FAITH AND CEEDULITY 79 



reported falsely what they saw ? Sir John Man- 

 deville says he saw iron swim in the Dead Sea and 

 a feather sink, and that it vomited up masses of fiery 

 matter as big as a horse ; and Sir John was a pious 

 man. 



I think we may safely rest upon the statement 

 that no natural evidence can establish the super- 

 natural. Our senses cannot apprehend it because 

 it is supersensible ; our reason cannot verify it be- 

 cause it transcends reason. The historical proofs 

 of Christianity are adequate to establish ordinary 

 events, hut not extraordinary. 



Dr. McCosh says the resurrection of Jesus is as 

 well established as any event of ancient history — 

 as the death of Csesar, for instance, which every- 

 body believes in. Do we want any proof of the 

 death of Csesar ? Do not all men die ? The man- 

 ner of his death wovild be the only question, and we 

 do not want very strong proof upon that point, 

 since thousands of other men have fallen by the 

 knife of the assassin. But in the alleged resurrec- 

 tion of Jesus of Nazareth we have an event the like 

 of which never happened before or since, an event 

 that contradicts the whole experience of the human 

 race, an event which by its startling and unheard-of 

 character overwhelms the mind, and we are asked to 

 believe it as readily as we do the death of Caesar, on 

 the authority of a book or books of uncertain date 

 and uncertain authorship, written by persons who do 

 not even allege that they were eye-witnesses of the 

 event they describe. Suppose the historian averred 



