is naturally the first point to deal with, and this may be divided into
two parts: 1. The evidences afforded by profane history as to its origin
and early growth. 2. Its story as told by itself in its own documents.

The most remarkable thing in the evidences afforded by profane history
is their extreme paucity; the very existence of Jesus cannot be proved
from contemporary documents. A child whose birth is heralded by a star
which guides foreign sages to Judæa; a massacre of all the infants of a
town within the Roman Empire by command of a subject king; a teacher who
heals the leper, the blind, the deaf, the dumb, the lame, and who raises
the mouldering corpse; a King of the Jews entering Jerusalem in
triumphal procession, without opposition from the Roman legions of
Cæsar; an accused ringleader of sedition arrested by his own countrymen,
and handed over to the imperial governor; a rebel adjudged to death by
Roman law; a three hours' darkness over all the land; an earthquake
breaking open graves and rending the temple veil; a number of ghosts
wandering about Jerusalem; a crucified corpse rising again to life, and
appearing to a crowd of above 500 people; a man risen from the dead
ascending bodily into heaven without any concealment, and in the broad
daylight, from a mountain near Jerusalem; all these marvellous events
took place, we are told, and yet they have left no ripple on the current
of contemporary history. There is, however, no lack of such history, and
an exhaustive account of the country and age in which the hero of the
story lived is given by one of his own nation--a most painstaking and
laborious historian. "How shall we excuse the supine inattention of the
Pagan and philosophic world to those evidences which were presented by
the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses?
During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first disciples,
the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies.
The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were