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