recently returned from England, steps in with a strange gentleman, and introduces him as a son of the senior partner, and himself a member of the firm. The San Francisco merchant shows the letter to the young Englishman. "Yes!" he says "that is all right; that is my father's signature." Then he proceeds to explain the letter. There is no longer any doubt or delay in filling the order. Now, can we authenticate the Bible in any such way? We authenticate the Bible in this very way. The Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, has visited our world as the Word of God, on this very business, to declare God's Word to us. He has read the Bible carefully, as much of it as was then written, and he has directed the writing of the remainder. He has given us his opinion of it repeatedly in direct statements; has quoted many passages from it and explained them, and exposed and reprobated the additions which the scribes and Pharisees would have made to the Bible by their traditions. We can trust the testimony of Jesus unhesitatingly. All Christians acknowledge Him as the Truth, and no infidel has dared to charge Him with falsehood."—"The Testimony of Christ to the Truth of the Old Testament," by Robert Patterson.
Touching the authenticity of the New Testament, we give the following:
"I was dining some time ago with a literary party at old Mr. Abercrombie's, father of General Abercrombie, who was slain in Egypt at the head of the British army, and spending the evening together. A gentleman present put a question which puzzled the whole company. It was this: Supposing all the New Testaments in the world had been destroyed at the end of the third century, could their contents have been recovered from the writings of the first three centuries?" The question was novel to all, and no one even hazarded a guess in answer to the inquiry. About two months after this meeting, I received a note from Lord Hailes inviting me to breakfast with him next morning. He had been one of the party. During breakfast he asked me if I recollected the curious question about the possibility of recovering the contents of the New Testament from the writings of the first three centuries. 'I remember it well,' said I, 'and have thought of it often, without being able to form any opinion or conjecture on the subject.' 'Well,' said Lord Hailes, 'that question quite accorded with the turn or taste of my antiquarian mind. On returning home, as I knew I had all the writings of those centuries, I began immediately to collect them, that I might set to work on the
