here and there, pretty towns appeared among shady trees, both on the Michigan and Canadian shore. Dr. Morison and myself regarded the latter side of the river with peculiar pleasure; because we there beheld our Queen's dominions for the first time on American soil. I could not but think, as we bounded along on the bosom of the St. Clair, of the river of salvation, which contains within its banks enough for each, and enough for evermore; and also of that river of life in the city of God, with trees on either bank, and the leaves of the trees for the healing of the nations. For about 40 miles, we flew down along the brimming river's bosom, making the voyage in two hours; but a peculiar, and by us an unexpected obstacle, then presented itself. This was Lake St. Clair, 25 miles broad, and 25 miles long; but so shallow that it could not receive so deep a vessel as the "Japan" on its waters in their natural state. Art, however, had triumphed over the difficulties of nature; for a deep canal, 300 feet in width, had been cut through the shallowest part of the lake, for the purposes of navigation-the excavated earth having been so thrown back, that the dykes rise 5 feet above the surface of the water. Our captain hesitated somewhat to enter this canal, as the shades of night were falling fast, and there was risk of running aground on its banks; but bravery, perseverance, and admirable seamanship triumphed, and about ten P.M., we found that we had threaded our way to the southern end of Lake St. Clair, and had got clear out into the "brimming river" again. Here its name is changed; for between Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie, the great stream is called "Detroit river"; that is, the river of the strait. The city of Detroit, containing a hundred thousand inhabitants, was now only a mile or two distant; and see! its lights are already visible in front of us. We were sorry that we could not enjoy the splendid view of the city, which the captain told us was to be had at that point by day; and we were also annoyed, because not only was the sense of sight not gratified here, but the sense of smell was offended by the smoke of a distillery, which was blown on our faces, from the Canadian shore too, and with all its peculiar concomitant odours. unlooked-for welcome to Detroit seemed to say to us, that there was still work to be done in the land by the followers of Father Mathew. But we left the fumes behind us, and soon found that we were comfortably located in the harbour of Detroit, at nearly eleven P.M. This Forthwith the place became an "Appii Forum" to us; for Mr. Robertson, of Chicago, had sent on word to his father about our voyage to the City of the Strait, and "brethren" were ready to receive us. "I come from Galston," said Mr. Paton. "And I am from Kilmarnock," said Mr. Robertson, sen., to his old pastor, Dr. Morison. "And you have been in my uncle's house in Auchterarder," said Mr. M'Ewan, addressing myself; “and I have seen you there too." Our friends, moreover, had prospered in the world; for we were driven off, in splendour, in Mr. Paton's carriage, with its two prancing horses. And on our way, as they said to us, "We are so glad that you have arrived to-night; we have been waiting impatiently for you since six o'clock-for it is advertised in the papers that you are to preach in Presbyterian and Congregational Churches tomorrow," we wondered much at the way by which we had been led; and, like Paul at Appii Forum, when the brethren met him, we "thanked God, and took courage.' NO MIRACLES, NO CHRIST.* THE opening of a new academic session is always a spiritstirring hour to young and ardent natures; and even the oldest of us it touches into a pleasing sense of rejuvenescence. The present occasion, however, wears a tinge of sadness. The shadow of vicissitude has fallen on our much loved institution -not as yet, God be thanked, the shadow of death. May that day be long deferred! But changes have occurred that are only too premonitory of the fast-hastening hour when it shall be said throughout our Union, "The fathers, where are they?" The Master ever lives. Our cause is in his hands, to whom it, and we, and the future belong. Without further reference to the occasion, and waiving all hortatory matter, I proceed to address you on a theme of which you may accept as text-"No miracles, no Christ." "Miracles," said a prominent naturalist, "are what no mind. trained in science can tolerate for a moment." Then Science, Rationalism, & Co. is an atheistic firm. If a personal God there be, he can, he may, and in certain events he presumably will, interpose by miracle; and he will also tell us he has done. so; else morality is a lie, and God a dream. If to a world where fathers would speak their loudest, and act their best to their erring children, the above is the only God-message rationalistic science has to bring, then there is no need to say, Be that science accursed! for already, at its own bar of Reason, it stands self-banned and self-doomed. Almighty Science! * Address delivered at the opening of the E. U. Academy, August 1, 1876, by the Rev. John Guthrie, D.D. Thus to meet the Divinity as he comes out of his place in quest of his lost children, and say to him at the threshold, Thou must be neutral, thou must even be mute! Retire behind thy works, hand-tied, tongue-tied, into the shades of the inscrutable. As Father, as Ruler, as Creator, yea, as Person, we will have none of thee! Let Pantheistic Evolution reign in thy stead!" Other and blander forms of rationalism put miracles out of court in milder ways, but with the same deep-drawing implications and antichristian results. There are cardinal points in these high themes whence departure is made toward poles of opposition infinitely momentous. No free will, no personality; no personality, no God. Deny miracles-supranaturalismand you deny both the Father and the Son; and you deny the Son, not only as God, but even as sinless man. will indicate the drift of my present motto-"No miracles, no Christ." This I. Let me touch on miracles-on their possibility, probability, actuality. On this question many Christians evince a strange timidity and facility. Magnify the internal evidences as you will (and you cannot magnify them too much), so articulately does the Bible claim to rest on miraculous attestations, that to deny miracles is, in effect, to arraign Christ and holy apostles for imposture, and to drift towards the vortex of atheism. That miracles are possible, and therefore credible, no theist dare deny. Be this our brief answer here to the sophisms of a Hume, and the assumptions of a Strauss, for more than these we have not yet had, and summary attack may be met by summary defence. Antisupranaturalism, pure and simple, they may have, and hold, but only at the price of their theism. One of the oddest grounds on which miracles are denied is one which miracles actually involve and presuppose—namely, the uniformity of nature's laws. Were nature's laws not uniform, there could be no basis for knowledge, science, progress, conduct, character-in short, for any coherent or responsible free agency. Nay, more, there would be no basis even for miracles; for the uniformity of nature's laws is the very ground on which miracles stand, and on which the exception is proved by the rule. Were the laws of nature less uniform, the miracle would be less clear. Were they capricious, or incoherent, the miracle would dissolve away. And if it be asked, Why are miracles so rare? without stopping to ask in reply, Why, if they serve their end, should they be anything else than rare? the one material answer is, Were miracles to be continuous, or oft-repeated, they would lose their distinctive character, and miss their proper end; they would pass from miracles into laws, and cease to wear the stamp of the specially interposing Divinity. Yet further, if God is thus to interpose for us at all (and all the probabilities of the case-his Godhead, his Rulerhood, his Fatherhood, and love-prompt the assurance that he will), how can he either give or authenticate this special message, or at least do so more impressively, than by miracle? Once more, if all the probabilities be thus in favour of special revelation and miracle, at fit intervals in the ages, then, so far from miracle contravening true science, it falls within it in its larger sweep, as embracing all God's ways and works, material and moral; for then, in the grand complex harmony, there will be room for the law of miracle among the rest; though, from the nature of it, intervening at rarer intervals of time and space. Miracles, then, being not only credible but probable, can be authenticated as well as any other historical event; and so authenticated the Christian miracles have been, if ever any such thing could be; and that on such a scale of length, breadth, and complexity, that to deny the fact is to make Christianity an insoluble enigma. That Jesus lived eighteen and a half centuries ago, and that he and his religion now overshadow and dominate half the globe, and is as sure as any sequence in nature to subdue and absorb the whole, is clear to all but those who would wink the very zenith sun into darkness. This fact, as such, the rationalist is bound to give some reasonable account of. And here he will find ancient infidelity to be a broken reed, that will pierce the hand that leans to it; for it rubbed too close on the facts to be able to deny them. It could only pervert them, and this, accordingly, it did; for the Jewish unbeliever ascribed the miracles to Beelzebub, and the pagan infidel ascribed them to demons. Well did their perplexity thus express itself:"What shall we do to these men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it." Connect with this the bold assertion by the apostles of Christ's resurrection, in the place, to the people, and directly after the time of his crucifixion; the rabid hostility to the new faith by the Jewish rulers and people, thus barring all possibility of national collusion; and the rapid spread of the faith in Judea and throughout the Roman world, with the rising and ever-deepening thunder gloom of danger, and of prolonged and deadly persecution. Roman writers, within seventy years after the death of Christ, in describing the Christians of their own time, and in recording their history under the reign of Nero, about thirty years after Christ's death, bear testimony to their indomitable zeal, their blameless character, and the cruel and unrelenting persecution to which they were exposed. All this is in strictest harmony with the sacred records themselves, which teem with allusions and animating expostulations, indicative of the purest and intensest zeal, and appropriate to circumstances of the bitterest persecution and reproach. The sum of the whole matter, then, is this: If the testimony to the Christian miracles be false, then the apostles and primitive heralds of the faith were either deceived or deceivers. Most certainly they were not deceived; for the alleged miracles were seen and attested by hundreds and thousands. They were not "done in a corner." They were spread over many years. They were, moreover, not philosophies, not theories, but plain, palpable facts; on the reality of which unlettered men are as competent to pronounce as philosophers. As for the charge of fanaticism, no imputation could be more absurd. Not a vestige of fanaticism appears, either in their writings or conduct. They demean themselves from first to last, as calm, clear-sighted, honest, earnest men. Of all writers, the sacred penmen are the most transparent and direct. No haze of mysticism ever floats before their eye. Even when scaling the heights of heavenly mysteries, their intellect is steadily poised, their eagle vision is without a cloud. Though brimful of emotion, they deal not in transports. They give full play to every human sympathy, which is not the wont of fanatics; and yet, though they touch every chord in the high and deep-toned organ of the human soul, they are never betrayed into extravagance. Who can calmly read the artless narratives of the evangelists, or Peter's words at Pentecost, or Paul's defence before Agrippa, or the homely and tender touches, that run like silver veins throughout the entire volume of the New Testament, and not feel the conviction that the Sacred Writers are at the farthest remove from self-deception, and are never once borne by the sublimities of their faith above. the actual realities and sympathies of life? If there be no ground to conclude that the apostles were deceived, there is, if possible, still less to convict them of being deceivers. The impossibility of practising a deception on a scale so stupendous, audacious, and prolonged, is sufficiently evident from the considerations already advanced. Cripples, known as public mendicants, were publicly healed. The dead, publicly buried, were publicly raised. Hundreds of living monuments were mingling with their fellow-men. Were these, |