xiv. 25. He was not a myth or figment, but a prophet whose personality
is authenticated by Christ himself.

2. There was a city of Nineveh. The skepticism of other days denied the
existence of Nineveh. So completely was the prophecy concerning the
destruction of Nineveh fulfilled that the enemies of God's Word refused
to believe that the city had ever existed, until the excavations of the
last century revealed the hidden ruins. But the word of God was true,
and in God's time Nineveh was revealed.

3. God sent this same prophet Jonah to Nineveh to preach. Christ tells
us what took place under "the preaching of Jonah." It terminated in a
great awakening and reformation for:

4. "The men of Nineveh ... repented at the preaching of Jonah."

Did the Savior know what he was talking about? Did he know the truth of
the statement he made? Or, knowing (as is assumed) that there were no
such events, did he resort to _fiction_ in order to assert the
_certainty_ of his own resurrection? If the latter, then we must correct
his statement concerning Jonah, and read: "As Jonah has been
fictitiously represented to have been three days and three nights in the
whale's belly, so, fictitiously, shall the Son of man be three days and
three nights in the heart of the earth."

Our Sunday-school teachers, with the words of Christ before them, will
be able to give the critics important information. They can report the
certainty of the historical facts.