pt a God at all let us accept an honest one.

EVIDENCE OF FAITH.

We are asked to be as fair toward the evidence of Bible witnesses as we
are toward other evidence. We are told that we believe a great deal that
we have never seen, and that we accept it on the word of others; that we
have never seen a man hung, but that we believe that men have been hung;
we never saw Napoleon's great feats of generalship, but we believe in
them because history records them. Why not believe in the Bible as well
as in other history? Why not, on the testimony of witnesses, believe
that Christ turned water into wine, as readily as that a man was hung?
Why not accept the miracle of the loaves and fishes on evidence, as
readily as the victories of Napoleon?

Now that line of argument, although it is the one used by and for
theological students, is entirely illogical. It will not work with
people who think. The cases are not parallel.

We believe the facts of history and the occurrences of to-day not
solely on the testimony of others, but because they are in accord with
common-sense and experience and judgment; because they fall within the
range of possibility, and do not antagonize the laws of nature. We know
a man can be hung. We know one general may defeat another. We are asked
to believe nothing outside of reasonable bounds. Here then the only
thing to examine is the credibility of the witnesses.

If, however, our witnesses told us that whenever Napoleon wanted to know
the strength of an enemy he flew up over their camp and counted their
men; or that when he found too many he prayed down fire from heaven and
burned them up, we should dismiss their testimony at once as unworthy
of farther notice. We should know that they were deceived, or that they
were trying to deceive us. We should know that Napoleon's real means
of estimating the strength of his enemy were of a different nature,
and that he did not resort to the upper air and flit about at will. We
should know that no fire was prayed down, and that although soldiers
might be told to put their trust in God, the little addition--"and keep
your powder dry"--would be the really important part of the command.

So when we are told that wine was made out of water, and bread and fish
out of nothing in large quantities, we know that we are listening to
statements that simply go out of the field of credible testimony into
the realm of supreme credulity. Such assertions require you to b