these facts could not be proved by proper historical testimony. These are not settled points in Science, as Kepler's great laws of motion are, or Newton's law of gravitation is. When they become such, and not till then, will there be a real conflict between Science and the teachings of the Bible. So matters stand on this subject in this nineteenth century.

The course of events thus far, while it has removed many imaginary things from the Bible, and relieved us from much that encumbered and embarrassed the argument for the truth of revelation-as it has removed many imaginary things from the secular history of the past, and has relieved us from many things that perplexed and embarrassed us in regard to past events— has, as yet, removed none of the real things affirmed in the Bible, and which, by just laws of exegesis, we are bound to maintain, as, on the parallel subject of secular history, it has not affected, and can not affect, the real events which belong to history. The future we can not anticipate. The past, at least, is secure. What Science is yet to do it is not ours to foresee. How this matter is to stand in the centuries to come, is, of course, beyond our positive knowledge. Whether Science can eliminate miracles as it has done sorcery, and magic, and necromancy, and astrology from the world, is to be the inquiry of future ages; a field of fair conflict between the friends and the enemies of revelation. History in its great facts is safe thus far; religion in its great facts is safe also-each with equal confidence may be safely intrusted to that Great Presiding Spirit that has preserved both up to the present time. will remain, in a subsequent part of this course of Lectures-it may be demanded of us-it can not be evaded -to inquire whether the principles of Science which

It

have swept away so much once deemed marvelous and supernatural, will sweep away the claim of all that is miraculous; whether, in view of all that it has done, a miracle can be properly regarded as a historical subject of belief. That point will be reserved for a special subsequent Lecture.

LECTURE IV.

THE EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY FROM ITS PROPAGATION.

THERE are two forms of religion in the world which owe their present existence and influence to the fact that they were at first propagated by direct effort. They are Christianity and Mohammedism. In this respect they stand by themselves. The religion of the Jews had its origin with their own nation, and grew up with themselves, and identified itself with all their legislative, municipal, and military regulations-a growth among themselves, and not an accretion from surrounding nations. They indeed sought to make proselytes, but they never sought or expected to make their religion a universal religion. Moses labored to make the Jewish people a religious people, not to convert the surrounding nations, and at no period of their history did the Hebrews ever conceive the idea of converting the whole world to their faith. It was the religion of the Jewish nation, not the religion of the world.

The Egyptian religion was limited to the Egyptians, the Chaldean to the Chaldeans, the Assyrian to the Assyrians. It was a fundamental idea in the ancient Pagan religions that every nation had its own gods, and that those gods were to be respected by other nations. The Greeks did not go forth to convert the world to their Jupiter, Juno, or Mars, but were content that all others should do honor as they chose to their own national gods. In the Pantheon at Rome the idea was

embodied in the very name and conception of the temple, that all the gods of the nations were to be recognized, and that all might have a place there provided they did not disturb or displace those who were recognized as the Roman divinities.

Christianity and Mohammedism, however, each alike started out on a different idea. They were to be propagated. They were to overstep the narrow limits of the people among whom they had their origin. They were, wherever they went, to displace other religions. They were to convert heathen temples to churches or mosques, or, if this could not be done, they were to disrobe their priests, and to empty them of worshipers, and to leave them tenantless. They were to throw down all altars; stop the effusion of blood in sacrifice every where; change all laws that recognized the existence of more gods than one; set up the worship of one God, and bring the nations of the earth under the influence of a "book-revelation"—the Bible or the Koran. They were both to be diffused by direct effort; and the idea of propagation was a fundamental idea in both-the one by the sword, the other by the influence of truth and love.

They began much alike. Both had their origin in an individual in whom alone was the germ of the religion-was all the religion; and both those founders of the respective systems were obscure-both poor, both uneducated, both without powerful alliances or armies. Neither of the religions was a development from any previous form of religion, or an outgrowth of existing views among men, or of any prevailing form of civilization, and neither of them would have started up as such an outgrowth or development in Persia in the time of Cyrus, or in Greece in the age of Pericles, or in

Rome in the time of the Antonines, or of any nation now, if we can suppose that the existing nations had their present forms of civilization or art without any religion. Both had very small beginnings, and wearisome weeks and months, and even years, passed away before they became so rooted or accumulated such force as to affect the established institutions, or to excite apprehension among the friends of existing systems of religion. The founders of both experienced similar opposition from their own families and friends, and made their first converts among strangers; and both were greatly persecuted. The one, to save his life in infancy, was borne to a distant land, and was often obliged to resort to measures derived from his higher nature to save his life, and at last was put to death on a cross; the other was compelled to flee from the place of his birth and from his home, and to make a distant city the seat and centre of his efforts to spread his religion. Neither lived to see much more than the beginning of the diffusion of their religion, and the religion of both was spread with rapidity over extended regions only when they were no longer upon the earth to direct its diffusion in person. Millions of human beings have been brought under the power of each; each has lived, since its origin, through the revolutions of many centuries, and amid all the advances which the world has made in science and in art; each has given laws to nations; has founded governments; has changed long-existing dynasties; has controlled kings on their thrones; has organized vast armies; has changed, if not made permanent, the customs of the world. The banners of each in war have waved over numberless battle-fields, often when contending alone with other nations; often when arrayed against each other; seldom in union against a