is still felt to be contrary to nature. But there is another feature, wholly exceptional and unprecedented, which characterised the new society; the evidence for which is too distinct to be set aside or explained away--the first Epistle to Corinth affords conclusive proof of the existence of miraculous gifts in the Church there. These gifts were of various kinds; the most mysterious of them being the gift of tongues. Whatever this was, it is sufficiently clear that it was over-estimated, and that it was abused. The possessors of it were puffed up on account of it. They were disposed to prefer it before charity, and the less obtrusive gifts of the Spirit. We can only conclude, therefore, that this gift was a reality which was acknowledged and envied by others, but a reality likewise which was peculiar to the Church, and which was limited to the area of belief in Christ. Now we must not assume that the possession of this gift was miraculous; all we may insist upon is the validity of the evidence that it was real, and of this the fourteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians presents incontestable proof, and consequently the existence of this gift is a distinguishing characteristic of the effects which followed the original profession of the faith of Jesus. Not only was the standard of morality raised by it, not only were new dispositions awakened by it, and new capacities and tastes created, and new desires and hopes implanted, not only were the original propensities, inclinations, and antipathies of nature resisted, thwarted, and overcome; but in addition to this, there is a plain evidence of new powers and endowments being conferred upon the first believers concurrently with their belief in Christ. Now it is obviously impossible that delusion can have operated in all these cases; but unless it did, the multiplicity and combination of them supply no inconsiderable confirmation of the reality of that event, the belief in which was the very basis of their existence. Multitudes believed in the fact that Christ had risen from the dead, and the profession of that belief was followed by one or other of these results. A great change was wrought in numerous instances which was unprecedented in the experience of the individual, and which could find no counterpart in the experience of the heathen world; and if the results which followed the proclamation of a fact were conspicuously so real, is it possible that the fact itself was less so? For there is only one alternative--if the cause producing these results was not a fact--namely, that _belief_ in a particular event which was not a fact, produced them. In other words, not only was the faith of the early Church self-originated, but moreover, all the phenomena of its existence were the product of that which itself had no existence.