It follows, therefore, that this great miracle forms the very key of the Christian position. Everything else is an outwork, an important one it may be, but yet an outwork. If this position can be successfully assailed, the entire fortress of Christianity must surrender at discretion. If, on the other hand, the most determined unbeliever could be convinced that there is good historical evidence that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, he would find no difficulty in accepting the Gospels as historical documents, and the whole _à priori_ objection against them would disappear. Again: If the Resurrection of Christ is a fact, Christianity must be a divine revelation. The perfect historical accuracy of the Gospels in minute details may be still open to question; deep thought and careful investigation may be necessary for ascertaining the precise amount of truth communicated by that revelation; past ages may have erred in its interpretation, or in their deductions from it; many questions as to the relation in which revelation stands to science or history may be open ones—all this is both conceivable and possible—but still, if Jesus Christ rose from the dead, his entire manifestation, work, and teaching, must be a communication from God to man. This then is my position. The real question stands within very narrow limits. The miracle that requires strong historical proof is the Resurrection. The other supernatural occurrences recorded in the Gospels are important portions of the revelation made by Christ. They were important evidences to those who witnessed them. But to us in these latter times the one great question is: Is the Resurrection capable of being established as an actual occurrence? If it is, it will carry with it all the others. If it is not, the proof of the others will fall along with it. Let us examine the historical conditions of the case. Christianity differs from all other religions in professing not to consist of a mass of abstract dogmatic statements, but to be founded on, and largely to consist of, a number of historical facts. There are unquestionably a considerable number of dogmatic statements in the pages of the New Testament; but they profess to grow out of the facts and to be explanations of them. The facts form, so to say, the essence of the religion. The Christianity of the New Testament is a growth which encircles itself around the person of its founder in a manner in which no other system of thought or religion, which has existed among men, has ever done. If we take the person of Jesus Christ out of the New Testament, the whole system of its teaching crumbles into nothingness. If we remove the person of its founder from every other system of human thought—its great religions form no exception—the system remains intact. This is a very striking peculiarity in Christianity. In this respect it stands absolutely unique.