, reform
their lives, give peace to their consciences, and enable them to meet
death with a joyful hope of life eternal. It has done these things in
times past, and is doing them now. These are its undoubted fruits.
Reader, this faith may be yours. It will work the same results in you as
it has done in others. Like causes ever produce like effects. Jesus
waits to deliver you from your sins, to fill you with joy and peace in
believing, and make you abound in hope, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
He has promised, if you will ask it, "I will give them a heart to know
me, that I am the Lord."

FOOTNOTES:

[73] Lardner VII. page 18, _et seq._

[74] Pronounced Laar Owen--John's Book.

[75] Lib. X. Ep. 97, Lardner VII. 22.

[76] Lib. X. Ep. 98, Lardner VII. 24.

[77] Decline and Fall, Vol. II. page 407.

[78] Lib. XV. chap. 44.

[79] The sufferings of the Jews, under Antiochus, are no exception. They
suffered for their faith in the true God, the Messiah to come, and a
resurrection to life eternal.

CHAPTER VII.

CAN WE BELIEVE CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES?

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which
we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our
hands have handled of the Word of life * * * that which we
have seen and heard declare we unto you."--1 John i. 1.

We have seen that the companions of Jesus wrote the books of the New
Testament; that their statements of the existence, worship, morals, and
faith of the Christian Church are confirmed by their enemies, and that
multitudes of heathens were turned from vice to virtue by the belief of
the testimony of these men. They testified that Jesus Christ did many
wonderful miracles, died for our sins, and rose again from the dead;
that they saw, and felt his body, and ate, and drank, and conversed with
him for forty days after his resurrection; that he ascended up to heaven
in their sight; that he sent them to tell the world that he will come
again in the clouds of heaven, with his mighty angels, to judge the
living and the dead; that he who believes these things and is baptized
shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. This is their
statement. The question is, Can we believe them?

1. The first thing which strikes us in their testimony is, that it
stands out utterly different from all other religions. There is nothing
in the world like it, not even its counterfeits. The great central fact