158 



BEV. J. O. F. MURRAY. D.D., ON 



As for what Dr. Murray says on p. 145. are we to be readr to 

 reconsider our premises and submit the most sacred matters of our 

 life to impartial investigation, to keep up otir reputation for open- 

 mindedness, and in the cant phrase of the day, " to follow the truth 

 at any cost," which not seldom means, I fear, "giving up the truth 

 at very small cost" ? Are the legitimacy of the King, one's father s 

 word, one's mother's character, and still less the resurrection of our 

 Lord, to be subjects on which, at the bidding of the first unbeliever, 

 I am to profess an open mind ? The ocular and tangible proofs 

 which satisfied large nnmbei^ of otir Lord's disciples, naturally as 

 sceptical as ourselves, may well satisfy us. The Lord was at pains 

 to prove the reality of his corporeal Resurrection. ' " Handle Me and 

 see for a spirit hath not flesh and blood as ye see Me have."' His 

 body was the same — it bore the marks of Calvary, yet not the same, 

 real and tangible, but possessed of new spiritual properties. One 

 hesitates even to attempt to explain, but may we not illustrate the 

 wonderful change of the same body into a new body, by allotropy. 

 the well-known property of certain substances of existing under 

 diSerent modifications, distinct in their physical and chemical 

 properties ? Thus, for instance, carbon exists in octahedral form 

 of extreme hardness as the diamond, in hexagonal form of moderate 

 hardness as graphite, and again as lampblack. A piece of yellow 

 phosphorus heated under pressure is wholly changed into red 

 phosphorus, with very modified properties. May not flesh occur in 

 the two conditions — namral and spirituaL 



I would close with the testimony of a great statesman and physicist, 

 the late Lord Salisbury : ^' To me the central point is the Resurrec- 

 tion of Christ, which. I believe. Firstly, because it is testified by 

 men who had every opporttmity of seeing and knowing, and whose 

 veracity was tested by the most tremendous trials . . . during 

 long lives. Secondly, because of the marvellous effect it had upon 

 the world. As a moral phenomenon, the spread and mastery of 

 Christianity is without a parallel. I can no more believe that 

 colossal moral effects lasting for 2,000 years can be without cause, 

 than I can believe that the various motions of the magnet are 

 without a cause, though I cannot wholly explain them." 



Rev. F. E. Maesh said : — There are three facts which proclaim 

 the Resurrection a fact, and these are : The clothes as found in 

 the sepulchre ; the testimonies of those who saw Him alive ; and the 

 difference it made in the lives of those who saw Him. Let us ponder 

 the first. "Wlien Peter and John came to the sepulchre, one thing 

 which specially impressed them was "the linen clothes lying." 

 Mark, not the empty tomb. John first " saw the linen clothes 

 lying."' but he did not enter the tomb first. Peter went into the 

 tomb first, and " seeth the linen clothes lie"; then John went in. 

 and he " saw and believed." "^hat was it which specially impressed 

 John? The fact of the tomb being empty certainly did; but more 



