without any full statement, like those in the Scriptures, of the difficulties and hindrances in the way to heaven. The usual tone of the best modern teaching is hardly so startling, or so adapted to awaken caution and holy fear, as the words of the Apostle, "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" These words of our Lord himself, far more than the imperfect comments of men, are likely to repel by their seeming severity :-" Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." The usual defect of Evangelical preaching is not that the way of ruin is described as broader, or the way of life more narrow, than these words imply. It is rather that the excellency of the promised salvation, the love of the Father, the grace of the Redeemer, the power and help of the Comforter, are not set forth in all their mighty attractiveness of Divine love; so as to persuade and compel the hesitating soul to yield itself up to the gracious invitation, and to press onward, with earnest desire, towards a prize so glorious.

III. Again, you have heard preachers, in their excess of zeal, assert that we are now more favourably circumstanced than Christ's own contemporaries and disciples. How, you ask with some perplexity, can tradition be more convincing than ocular evidence?

Occasional overstatements from the lips of preachers ought never to occasion serious perplexity in a thoughtful

mind. Those who protest against the infallibility of the Bishop and the Church of Rome can never dream that every zealous clergyman or minister is infallible in his public ministrations. But in this case I believe that the statement which has startled you is strictly true, when a little reasonable explanation is given.

Tradition, it is true, is weaker in its own nature than ocular evidence. But the difference in some forms of tradition may be so slight as to be almost imperceptible, and be far outweighed by the increase of other evidence in the lapse of time. Most persons of intelligence are just as firmly convinced of the past existence of Julius Cæsar, his invasion of Britain, his victory at Pharsalia, and his death in the senate-house, as of the existence of Napoleon, his victory at Austerlitz, his defeat at Waterloo, and his death at St. Helena. Yet one series of events is almost within our own lifetime, and the other full nineteen centuries ago. Where events have a certain degree of publicity, and involve momentous consequences, the influence of time in weakening the evidence of their reality may be practically insensible. The impression will be more vivid when miracles are actually witnessed, but the conviction of their reality may be no less deep and firm when they are reported by witnesses, and confirmed by collateral proofs, which cannot deceive.

Consider, now, the immense gain on the other side. The Gospel has been confirmed by all the further evidence, derived from the predicted unbelief of the Jews, the fall of Jerusalem, the ruin of the Temple, their exile and

hundred years.

wide dispersion, and their long desolation of eighteen Predictions have been since fulfilled in the wide diffusion and triumphs of the Gospel, and the extensive corruptions of the Christian faith. The secret stores of truth and wisdom in the Holy Scriptures have been unfolded, through sixty generations, by the writings of thousands of pious and holy men. Ten thousand hearts have given their testimony to the power of the Gospel, and have proved, by their own experience, its transforming and quickening energy. The whole history of almost two thousand years has confirmed the truth of the Divine record, and points onward to a time, drawing nearer and nearer daily, when the Lord Jesus, the true Messiah, owned already by the mightiest nations and empires of the earth, shall receive the heathen for His inheritance, and the utmost ends of the earth for His possession. The slight loss, in the substitution of traditional proof for present miracles, is far outweighed by the gain which the mass of new evidence supplies, and makes the obligation still more binding on ourselves than on the Jews and heathens of the first century, to own in Jesus of Nazareth the true Messiah, the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world. "Blessed are our eyes, for they see, and our ears, for they hear." Our age, it is true, has its own temptations, and the downward path of unbelief remains broad and easy, as in the days of old. But still the evidence of the Gospel is cumulative, and grows in fulness from age to age. The means of grace are dispensed in unequal measure to different lands, and the Church may have winter and

summer alternately in its moral history. But the helps which God has given us in these days, at least in our favoured country, for learning to grasp the truth of His word and the glory of the Gospel, are greater than those of the first disciples, or of any previous age. They will leave us doubly without excuse, if we turn our backs upon its light, and exchange it for the bondage of mediæval superstition, or for the cheerless speculations of men who live "without God in the world."

I remain, yours faithfully,

T. R. BIRKS.

LETTER II.

LIFE AND DEATH-CREDULITY AND SCEPTICISM.

MY DEAR SIR,

Original sin is the next subject to which your letter refers, or the question, What are the effects of Adam's sin on his posterity? I have written on this subject at some length in the "Difficulties of Belief," and am glad to learn that your perplexities have been much lessened by my remarks, if not wholly removed. If the line of thought there unfolded is Scriptural and solid, as I fully believe, the chief perplexity to the conscience will disappear, however deep and various the mysteries which still cluster around the ways of God in the primitive constitution of the human race. But there are two other subjects which call for remark, before I turn to those of still higher importance, where the statements of Scripture, rather than the sayings of uninspired teachers, occasion difficulty in your mind.

IV. You ask, first, if it is right and wise to represent this world as wretched and illusive, and one from which our hearts ought to be longing hourly to be released.