All the Christian theologians which the world has yet produced have not been able to procure any evidence of the miracles recorded in the _Gospels_, half so strong as can be procured in evidence of miracles performed by heathens and heathen gods, both before and after the time of Jesus; and, as they cannot do this, let them give us a reason why we should reject the one and receive the other. And if they cannot do this, let them candidly confess that we must either admit them all, or reject them all, for they all stand on the same footing. In the early times of the Roman republic, in the war with the Latins, the gods Castor and Pollux are said to have appeared on white horses in the Roman army, which by their assistance gained a complete victory: in memory of which, the General Posthumius vowed and built a temple to these deities; and for a proof of the fact, there was shown, we find, in Cicero's time (106 to 43 B. C.), the marks of the horses' hoofs on a rock at Regillum, where they first appeared.[270:1] Now this miracle, with those which have already been mentioned, and many others of the same kind which could be mentioned, has as authentic an attestation, if not more so, as any of the Gospel miracles. It has, for instance: The decree of a senate to confirm it; visible marks on the spot where it was transacted; and all this supported by the best authors of antiquity, amongst whom Dionysius, of Halicarnassus, who says that there was subsisting in his time at Rome many evident proofs of its reality, besides a yearly festival, with a solemn sacrifice and procession, in memory of it.[270:2] With all these evidences in favor of this miracle having really happened, it seems to us so ridiculous, that we wonder how there could ever have been any so simple as to believe it, yet we should believe that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, after he had been in the tomb four days, our only authority being that _anonymous_ book known as the "Gospel according to St. John," which was not known until after A. D. 173. Albert Barnes, in his "Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity," speaking of the authenticity of the Gospel miracles, makes the following damaging confession: