e or
dishonest. But the witnesses of Christ could not, in the nature of the
case, belong to this class; they could not be mistaken about any such
facts as those of the gospel. The only fort to be held in order to hold
the gospel of Christ is the sincerity of his witnesses. When a man gets
rid of the evidence upon which the reputation of those witnesses for
honesty rests, he has removed the only evidence upon which it is possible
for him to build a reputation for truth and honesty. So, if a man succeeds
in sinking the gospel of Christ, he succeeds, at the same time and by the
same means, in sinking himself. This is the philosophic and logical
conclusion, from which there is no escape.

Let us look around one of the Savior's witnesses and see what we can
discover. First, we find Saul, a bold and fearless Jew, a Roman citizen by
birth, and a pharisee in the Jews religion; a legalist by profession;
laboring under all the prejudices of the straitest sect of the pharisees;
persecuting the Savior's disciples to the death. He was a man of no mean
attainments. His worldly prospects were greater than those of any other
man known to be converted from among the Jews. The testimony which he
submits for our consideration is like the evidence of all the others. It
consists in simple facts about which there was no possibility of being
mistaken, for the facts were seen and heard. Allowing that Saul did
neither see nor hear the Savior, he was insincere. And if he was, then we
shall always be at a loss to know what constitutes the basis of an honest
reputation. Did he give his evidence, knowing that it was false, with the
intention of deceiving? If so, what were his motives? He could have had no
reasonable inducements. Christianity could not furnish him with temporal
power, credit, or interest during all his lifetime. So far as credit was
concerned, in the affair of his conversion, he knew that the world had
none to give. He knew that preaching Christ crucified was "to the Jews a
stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness." He knew that the Christ
himself had been crucified. Credit or reputation was lying upon the
anti-christian side of the gospel. He was already in high esteem among the
Jews; a "_ring-leader_," pursuing the course of action calculated in the
very nature of things to advance him higher in their estimation. His
entire life demonstrated the fact that he expected nothing of the Jews,
for it was spent, with trifling except