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now no other power which has upheld them but the power of Christ whom they have taken for their Lord. Others have sometimes been set up as in some sort rivals to Him as teachers or as examples; but here there is no rival even pretended. In no other man have men been called on to believe as a living present power, able to give strength and victory in the conflicts of the soul. The Church, too, has passed through times of spiritual depression, we may almost say of degradation. And in the worst of times within the Church there has always remained a wonderful recuperative power, which has shaken off inconsistencies and defects in the past, and will do so yet more in the future. But this recuperative power has always shown itself in one form, and in one form only, namely, a return to Christ and to trust in Him, a trust which has never been falsified. The martyrdom of our Lord's disciples is enough to prove that belief in His supernatural powers and in His exercise of those powers was no gradual growth of later times, but from the very beginning rooted in the convictions of those who must have known the truth. The character of our Lord as revealed in the Gospels makes it impossible to disbelieve His claims whatever they may be. His power attested by generations of believers ever since corroborates those claims by the persistent evidence of eighteen centuries. Against this evidence what is to be said? It is said that the evidence for the uniformity of nature is so overwhelming that nothing can set it aside. And further it is said, that, even if it be conceded that it might be set aside, no evidence sufficient for the purpose has yet been produced. Now to deal with this second assertion first, we must ask what is the nature of the evidence that would be deemed sufficient? If the inquirer does not believe that God created and still governs the world, assuredly no evidence will ever be sufficient to convince him that God has worked a miracle. The existence of God is certainly not to be proved by His interference with nature. Had He desired to reveal Himself to us primarily in that way, He would have wrought many more miracles than we now know of, and would have kept our faith alive by perpetual and unmistakeable manifestations of His presence and power. But He has not so willed. He has made our belief in Him rest mainly on the voice within ourselves, in order that we might walk by faith and not by sight. It will be a hop
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