When criminals persist in denying their crimes they do it with the hope of saving their lives. Such cases are not parallel. Who ever heard of persons dying _willingly_ in attestation of a false fact? Can we be made to believe that any set of rational men could be found who would _willingly die_ in attestation of the false fact that the President of the United States is now on the throne of England? The witnesses of Christ died in attestation of those facts which they say they saw, and heard, and knew, among which was the great fact of the resurrection of Christ. It was their privilege to quit their evidence, at any instant, and save their lives, but they did not do it. Who can account for this strange course of conduct upon the ground of dishonesty? If a man reports an uncommon fact that is a plain object of sense, and we do not believe him, it is because we suspect his honesty and not his senses. If we are satisfied that the reporter is sincere, of course we believe. So our case is now in this shape: First, the great facts of the gospel of Christ addressed themselves, as simple facts, to the senses of men; second, no witness could affirm those facts honestly unless they took place; third, the witnesses to those facts gave all the evidences of sincerity and honesty that are possible. Reputation for truthfulness and honesty has never rested upon any evidence that is not found in great abundance in the lives of the witnesses of Christ. It is said that men die for false opinions: very true, but their sufferings and death, nevertheless, prove that they were sincere. True philosophy does not charge men who die for their opinions with dishonesty. Men may be mistaken in some things, but mistaken men are _not cheats_; are not insincere or dishonest. But the witnesses of Christ could not, in the nature of the case, belong to this class; they could not be mistaken about any such facts as those of the gospel. The only fort to be held in order to hold the gospel of Christ is the sincerity of his witnesses. When a man gets rid of the evidence upon which the reputation of those witnesses for honesty rests, he has removed the only evidence upon which it is possible for him to build a reputation for truth and honesty. So, if a man succeeds in sinking the gospel of Christ, he succeeds, at the same time and by the same means, in sinking himself. This is the philosophic and logical conclusion, from which there is no escape.