But there is a deep truth in it, if we use the Christian consciousness, not to supersede scripture, but as the living corroboration and interpreter of it. The Spirit of God still works on the hearts of men morally, as upon the apostles of old; not by conferring the intellectual gift of inspiration, but in the moral gifts of penitence, of conversion, of pardon, of holiness. Holy men now feel the Spirit of God striving with them as the apostles did, and appropriate the excellence of Christianity, and feel its renovating power now as then. Therefore the attestation of these men, such as is collected by an induction founded on their biographies, to the fact that when they analyse their secret feelings with the most exact care, they recognise that the pardon which they receive is through the mercy of Christ; that their moments of most hallowed communion with the Father-spirit are when they approach the throne of mercy through the mediation and intercession of another, Christ Jesus; that the victory vouchsafed to them over temptation, is by His merits; that their heart finds no Father for one moment except through him;—this evidence, if it can be accepted, is an independent corroboration of dogmatic truth. It may be explained away, by denying the truth of their analysis, or by referring their feeling to mental association; but it cannot fail to have a persuasive force for those who have faith in the instinctive utterances of the human soul: and the reliance upon it is not more extraordinary than that on which we depend in cognate subjects like æsthetics, where the taste of practical skill is trusted. Christian consciousness thus becomes a new source of facts in theological study; the living voice of the church for illustrating and confirming in some degree the utterance of men of old, who spake that which was revealed to their souls by the inspiring Spirit. Such are the chief steps which the history of evidences, in the contest with early heathenism, as well as in the recent struggle in Germany, seems to point out as the most likely to lead a doubter to Christ; and such the order in which the philosophical and historical evidences ought to be respectively presented, if our object be to give due heed to the desire which an inquirer evinces to appropriate the truth which he believes. Such too, if the opinion already advanced concerning the future of modern doubt be correct, seems to be the final answer which the church can give. Without undue compromise, commencing with the internal evidence, we thus lead men to the external, and make philosophy as it were the schoolmaster to lead to Christ. The third question of those which we enumerated as likely to press upon us, viz. that which refers to the inspiration of the scriptures, requires only a few words; inasmuch as the treatment of it has already, to some extent, been implied.