220 REV. H. C. M. WATSON 



pay frequent visits to the place of its sepulchre, expecting 

 the time of our friend's revival to life. When corruption and 

 decay had done their worst, and nothing remained of the body 

 of our friend but the mouldering bones, we should reverently 

 and lovingly collect them and put them in some place of safety, 

 in anticipation of our friend's awakening. 



The death of another and another of our party would not 

 be sufficient to convince us that every one must die, although 

 it would awaken the suspicion that such might be the fate of 

 all. The result of our own personal observation, enlarging in 

 extent day by day and year by year, would not preclude the 

 hope that our departed friends might one day return to us, 

 their youth renewed as the eagle's. Should such a restora- 

 tion to life be affirmed our personal experience of the opera- 

 tions of nature would not be sufficient to make the affirmation 

 antecedently improbable. 



Our knowledge of the resources of the world around us 

 would be too incomplete to justify disbelief or very pronounced 

 scepticism. This supposition enables us to see that our know- 

 ledge of the laws of nature is derived mainly from testimony. 

 I say, mainly ; for, of course, the testimony of others is in part 

 confirmed by our own experience, but only in part, so that I 

 repeat, our knowledge of the laws of nature is derived from 

 testimony just as our historical knowledge is derived from 

 testimony. As our knowledge of miraculous facts of past 

 time is also derived from testimony, it is plain that the 

 question of miracles in relation to testimony is a case of 

 diverse, but not contradictory, testimony. 



We have a vast mass of testimony, that the operations of 

 nature have been, m all cases observed by the witnesses, of a 

 certain kind. We have expressed the facts observed and 

 handed to us by testimony, in what are called general laws, — ■ 

 the laws of nature. We have also a mass of testimony, much 

 smaller in point of numbers, that in certain other cases, not 

 included in any other observation, the operations of nature (so 

 to speak) have been diverse. That is, that A was followed 

 not by o, but by b; that death was followed not by decay, but 

 by life. Now there is no contradiction here, unless the 

 testimony of the first witnesses should include the cases dealt 

 with by the second body of witnesses. If this were the case, 

 the evidence of the many, equal also in other respects, would 

 outweigh and cancel the testimony of the fewer. 



But this is not the case of the miracle of the Resurrection 

 of Jesus Christ; or of the other miracles of the New 

 Testament. We have no adverse or hostile testimony in 

 relation to them. 



