gain, and in many ways ministering to the evil passions of men-trading in the intoxicating liquors, the opium, etc., desired by the debased habits and tastes of savages and half-civilized nations-bare commerce, exhibiting at best the lower appetites of men, and too frequently carried on through wicked men, can do nothing of itself to refine and elevate them. Whatever is so done must be from the occasional and incidental association which those heathen may meet in commerce with men of superior character and habits, from Christian lands. But such men are superior to the heathen only because they do belong to Christian nations, and have, to a greater or less extent, imbibed from the Christian atmosphere in which they have been nurtured something of Christian feelings and principles. Even what good influence, then, that commerce may exert upon the heathen is traceable to Christianity; and thus, again, Christianity is seen to be the only hope of the present immense world of the heathen.

(4) But we have the positive evidence of the wonderful power of Christianity, in modern times, upon men plunged in the lowest depths. of heathen ignorance and depravity. "Sixty years ago," says Anderson, in a late essay on Missions, "there was not a solitary native

Christian in Polynesia; now it would be difficult to find a professed idolater in the islands of Eastern or Central Polynesia, where Christian missionaries have been established. The hideous rites of their forefathers have ceased to be practiced. Their heathen legends and war-songs are forgotten; their cruel and desolating tribal wars, which were rapidly destroying the population, appear to be at an end. They are gathered together in peaceful village communities; they live under recognized codes of laws; they are constructing roads, cultivating their fertile lands, and engaging in commerce. On the return of the Sabbath, a very large proportion of the population attend the worship of God, and, in some instances, more than half the adult population are recognized members of Christian Churches. They educate their children, endeavoring to train them for usefulness in after-life. They sustain their native ministers, and send their noblest sons as missionaries to the heathen lands which lie farther west. There may not be the culture, the wealth, the refinement, of the older lands of Christendom. These things are the slow growth of ages; but these lands must no longer be regarded as a part of heathendom. In God's faithfulness and mercy, they have been won from the domains of heathendom, and have

been added to the domains of Christendom.* Could any power on earth have so changed those savage islanders except the gospel? From being cannibals, in a few years they have established all the forms and institutions of civilized life. This great change could not have been effected by any educational process. To-day there are highly educated men in India, but they are still heathen. Nana Sahib, one of the leaders of the Sepoy rebellion, the author of the Cawnpore massacre, was a well-educated man, not only in his own language, but also in English. His favorite poet was Lord Byron. Yet he was truly a heathen. . . . No religion refines and purifies as Christianity.

But the most remarkable results of missionary labor are in the Fiji Islands. Thirty years ago they were all cannibals. A more degraded race of men could not be found; but in thirty years they have become a civilized Christian people. Their language has been mastered, school and religious books written, . . . and twenty-two thousand two hundred are members of the Church; the larger part of the children are in the Sunday-school; they have six hundred and sixty-three native ministers, and more than one thousand schoolteachers teach thirty-six thousand pupils in

* Report of London Missionary Society for 1866, p. 7.

their schools." These instances may suffice, without citing other remarkable instancessuch as that of Madagascar, and other heathen lands. They are fully sufficient to prove that in modern times, as well as when in ancient days the gospel regenerated the heathen nations, Christianity has a power, never otherwise beheld, to elevate and purify the basest of mankind—a power superhuman and divine.

Thus the actual results of Christianity, attested both by the personal testimony of those who have practically tested her divine power, and by the great and permanent moral changes for the better apparent throughout her past history, and occurring also in our own dayresults that no human wisdom or power has ever been able to effect, but which have, nevertheless, been wrought by Christianity, without the aid of human power-these also give incontrovertible evidence to the superiority of Christianity to all that is human, and assert that she is no less than divine.

CHAPTER IX.

THE WEIGHT OF THE EVIDENCE-RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION

In conclusion, let us now sum up the evidence that has been adduced, and estimate its weight. The question before us is whether or not Christianity is superhuman and divine. In its decision we have seen, first, that a divine revelation is possible; that human testimony is competent to prove it; and that the evidence in this particular case shows that the narrative of the facts, cited to prove it, must be accepted as authentic and true. We have next examined those facts, group by group, and from them endeavored to show the divinity of Christianity as displayed alike in the origin and divine character of its Founder, its own divine teaching, its miraculous attendant circumstances in both prophecies and miracles, and its superhuman and divine results. These, let it be noted, are all evidences of matters of fact. On the other hand, there is absolutely no rival system of moral truth that has, or pretends to have, any evidence whatever, of such matters of fact, to support its claim.