88 THE REV. CANON E. MCCLURE, M.A., M.R.I.A., OS 



attested and proved by witnesses at once honest, capable, and con- 

 temporary, they could not be overthrown. The witnesses attesting 

 the facts of the Gospels were honest. Paley proved this by 

 showing that they died to attest the truth of their testimony. 

 Hume suggested that, though honest, they may not have been 

 capable. But they were quite competent to attest the truth of the 

 things which they had seen and heard. Hence the endeavour of 

 modern higher crititical scholarship to prove that they were not 

 contemporary, and to date the Gospels and the Epistles from the 

 second or third centuries. These attempts had all ended in failure. 

 The testimony of the Apostles to the facts of the Gospels had never 

 been disproved. It was the testimony of honest and capable men 

 as to facts which they had seen with their own eyes, heard with 

 their own ears, and handled with their own hands. And it was 

 confirmed by the perpetual testimony of the Holy Spirit in the 

 hearts of those who believed. The truth of the facts which formed 

 the basis of Christianity could only be overthrown by discrediting 

 the witnesses, and this had never been done. Modernism was not 

 an adaptation of Christianity to the needs of the modern mind, but 

 the substitution for it of another Scheme which was not a modifica- 

 tion, but a repudiation, of the Christian Scheme as a whole. 



Lt.-Col. MAGKINLAY desired heartily to second the vote of thanks 

 to the Lecturer for a most valuable paper. 



The Modernist rests his position upon a denial of the historical 

 character of the Gospels. The writings of St. Luke, apart from 

 their inspiration, are now regarded by careful scholars as accurately 

 historical. Xot only does he allude to many well-known contem- 

 poraneous events, such as the enrolments in the Roman Empire, the 

 pro-consulship of Gallio, etc., but he gives most accurately the exact 

 titles of various Roman officials as proved by recently discovered 

 inscriptions, as well as certain geographical boundaries recognized in 

 his day as demonstrated by Sir W. M. Ramsay. He describes most 

 naturally the effects of the love of money on various persons, and 

 he gives other graphic touches true to human nature. Such writings 

 are not consistent with the inclusion of myth and fable. The 

 orderly historical character of the puzzling central chapters of 

 St. Luke's Gospel is now being demonstrated. 



This line of attack on the Modernist position showing the historical 

 accuracy of one of the Gospels has only been employed of late 



