"Him God raised up the third day, and showed him openly, not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and drink with him." (Acts 10 : 41.) To appear to a few private friends for one day does not seem much like bringing life and immortality to light to the whole world. The method is too narrow and exclusive. And even of these few friends not one has left the record for us of what he saw. The writers who have recorded the current traditions of their time, agree in saying that Mary Magdalene found the grave empty: further than this the writers do not corroborate one another. How soon the resurrection of the physical body became popular we have no means of knowing. It was not certainly until some time after the writings of Paul were given to the churches, for he, as we have seen, speaks, of it as a spiritual resurrection. So also does Peter (1 Peter 3 : 13), speak of Jesus "being slain in the flesh, but made alive again in the spirit." The legend became more and more marvelous as it spread abroad. Enthusiasm inflamed the minds of the ignorant and superstitious until the subjective visions of Paul became crystalized into objective realities. His visions, and the visions, revelations and messages of the angels of others were reduced in popular belief to historical facts. CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT HISTORICAL BASIS. 1. No one of the four gospels is mentioned in any other part of the New Testament. [This assuredly would not have been the case had they been the oldest, and the foundation on which the whole was built.] 2. No work of art of any kind has ever been discovered, no painting or engraving, no sculpture or other relic of antiquity which may be looked upon as furnishing additional evidence of the existence of those gospels, and which was executed earlier than the latter part of the second century. Even the explorations of the Christian catacombs failed to bring to light any evidence of that character. 3. The four gospels were written in Greek, and there was no translation of them into other languages earlier than the third century. 4. No manuscript of the gospels are in existence dating further back than the fourth century. Of that century, or the next, there are three or four, and some twenty or thirty, more than a thousand years old. 5. No autograph manuscript of any of the gospels has ever been known, so far as there is any authentic record, nor has any credible witness ever claimed to have seen such a manuscript. No one has ever claimed to have seen such a manuscript of either of the four gospels in the hand-writing of Luke, Mark, Matthew, or John. If the autograph manuscripts had ever existed they would have been preserved among the most sacred relics of the church. 6. During the first two centuries tradition was esteemed of more value and better evidence of the gospel history, than any written books or manuscripts.