110 PRUE, H. LANGHORNE ORCHARD, M.A., B.SC., ON 
examine the guard; in fact they had unrivalled opportunities 
of sifting the whole matter on the spot, and no doubt they did 
so. The result was that they not only believed, but were ready 
to ‘die for their belief. They became the most devoted of 
missionaries. These men were Jews, the most bigoted and 
obstinately conservative people the world has ever known.”* 
Nor would hallucination tally, under the circumstances, with 
the extraordinary spread of the new religion as recorded by 
Tacitus and other writers, this new religion not only giving to 
men the highest morality, but also wonderfully affecting their 
intellectual and spiritual perceptions.t The theory of hallucina- 
tion cannot be accepted by science, for it is not adequate to the 
supposed effect. 
Nor can the belief in the Christian miracles be accounted for 
by what has been termed the Mythopoetic theory. It has been 
pointed out that myths and accretions require for their success 
several conditions: they require a considerable lapse of years, 
a people in a very rudimentary state of intelligence and train- 
ing, and a very great dearth of historical information concerning 
the age in which the myth was supposed to originate. But an 
the case we are considering not one of these was fulfilled. The 
narrative of Christ’s hfe and death and resurrection has been 
told and quoted from the beginning just as it is to-day. The 
times were those of a high civilization and literary culture, in 
which the Roman province of Judea shared. The age was 
specially that of history, of Tacitus, Pliny, Josephus, Philo, 
Livy. The mythic theory is negatived by the facts. 
Science declares that every effect presupposes an adequate 
cause. The spread of Christianity presupposes an adequate 
cause. The truth of the testimony is an adequate cause, and 
no other can be found! A geologist, looking at a rock, observes 
certain markings. He knows that these strize might be pro- 
duced by ice, and in the absence of ice is unaware of any 
competent cause, and he therefore decides that ice is actually 
the cause. Similarly, in view of the spread of Christianity, 
science decides that the testimony to the Christian miracles 
(of which this was an effect) was true, and therefore that these 
miracles were true. 
We here complete our scientific investigation of Bible 
* Drawbridge. 
tT B.g:, the Hebrews and the philosophical Greeks both denoted “ wind ” 
and “spirit” by one and the same word ; similarly there was but one word 
for ‘‘ breath” and “soul.” They had not the distinctive words, because 
they had not the distinctive ideas ; Christianity has given them to us, 
