Christianity dates thus early, there are only three modes in which it is possible to account for it, viz. that it was due to deliberate and conscious imposture; or that Jesus and His immediate followers laboured under a delusion when they thought that they performed miracles; or that they were really wrought. As no one now‐a‐days pretends to maintain the truth of the first alternative, we may dismiss it from further consideration. But it will be asserted that St. Paul does not mention any specific miracles which he considered that he had performed, and that his statements are merely general. I reply that such a mode of statement is precisely what we should expect to find in a letter of this kind, and is just the one which would be adopted by a person who was satisfied that those to whom he was writing were as firmly convinced of the fact as he was himself.... A formal and distinct description of the miracles which he had performed would have been quite out of place in a reference of this kind, and would have implied that doubts respecting them existed on one side or the other. Besides, the words which he uses embrace all the different expressions by which the various kinds and aspects of miracles are designated in the New Testament. Secondly: These letters also afford unquestionable evidence that at the time when they were written both the writer and those to whom he addressed them, were firmly convinced that there was then actively operating in the Church a number of supernatural manifestations of a very peculiar character, and widely different from any species of supernatural belief which has been current before or since. I allude to the gifts of the Spirit, to which the Apostle has so frequently alluded in these Epistles, and of the nature of which he has in those to the Corinthians given a distinct account, together with definite rules to regulate their use. The reason why he has given us a far more definite account of this class of manifestations than of the other is obvious. In the Church in question they had become the subjects of ambitious rivalry, and under its influence some of them had been perverted to pernicious uses. The whole subject is definitely treated of in the 12th, 13th, and 14th chapters of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, besides a number of distinct references to it in other portions of his writings. These assertions on the part of St. Paul that both he and those to whom he wrote were fully of opinion that supernatural powers were then manifested in the Church, are so clear that they require a most careful consideration. The following points respecting them are proved by this Epistle.