governmental power and mob prejudice, we have the Christian story, which has been received by millions of men throughout a long succession of centuries. Other explanations, in vogue for a while, have been abandoned as unsatisfactory. Now the Christian story is narrated in the four Gospels and other portions of the New Testament, whose reliability we shall prove below. It is briefly as follows: —
At the time pointed out by the Jewish Prophets, there was born miraculously, of the Virgin Mary, in the place designated in prophecy, a Child of the race of David, who by command of Heaven was called Jesus, that is Saviour, because, as was predicted, He was to save His people from their sin. After giving for thirty years the example of all the virtues that adorn private life, He preached for three years in Judea and Galilee a doctrine of marvellous perfection, vastly superior to any that men had ever conceived; and he gained a number of disciples, plain, unlearned men, many of whom left all things to follow Him, though He held out no inducements but rewards in the future life. He preached a doctrine directly opposed to the human passions, and required its observance, claiming to be a messenger from God His Father, to be one with His Father, to be the expected Christ, or Messias, which name became His own by universal consent. Meanwhile He worked most numerous and most astounding miracles, and appealed to them as the credentials of His Divine mission. For, when asked by the disciples of St. John the Baptist whether He was the expected Messias, He pointed to His miracles, saying: "Go and relate to John what you have seen: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again" (Matt XI,
