that he was no more commissioned from heaven, or armed with miraculous powers than you are, and that you can do as much as he ever really did? Then why cannot we persuade you to try? Surely you either may do what it is said he did, or, without doing it, make people believe it was done, which you say was the whole amount of his achievements.

But perhaps you will still make an effort to keep up your credit, and tell us, "Moses never even made the Jews believe that their law was given on mount Sinai, amidst manifest signs of Deity." Oh, well; if that is your turn, I wish I could change this night to to-morrow night, Friday, and this place to Duke's-place. There in the Synagogue you should see this law written up in Hebrew letters, the language in which it is said to have been delivered on mount Sinai. Ask the Jews why they have invented this law, and palmed it upon God. They will tell you, "We never invented it, we sometimes should like to get rid of it, for it is rather too strict, and condemns us for not keeping it. It is not our manufacture : we received it from our fathers, and before we could write Hebrew, we learned to repeat this law as given to us by God. If you ask our oldest men, they will tell you, that they received it from their fathers, who again declared that they had it from theirs; and thus you may go back till you come to the very days of Moses, when a whole nation could never have been persuaded that they had received this law from the lips of God, amidst signs which shook creation, if no such thing had occurred;" just as you know that you cannot make all London believe that

you have made them hear you speak like a God, to a million of people from Shooter's Hill.

But, come now, we wish to be liberal, and we will give you another trial upon a smaller scale. Go to Bartholomew's Hospital, which is just at hand, and take your choice of a subject for a miracle. Perhaps you may not find there a man born blind, but you may find a paralytic man, lying on a bed from which he never rises but when he is lifted out; or you can take your choice of a dropsical man who has come to be tapped. Now, in so fine a field, it would be a shame to be idle. Pluck up your courage, and try your hand at a miracle upon some one among them all. You say that Jesus deceived the eyes of the spectators, and why should not you? for you think yourselves as mighty as he, since you say he was no greater or better than you.

Here the spectators are not the greatest difficulty, but the sick man himself is the puzzle. Yet, if you say, "Ah, there is the rub!" how to make a man whose limbs are paralysed think himself well, and by the force of fancy to walk and carry his bed! how to make a man swollen with dropsy, feel or fancy that the water has all disappeared, and his limbs are small and firm! Don't be discouraged at this; for what has been done before, may be done again. But I see you are afraid of failure, and we must leave this poor man to the doctor, or to death, for fear you should be laughed at.

You shall not, however, say that Christians run you hard, and push you into a corner, to enjoy their

cruel sport at the expense of the infidels. Come, now, to the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, in the Kent Road-look about you, and see what a number of fine subjects for a miracle. They are all as dumb as fishes, because they are all as deaf as posts. Jesus made people to believe that he caused in a moment the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak. Then surely you can, for some of you say you are a great deal better than he. Gather a crowd, then, and bring forth your subject, and put your hand upon his ears, and say, "Be opened." Lay your finger upon his tongue, and bid it be loosed. Make the deaf hear you, and the dumb tongue to say, "Thank you, Sir, for your kindness; I can now hear and speak as well as you." And let the crowd follow you through the streets, praising the infidels, and saying that they can work miracles as well as Jesus. Ah! I see you are deaf to ́all my proposals, fair and honourable as they are, and you are become dumb as fishes; for there is not one of you that has courage to reply, " Well, so I will; and you shall see that I can work miracles, or at least make people believe that I can.”

Yet, after all, we will give you another chance. You know that Christians believe that Jesus raised the dead, more than once. You say he only made people believe that he did it. Well, why should not you do the same? One make-believe will be a set-off against another, and you will destroy what you call the great delusion. Now, there are plenty of burial grounds about London, and we may find some one who has been interred three or four

days, so that he is fresh in the memory of his friends, and they can tell when they see him again; and we can find some sisters who are still weeping for their deceased brother.

Now, gather your witnesses: you need not want spectators. Go to the grave; but stop-go first to the house of the mourners, and take them with you; for they will care most about the business. When you are come to the tomb, lift your voice, in bold style, as you know well enough how to do, and say, "Mr. Such-a-one, rise;" and see if you cannot persuade all about you that they behold him rising.

But why do you look so blank? What is the matter with you? You have courage enough to oppose and revile Jesus; why have you none to imitate and rival him? Are you saying to yourselves, "Though we should make all the people fancy that they saw the dead man rise; for a burial ground is a fine place for a morbid imagination to play its pranks in; yet that would not be enough; and the mischief is, that we could not make the sisters fancy that their dead brother went home and lived with them afterwards. If we could, we should have a splendid triumph; for then we should be invited to a good dinner, and people would come, not only to see us dine, but for the sake of seeing the man whom we raised from the dead sitting at table with us, as multitudes came, not merely to see Jesus, but Lazarus also, whom he raised from the dead.""

If it should be said, that Jesus and his apostles

neither wrought miracles, nor made men believe that they were wrought; but that the whole story has been invented in later days: it is easy to meet this mode of putting the thing. The writings of the New Testament can be traced back to the very time when the miracles were said to have been wrought, and when it would have been impossible to gain credit to the story, if it had not been true. Martyrs died for their faith in Jesus, while yet the persons were living on whom the miracles were wrought; and the history of the Roman Empire begins to be inoculated, if I may so express it, with Christian affairs, as soon as we come to the period when, according to the Christian history, we ought to expect to find the mention of its affairs.

Again, if infidels say, Jesus and his apostles neither wrought miracles, nor made men at the time believe that any were wrought; but that others in later days spread a false story, we challenge you to do the same. Neither work miracles, nor make men believe that you did; but spread the report that you did, and commit it to writing, and make the world believe it, and men die for it, if

you can.

Hume's famous argument, as it is called, may now demand notice. He says, "Miracles are an appeal to testimony against experience. My experience tells me that the laws of nature are never altered; but I am called upon to believe, upon the testimony of others, that these laws have been reversed in the case of miracles. Now, I have more reason to believe my own experience, that the laws of nature are not