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that doctrine, will find their faith con firmed and will ¡greatly enjoy what Dr. Orr or any other intelligent scholar will write on.that subject, but I do not wish to be shut up on such a question as that to the testimony of any man living in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. If all the men who live in the nineteenth or twenti eth centuries should contradict the tes timony of Jesus Christ, His prophets and apostles, I would not believe them. I do not consider them competent wit nesses. I do not understand the bra zen impudence of men who desire to be considered competent witnesses against Jesus Christ and His apostles. I am weary with the whole set of men who call themselves scholars, who re ject the only competent witnesses there are and who set up for themselves or for others a series of dogmas which have no foundation except in their Own foolish and incompetent thinking. : I believe that any person who un derstands the laws of evidence and will give attention to them will ac cept the Bible as the word of God. I 'do not see how other people are to be helped very:much in any way. “To the law and to the testimony; if men do not speak according to this word, "it is because there is no light in them.” —Wheaton College, Illinois. Luke’s Witness for the Virgin Birth By SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY T HE beautifully told story of Luke i., ii.,¡is an episode of family his- 1 tory of the most private charac
little touches, indicating so delicately and so skilfully what authority he had to depend on in the beginning of his narrative. This is specially clear when we remember the declaration made by the author in his preface, that he had investigated, from their origin the facts which he is going to narrate. After such a preface, and with all the indi cations in the narrative, it is plain that the historian either believed his State ments to be based on the authority of the Virgin Mary herself, or has’ delib erately tried to create a false impres sion that such was the case. Is it a rational supposition, is it psychologi cally possible, that any man who was impressed with the sacredness of the subject which he is treating should in tentionally found his narrative upon such a falsehood as thisWould be?'. . . We can then argue with perfect confi dence that Luke did not take the nar rative of the birth and childhood of Christ from mete current talk and gen eral belief: he had it in a form for which Marv herself was in hjs the re sponsible authority. -
ter. The facts could be known only to a small number of persons. If Luke had the slightest trace of historical in stinct, he must have satisfied himself that the narrative which he gives rest ed on the evidence of one of the few persons to •whom the facts could be known. It is not in keeping with the ancient -style that he should formally state his authority; but he does not. leave it doubtful whose authority he believed himself to have. “His mother kept all these Sayings hid in her heart ;” “Mary kept all these sayings, pondering them in heart.” These two Sentences would be sufficient. The his torian who wrote like that believed that he had the authority of Mary her self’; . .. .- No one who judges on the ordinary cartons of criticism which govern the interpretation of ancient literature, can doubt that it is through design, and not by accident, that there occur in 1thfe opening of Luke’s History all these
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