If sin, as all experience testifies, is universal, always downward, and its end when finished death, the redemption of multitudes[B] of the human race from its power to holiness, and bliss, and endless progress, as “heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ,” was an object _worthy_ of divine interposition, and only an atheist should look upon such a miracle of redemption as impossible or improbable. “’Twas great to speak a world from naught, ’Twas greater to redeem.” Christ’s resurrection being established, the darkness over the land, the rending of the veil, the coming[13] out of the tombs, the ministry of the angels in the garden before his betrayal, and at the sepulchre, the earthquake, the rolling away of the stone, and the fear that came upon the watchers, were fitting accompaniments of the transactions which they surrounded. Nor, if some of them are not mentioned by other historians, are they overthrown, for omission is not contradiction, in history any more than in courts. Why should Josephus, who was not born till some years after the crucifixion, and not a Christian, be expected to mention them? And as to Greek and Roman writers, even Renan[14] says that “it is not surprising that they paid little attention to a movement which was going on within a narrow space foreign to them. Christianity was lost to their vision upon the dark background of Judaism.” And so his being seen by Stephen the first martyr, by John in the Apocalypse, and by Paul on the way to Damascus, are in harmony with the record of his resurrection and ascension, and may be said to confirm them. Yet it may be questioned if Paul would have been so absolutely certain that Jesus (against whose followers he was breathing out threatening and slaughter) said to him, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” but for the previous appearances. If he would, he does not rest the case upon the one to himself. He gives the others first, and then adds, “And last of all ... to me also.” While there is a mutual support, the most solid basis for _our_ belief is, in the incontrovertible and tangible appearances which preceded Paul’s conversion; and when John would declare the _certainty_ of their faith, he says, “That which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we have beheld, and our hands handled.” (1 John i. 1). And viewing the indubitable proofs of his resurrection, in their relation to the prophecies concerning him, the necessity for his advent, his predictions concerning himself, his character and works and teachings from his incarnation to his ascension, the lives and deaths of his Apostles, the wonderful enlargement of his little church, when the Apostles “with great power gave their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,” and its equally wonderful continuance, extension, moral influence, inspirations and hopes, they rise to the sublimity of moral certainty.