the whole.  But that it cannot bear.”  The hard, inevitable question remains at the end, for the most attenuated belief in Christianity as a religion from God—­what is the ultimate link which connects it directly with God?  The readiness with which we throw ourselves on more congenial topics of proof does not show that, even to our own minds, these proofs could suffice by themselves, miracles being really taken away.  The whole power of a complex argument and the reasons why it tells do not always appear on its face.  It does not depend merely on what it states, but also on unexpressed, unanalysed, perhaps unrealised grounds, the real force of which would at once start forth if they were taken away.  We are told of the obscure rays of the spectrum, rays which have their proof and their effect, only not the same proof and effect as the visible ones which they accompany; and the background and latent suppositions of a great argument are as essential to it as its more prominent and elaborate constructions.  And they show their importance sometimes in a remarkable and embarrassing way, when, after a long debate, their presence at the bottom of everything, unnoticed and perhaps unallowed for, is at length disclosed by some obvious and decisive question, which some person had been too careless to think of, and another too shy to ask.  We may not care to obtrude miracles; but take them away, and see what becomes of the argument for Christianity.

It must be remembered that when this part of Christian evidence comes so forcibly home to us, and creates that inward assurance which it does, it does this in connection with the proof of miracles in the background, which though it may not for the time be brought into actual view, is still known to be there, and to be ready for use upon being wanted.  The indirect proof from results has the greater force, and carries with it the deeper persuasion, because it is additional and auxiliary to the direct proof behind it, upon which it leans all the time, though we may not distinctly notice and estimate this advantage.  Were the evidence of moral result to be taken rigidly alone as the one single guarantee for a Divine revelation, it would then be seen that we had calculated its single strength too highly.  If there is a species of evidence which is directly appropriate to the thing believed, we cannot suppose, on the strength of the indirect evidence we possess, that we can do without the direct.  But miracles are the direct credentials of a revelation; the visible supernatural is the appropriate witness to the invisible supernatural—­that proof which goes straight to the point, and, a token being wanted of a Divine communication, is that token.  We cannot, therefore, dispense with this evidence.  The position that the revelation proves the miracles, and not the miracles the revelation, admits of a good qualified meaning; but, taken literally, it is a double offence against the rule that things