, has not affected the evidence in regard to the facts connected with the celebrated “Eclipse of Thales," on which co much has been written, and which has been the subject of so much discussion among astronomers — neither the fact in regard to the effect of that eclipse as stated by Herodotus, or the fact that Thales predicted it. Herodotus says (book i., ch. lxxiv.) that there was a war between the Lydians and the Medes, and that, after various turns of fortune,“ in the sixth year a conflict took place; and on the battle being joined, it happened that the day suddenly became night. And this change,” says he, “ Thales of Miletus had predicted to them, definitely naming the year in which the event took place. The Lydians and the Medes, when they saw day turned into night, ceased from fighting, and both sides were desirous of peace.”*

Time, in regard to this event, has undoubtedly shown that the theory which Thales held in regard to astronomy was a false theory; that the prediction implied no very accurate knowledge of the heavens; that probably all his knowledge on the subject was derived from the observation of the periodical times when eclipses occur; and that probably also all that he predicted was the year when this eclipse would take place, not the hour, the day, nor even the month; but time has not set aside the evidence in regard to the fact. Thus time may

establish the truth of a scientific event, but not the cause of it; the fact may be demonstrated by testimony to the end of the world, but the testimony does nothing to establish the causes of it. On this point, however, time may do this: while the testimony as to the fact is unaffected, it may do much to show what was, or was not the cause of the event. Time may show that what was regarded as miraculous and supernatural when it happened, took place in the ordinary operations of nature, and the “dim eclipse” which, at the