Without some such moral creation attending the first planting of Christianity, the formation of this unique society out of the various elements of which it was composed, and their welding together into an organization instinct with life, which has imbued with its principles all existing institutions, must remain a problem which baffles all the attempts of philosophy to solve. Lastly: These letters prove on the highest historical evidence that a supernatural power was believed to be manifested in the Church at the date of their composition, wholly different from any kind of ordinary current supernatural belief. Through the Acts of the Apostles, its existence can be traced up to a still earlier period. Two of these gifts, but two only, involved a power which we should now designate as essentially miraculous. This being so, the testimony of St. Paul, involving as it does that of the entire Church, is express as to the belief of contemporaries that miracles were actually performed. We can trace this belief up to the first origin of Christianity. If Jesus was believed to have endowed His followers with this power, it is impossible to believe that He was not supposed to have possessed it himself. These Epistles therefore are evidence that the earliest followers of Jesus believed that He was a worker of miracles. So far the proof is complete that the ascription of miracles to Jesus and His original followers was not due to the imagination of subsequent generations. The careful perusal of these Epistles can leave only one impression on the mind of the reader, that he is in the presence of facts of an unquestionably historical character. CHAPTER XIX. THE EVIDENCE FURNISHED BY THE EPISTLES TO THE FACTS OF OUR LORD’S LIFE, AND TO THE TRUTH OF THE RESURRECTION. I have proved in the last chapter that St. Paul and those to whom he wrote his Epistles firmly believed that a number of supernatural manifestations were displaying themselves in the Church under their immediate observation, and that their presence can be traced up to a much earlier date. I have also shown that St. Paul asserts in the most positive language that he was persuaded that he wrought miracles during the whole course of his mission. It is therefore in the highest degree probable that the servant was convinced that he did by the divine power of his Master that which he believed that his Master had accomplished before him; in other words, that he was a worker of miracles. But as it has been asserted that St. Paul knew only of a divine, and scarcely anything of a human Jesus, that is to say, that he was to a great extent ignorant of the events of our Lord’s life, I must inquire what light the Epistles throw on this subject; for if it can be shown that St. Paul allowed himself to be ignorant of the human life of Jesus, it lowers the value of his testimony to the fact of the Resurrection.