28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



only original life of Columba is the " Vita " of Abbot Adamnan, written 

 about one hundred years after the saint's death. All that it proves is, 

 that at the time the life was written Columba was believed to have 

 wrought miracles. But there is satisfactory proof that the first gos- 

 pels were written while many who had seen the events were still 

 alive. The account given by the abbot was all in accordance with 

 the popular belief, and had not, like the earlier Christian records, to 

 encounter the hostile criticism of keen and able opponents. The 

 voice of the Irish dove was a very pleasant one, but all the good 

 words uttered were got from him on whom the spirit alighted as a 

 dove. We have no utterances of his to be compared with the teach- 

 ings of our Lord and his disciples. Then we have no record of such 

 lives and sacrifices as are described in the letter of Pliny the Younger 

 in a. d. 112. Nor have we such corroborations as the Book of Acts, 

 such original productions as the Epistles of Paul, such a mighty re- 

 sult as Christianity with its influence over the world, over its educa- 

 tion and its civilization, for the last eighteen hundred years. 



Dr. Carpenter quotes Locke as saying that we are to regard the 

 doctrine as proving the miracle rather than the miracle proving the 

 doctrine. Locke believed both the doctrine and the miracle. Dr. 

 Carpenter does not tell us whether he believes either. He does not 

 say whether he looks on the doctrine as proving the miracle. The 

 wiaest defenders of Christianity have always combined the two, the 

 lofty teaching and the high morality, with the attested supernatural 

 action. In estimating the validity of even common testimony we 

 combine the character of the witness with the facts to which he de- 

 pones. We look to his manner of testifying, to the consistency and 

 transparency of his statements, even to the name he has borne among 

 his associates and the motives by which he may have been swayed. 

 So in Aveighing the evidence we have for Christianity we are entitled 

 to combine the truth testified to with the testimony. We do not 

 choose to separate the record of miracles in Matthew from the Sermon 

 on the Mount. We are prepared to believe that he who uttered those 

 bold and transparently sincere and pure precepts could not have been 

 guilty of deceit. It is clear that Jesus claimed supernatural power. If 

 there be any truth at all in the accounts of him, in fact, if there ever 

 was such a person as Jesus, it is clear that he claimed to work miracles. 

 His claims are found imbedded in the heart of discourses which con- 

 tain his loftiest ideas, moral and spiritual, far beyond the concep- 

 tion of the evangelists or the early Christian writers. His discourses 

 are, in fact, his greatest miracle. His acts and words are like the 

 warp and woof of his garment, which is woven throughout and can- 

 not be divided. 



The doc! lines, the precepts, the providential occurrences, the mir- 

 acles, constitute a system quite as much as the Cosmos does. In this 

 system one part supports another, each helps to bear up the whole, and 



