of it, as an idle tale,--one of whom even would not yield to sight itself, but demanded to touch the nail-prints in the holy palms, and to thrust his hand into the sacred side. And as to the women, when they came to the sepulchre on the third day, it was not to hail a risen Jesus, but to anoint a buried one. That persons represented by the historians as burdened with doubts, and fears, and unbelief, and demanding demonstrative evidence, should have been finally convinced, and should have staked their all upon that conviction, removes them for ever utterly beyond all reasonable suspicion of dreaming strangely coloured dreams of their Lord's risen life,--to say nothing of collusion and fraud,--and places them at once amongst witnesses, who well knew what they said, and whereof they affirmed. The credibility of the witness borne to another resurrection is also well established. For evidence of the authenticity of the Gospel of St. John, I refer to Professor Lightfoot's lecture, and would only remark upon the narrative in this Gospel--a narrative so full of pathetic beauty--that it is impossible to explain away its details by possibilities of misapprehension, and pardonable exaggerations of extraordinary incidents. Thus much is indisputable, Lazarus was sick unto death. To all human appearance he died. He died, and was buried, and remained so long in the grave that it was believed the corruption of his corpse had commenced. Coincident with the utterance by Jesus, at the door of the tomb, of the words, "Lazarus, come forth!" the body moved, arose, came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes; in consequence of which, "many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on Him." Here were presented to the senses of witnesses phenomena involving the performance of a miracle. A distinction has been justly drawn between testimony to phenomena cognizable by the senses, and miracles completely considered on their invisible and divine side, as well as their visible and human one. "Testimony," it is said, "can apply only to apparent sensible facts; testimony can only prove an extraordinary and perhaps inexplicable occurrence or phenomenon; that it is due to supernatural causes is entirely dependent on the previous belief and assumption of the parties."[49] With the omission of the words "previous belief and assumption," and the substitution of the words "reflection and conviction,"--whether exercised and experienced at the time or afterwards,--I accept the statement. Phenomena are immediately apprehensible; the cause is not so. A persuasion that the cause is miraculous arises in the mind as an inference from what is directly witnessed. But what is directly witnessed may be of such a nature as to compel the witness, as a reasonable person, to believe that what has taken place results from a supernatural interposition. This conviction implies, indeed, that the person believes in the existence