absurd; but excuses are found for it. Its history may be false, but it is twisted into truth. Its supernatural marvels may be flagrantly absurd; but they are nevertheless believed in. Men who laugh at the visions of the "blessed Margaret" of Paray-le-Monial assent to the devil-drowning of the swine of Gadara; and those who would scorn to investigate the tale of the miraculous spring at Lourdes, find no difficulty in believing the story of the angel-moved waters of Bethesda's pool. A book which contains miracles is usually put aside as unreliable. There is no good reason for excepting the Bible from this general rule. Miracles are absolutely incredible, and discredit at once any book in which they occur. They are found in all revelations, but never in nature, they are plentiful in man's writings, but they never deface the orderly pages of the great book of God, written by His own Hand on the earth, and the stars, and the sun. Powers? Yes, beyond our grasping, but Powers moving in stately order and changeless consistency. Marvels? Yes, beyond our imagining, but marvels evolved by immutable laws. Revelation is incredible, not only because it fails to bring proof of its truth, but because the proofs abound of its falsehood; it claims to be Divine, and we reject it because we test it by what we know of His undoubted works, for men can write books of Him and call them His revelations, but the frame of nature can only be the work of that mighty Power which man calls God. Revelation depicts Him as changeable, nature as immutable; revelation tells us of perfection marred, nature of imperfection improving; revelation speaks of a Trinity, nature of one mighty central Force; revelation relates interferences, miracles, nature unbroken sequences, inviolable law. If we accept revelation we must believe in a God Who made man upright but could not keep him so; Who heard in his far-off heaven the wailing of His earth and came down to see if things were as bad as was reported; Who had a face which brought death, but Whose hinder parts were visible to man; Who commanded and accepted human sacrifice; Who was jealous, revengeful, capricious, vain; Who tempted one king and then punished him for yielding, hardened the heart of another and then punished him for not yielding, deceived a third and thereby drew him to his death. But nature does not so outrage our morality and trample on our hearts; only we learn of a power and wisdom unspeakable, "mightily and sweetly ordering all things," and our hearts tell of a Father and a Friend, infinitely loving, and trustworthy, and good. The God of Nature and the God of Revelation are as opposed as Ormuzd and Ahriman, as darkness and light; the Bible and the universe are not writ by the same hand. II. Revelation then being so utterly untrustworthy, it is satisfactory to discover, secondly, that it is perfectly superfluous.