REV. CANON G1KDLEST )NE, M.A., ON THE KKSUKKECTIOX, ETC 223 



Now I want to remind you of some of the phenomena 

 connected with the history of this marvellous event. First, 

 what are our materials ? We have the four Gospels ; the 

 records and the speeches contained in the Acts ; certain 

 passages in the Epistles, notably I Cor. xv, and some passages 

 of importance in the last book of the Bible, the Apocalypse ; 

 and then we have the moral and spiritual side of proof in the 

 deportment of the Apostles and their followers, their courage, 

 their success, and the way in which belief in the crucified and 

 risen Saviour Qvercame the old religions of Home and Greece. 

 And of course beyond these there are personal experimental 

 convictions which it is not my business to-day to say anything 

 about. I will not go into the age and authenticity of the books 

 in question, but for the purpose of to-day it is enough to say 

 that I take them as first century productions, and written by 

 Apostles or apostolic men, and therefore to be taken as the 

 highest possible authorities for the fact in question. 



Before you can really go into the question of the Resurrection 

 of Christ, it is of vital importance to prove that He actually 

 died. The Mohammedans, as you know, deny that our Lord 

 died, and some people have thought that He was in a state of 

 coma, and that in the coolness of the tomb He recovered. But 

 if He recovered in the coolness of the tomb after all He had 

 gone through, even supposing that the Apostles and the women 

 who loved Him so tenderly had charge of Him, what happened 

 to Him afterwards ? and how is it that the Apostles, whose faith 

 in Christ must have been rudely shaken, boldly preached the 

 Gospel of the Resurrection a few days afterwards ? You see 

 that a great deal hangs upon the death of Christ ; consequently 

 you investigate the materials and see what is said on the 

 subject. You examine the actual words. They are very like 

 one another. St. Matthew and St. Mark, rendered literally, say 

 " He expired " ; St. Luke, " He committed His spirit or breath to 

 the Father " ; and St. John, " He breathed His last." To expire 

 is to breathe your last. Many of you have stood by a death- 

 bed and watched that last breath, the last sighing out of the 

 soul from the body. The testimony of all the four gospels is 

 that Jesus breathed His last. Pilate was surprised that He had 

 breathed His last so early, but the soldier who had gone to 

 accelerate the death of the other two who were crucified with 

 Him, found that He was dead already. How did they know 

 it ? They judged — they were not of course professional men — 

 but they judged from considerable experience. They could tell 

 by what they saw that He was a dead man. But one of the 



