7. The _resurrection_ of Jesus is the miracle of miracles, of which we may say with truth that it comprehends in itself all the other mighty works recorded in the gospel history. We cannot but notice the condescending care with which our Lord himself certified to his disciples its reality. When he had suddenly appeared in the midst of them, "they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit." To convince them of the reality of his bodily presence, he said, "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet," that they might see in them the prints of the nails. Finding them still incredulous, "believing not for joy and wondering," he added another conclusive proof that he was not a spirit, but a true man: he asked for meat; "and they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb; and he took it, and did eat before them." Luke 24:36-43. To the unbelieving Thomas he offered the further proof which he had demanded: "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing." The certainty of this great event the evangelist Luke sets forth in his introduction to the Acts of the Apostles: "To whom also," (to the apostles,) "he showed himself alive after his passion, by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." The apostle Peter, in his address to Cornelius and his friends, says: "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 after he rose from the dead." Acts 10:40, 41. The apostle Paul, in his enumeration of our Lord's appearances to his disciples after his resurrection, 1 Cor. 5-8, mentions that on one occasion "he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom," he says, "the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep."