THE CONTROVERSIALIST 203 



existence of such monsters is conceivable ; so with the 

 miracles reported in the Old and New Testaments or in 

 the Acta Sanctorum ; they are conceivable by the im- 

 agination, however repellent to the reason. And the 

 argument which alone has force against miracles is, 

 that as their alleged occurrence is an event lying outside 

 our experience of an unbroken uniformity of nature, 

 belief in them must be determined by the validity of the 

 evidence. And the more improbable the character of 

 the alleged miracle, the more cogent must be the evi- 

 dence in its support. Dealing with the miracles 

 narrated in the Gospels, it would seem only reason- 

 able, before accepting the truth of the story, to expect 

 that in the case of documents for which inspiration 

 is claimed there should be no discrepancies in the 

 record ; that the Holy Spirit would have protected the 

 revelation from error and obscurity. Under this test 

 the evidence breaks down. An examination of a 

 work published by the Religious Tract Society, under 

 the unconsciously ironical title, Harmony of the 

 Gospels^ brings out the discord between them. Upon 

 a matter so momentous in its assumed bearings on 

 human destiny as the Virgin Birth (to which the ear- 

 liest of the Synoptics makes no reference), there is no 

 agreement ; while the accounts of the character of 

 the last supper, of the last hours of Jesus on the 

 cross, and of the events following His alleged resur- 



