It is no doubt a fact, that the practice of literary forgery was not unknown to the early ages of Christianity. St. Paul seems to have thought that there were in the world impostors daring enough to attempt to forge a letter in his name, and to try to foist it on the churches which he had planted, as a genuine production. But the existence of such impostors has no bearing whatever on the question whether the miracles recorded in the New Testament are facts or fiction. Did not St. Paul himself assert that he had performed miracles? Was he an impostor? Did he not believe that Jesus Christ in veritable reality rose from the dead? What have such beliefs to do with the existence of a set of daring literary impostors? Happily, however, the whole of this class of ancient writers were utter bunglers in the art of fictitious composition. It is a universal characteristic of them, that they were entirely unable to throw themselves into the spirit of former times, or of the persons whose names they assumed. In their references to history, geography, manners, customs, and character, they lay themselves open at almost every point to certain detection. There is good reason for believing that no forger or writer of fiction in the ancient world has succeeded in his art. In investing fiction with apparent probability, the modern world has completely outstript the ancient. Still, however, even in the most perfect works, when the fictions are extended over a wide sphere of action, no amount of genius will protect a writer from leaving some weak point unguarded. It is probably not too much to say that neither in ancient nor modern times, has a fictitious work or a forgery been able to maintain its ground against the apparatus which can be brought to bear on it by a sound and rational criticism. Most of the other objections which are adduced against the miracles of the New Testament have been answered in principle under the foregoing heads. I must now adduce some of the most important considerations which prove them to have been historical facts. CHAPTER XVII. THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE ON WHICH THE GREAT FACTS OF CHRISTIANITY REST—GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.