its favor, and in favor of any specific statement that it makes. If, then, we find in it a positive statement in regard to any fact, and that statement is now confronted by another and a contradictory one, the two do not stand on the same level. The new claimant must prove his position, and to prove it he must disprove the truth of the Scripture record. It is not enough to show that his proposition might be true if we had no other information on the subject: he must show that the Scripture, with its mass of supporting and cumulative evidence, is false; and he must support his new proposition by a body of evidence stronger than this manifold evidence of ages by which the Scriptures are sustained. The application of this principle is obvious, yet nothing is more common than its violation. An hypothesis with certain analogies perhaps in its favor, but admittedly without a solitary positive proof to sustain it, is put forward as an established truth without regard to the fact that the Bible, with its general character of veracity behind it, gives another and an entirely different account of the matter. We will not say this is irreverent: it is unfair and unreasonable. The character of the Bible may justly claim to sustain its record till it is proved false. Deal with it as fairly as you deal with the red-handed anarchist: let the book be innocent till proved guilty; and if innocent, the written word, like the incarnate Word, stands a true witness in all things for ever. Condemned, crucified, buried, it will rise again. It is a perilous thing to condemn the guiltless. Let us pass to another rule of law; it is this: "The testimony of a single witness, where there is no ground for suspecting either his ability or integrity, is a sufficient legal ground for belief" (_Starkie on Ev._, i. 550). The mere silence of one witness or of many witnesses cannot set aside the clear, positive testimony of a single trustworthy witness. That Josephus does not mention events which Moses records does not affect the truth of the Mosaic record, and his silence as to the Bethlehem massacre--even if no reason could be suggested for it, as there can be--cannot, under this rule of law, affect the positive testimony of Matthew that there was such a massacre.