Are the miracle stories credible? Every ancient nation has had its miracle workers, but modern science has relegated all miracle history to realms of fable, myth, illusion, delusion, or fraud. Can Christian miracles be made the exceptions? Is it likely that the nations amongst whom the dead were restored to life would have persistently ignored the author of such miracles? Were the miracles purposeless, or if intended to convince the Jews, was God unable to render his intentions effective? That five thousand persons should be fed with five loaves and two fishes, and that an apparent excess should remain beyond the original stock, is difficult to believe; but that shortly after this--Jesus having to again perform a similar miracle for four thousand persons--his own disciples should ignore his recent feat, and wonder from whence the food was to be derived, is certainly startlingly incredible. If this exhibition of incredulity were pardonable on the part of the twelve apostles, living witnesses of greater wonders, how much more pardonable the unbelief of the sceptic of to-day, which the Religious Tract Society seek to overcome by a faint echo of asserted events all contrary to probability, and with nineteen centuries intervening. The casting out the devils presents phenomena requiring considerable credulity, especially the story of the devils and the swine. To-day insanity is never referable to demoniacal possession, but eighteen hundred years ago the subject of lunacy had not been so patiently investigated as it has been since. That one man could now be tenanted by several devils is a proposition for which the maintainer would in the present generation incur almost universal contempt; yet the repudiation of its present possibility can hardly be consistent with implicit credence in its ancient history. That the devils and God should hold converse together, although not without parallel in the book of Job, is inconsistent with the theory of an infinitely good Deity; that the devils should address Jesus as son of the most high God, and beg to be allowed to enter a herd of swine, is at least ludicrous; yet all this helps to make up the narrative on which Dr. Tischendorf relies. That Jesus being God should pray to his Father that "the cup might pass" from him is so incredible that even the faithful ask us to regard it as mystery. That an angel from heaven could strengthen Jesus, the almighty God, is equally mysterious. That where Jesus had so prominently preached to thousands, the priests should need any one like Judas to betray the founder of Christianity with a kiss, is absurd; his escapade in flogging the dealers, his wonderful cures, and his raising Lazarus and Jairus's daughter should have secured him, if not the nation's love, faith, and admiration, at least a national reputation and notoriety. It is not credible if Judas betrayed Jesus by a kiss that the latter should have been arrested upon his own statement that he was Jesus. That Peter