his same passage over
Jordan."

"Which supposition of thine I do hold to be the truth as firmly as I
believe your revelation is an imposture."

"And yet if it _should_ be true, my lord?" The minister said this in a
tone that made the listener start. He bit his lips. But the feeling had
subsided, as, with a sharp and hurried accent, he exclaimed--

"Why this pause? I am prepared to listen."

"These stones," continued the divine, "were, of necessity, well known as
public monuments existing at the time when these writings were first
rehearsed in the ears of all the people, because they are here referred
to as testimonials of the event. But supposing them to have been set up
on some unknown occasion, as you say, and that designing men in
after-ages invented the book of Joshua, affirming it was written at the
time of that imaginary event by Joshua himself, adducing this pile of
stones in evidence of its truth, what is the answer which every one who
heard it must have made to this witless falsehood? 'We know this pile of
stones,' they would say; 'but of such an origin as thou hast related we
have, not heard, nor even of this book of Joshua. Where has it been
concealed, and from whence was it brought forth? Besides, it solemnly
inculcates that this miraculous event, our fathers' passage over Jordan,
should be taught their children and children's children from that day
forward, who were to be shown and carefully instructed as to the meaning
and design of this very monument; but of this we have not so much as
heard, nor has thy history been handed down to us from our forefathers.
It is a lying testimony, therefore, and we cannot receive it.' Yet do we
find the children of Israel commemorating, handing down, and instructing
their children from age to age into the meaning and design of these
memorials, which instruction must at some time or another have had a
beginning, having its commencement with the very events to which they
refer, which events it would then have been impossible to make the
people believe against the plain evidence of their senses. Is the chain
complete, my lord?"

"But what has all this to do with thy religion?--a system far different,
methinks, from the primitive institutions of these remote ages."

"The self-same reasoning will apply, and in precisely the same mode, to
the miracles of our Lord and His apostles, together with their
transmission by records from their times. The histories of the Old and