t we know too
little of a thousand things to set up our weak judgments in the very face
of revelation."

"I am quite willing to believe all I can understand, Stephen; but I find
it difficult to credit accounts that are irreconcilable with all that my
experience has taught me to be true."

"They who are of your way of thinkin', sir, do not deny that Christ was a
good man and a prophet; and that the apostles were good men and prophets;
and that they all worked miracles."

"This much I am willing enough to believe; but the other doctrine seems
contrary to what is possible."

"Yet you have seen, sir, that these apostles believed what you refuse.
One thing has crossed my mind, Captain Gar'ner, which I wish to say to
you. I know I'm but an ignorant man, and my idees may be hardly worth your
notice; but sich as they be, I want to lay 'em afore you. We are told that
these apostles were all men from a humble class in life, with little
l'arnin', chosen, as it might be, to show men that faith stood in need of
no riches, or edication, or worldly greatness, of any sort. To me, sir,
there is a wholesome idee in that one thing."

"It gives us all a useful lesson, Stephen, and has often been mentioned, I
believe, in connection with the doctrines of Christianity."

"Yes, sir--so I should think; though I don't remember ever to have heard
it named from any pulpit. Well, Captain Gar'ner, it does not agree with
our notions to suppose that God himself, a part of the Ruler and Master of
the Universe, should be born of a woman, and come among sinners in order
to save 'em from his own just judgments."

"That is just the difficulty that I have in believing what are called the
dogmas of Christianity on that one point. To me, it has ever seemed the
most improbable thing in the world."

"Just so, sir--I had some sort of feelin of that natur' myself once. When
God, in his goodness, put it into my heart to believe, however, as he was
pleased to do in a fit of sickness from which I never expected to rise,
and in which I was led to pray to him for assistance, I began to think
over all these matters in my own foolish manner. Among other things, I
said to myself, 'is it likely that any mortal man would dream of calling
Christ the Son of God, unless it was put into _his_ mind to say so?' Then
comes the characters of them men, who all admit were upright and
religious. How can we suppose that they would agree in giving the same
account of sich a th