There are things about which wise men may be mistaken, but they are not things which address themselves to the senses. Those are things in which fools may not, can not, be mistaken. It is impossible for my wife to be mistaken about my presence at this moment, but it is just as possible as it was for any of the first witnesses of Christ’s resurrection to be mistaken. They were not, they could not be mistaken. Then what becomes of Strauss’s mythical idea. What folly it is to allow that those witnesses were perfectly honest, enthusiastically and proverbially honest in all they said, and yet mistaken. This moral honesty and enthusiasm which Strauss and others allow to the credit of the witnesses is undoubtedly designed as a feeler—a mere catering to the views of Christians upon the character of the first Christians. Very good fellows (?) after all. How is that? If one of my neighbors would go into a court room to-morrow and testify under oath that he was with me yesterday, and the court was in possession of the fact that I was not with him, or near him at all, would it allow honesty to the witness? Would not every sensible man say, in his heart, he is a perjured witness? If he was with Walker he knew it; and if he was not with him he knew it. Gentlemen, exercise all your shrewdness, adopt Strauss’s idea of a mythical origin of the gospel of Christ, both as respects his miracles, which were either seen or not seen, and as respects his resurrection, then spread the blanket of honesty and warm-hearted enthusiasm over those men who sacrificed everything, life not excepted, for the testimony which they bore, and the next day any well-instructed judge of our courts would say, it is nonsense; they could not be mistaken about any fact which addressed itself to their eyes and ears. Christ rose from the dead if the witnesses told the truth; and the witnesses told the truth if they were honest men; and if they were not honest, labor, toil, suffering and martyrdom are no evidences of sincerity. ------------------------------------- Can you believe in harmony without believing in a harmonist? Can you believe that all things in nature adjusted themselves to each other? Can you believe that life, and mind, and moral nature, each and all came from where neither existed? MISCELLANEOUS. Voltaire built a church to God at Ferney. Can you believe that your great ancestors were apes? Do you oppose the Bible and prefer its legitimate effects? Huxley wants the Bible introduced into boarding schools. Can you believe in design without believing in a designer? Tyndal says the theory of evolution of species is utterly uncredited. Can you believe that the type which made these letters set themselves up? The _Saturday Review_ says Hume used to go to church sometimes in Scotland. Can you believe that mind is the result of blind, unintelligent, mechanical forces?