er are needed to declare the precious material, this very rust of
antiquity, through which his patience has penetrated, becomes one of the
inimitable marks of historic verity. Every year throws some new light on
texts difficult to us from our ignorance of those manners, customs,
names, and places, which Infidel malice and Christian piety have
combined to explore; and from the ruins of Nineveh and the sepulchers of
Egypt we receive unlooked-for testimonies to the minute accuracy of the
penmen of the Bible.

5. The manner in which the apostles published their testimony to the
world bears every mark of truthfulness. Deception and forgery skulk, and
try to spread themselves at first in holes and corners, but he that
doeth truth cometh to the light. Had the apostles been conscious of
falsehood, would they have dared to assert that Jesus was risen from the
dead in the very streets of the city where he was crucified? in the
temple, the most public place of resort of the Jews who saw him
crucified? and to the teeth of the very men who put him to death? If
conscious of falsehood, would they have dared, before the chief priests,
and the council, and all the senate of Israel, to assert that "The God
of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him
hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, to
give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins. And we are his
witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost which God hath
given to them that obey him."--Acts v. 30. Would Paul, had he been
conscious that he was relating falsehood, have dared to appeal to the
judge, before whom he was on trial for his life, as to one who knew the
notoriety of these facts, "For the king knoweth of these things, before
whom also I speak freely; for I am persuaded that none of these things
are hidden from him: for this thing was not done in a corner."--Acts
xxvi. 26. Would such appeals have been suffered to pass uncontradicted
had the statements of the apostles been false?

The boldness of their manner, however, of telling their story, is
little, compared with the boldness of the design which they had in view
in telling it; which was nothing less than to convert the world. Now the
idea of proselyting other nations to a new religion was absolutely
unknown to the world at that time. The Greeks and Romans never dreamed
of any such thing. They would sometimes add a new god to their old
Pantheon, but the ide