nothing of the multitudes of others, should be sustained by it through all the fearful perils and severe sufferings which we have described as befalling these witnesses, is attributing to this motive a strength nowhere else claimed for it. To claim for it a motive force equal to the common toils and trials inseparable from the grave pursuits of secular life, would be regarded as absurd. To believe it, would require a faith which could remove mountains. Who then can believe it to have sustained the apostles under their peculiar sufferings? All this is said with exclusive reference to the strength of the motive. It would be more difficult, if possible, on this principle to account for the moral and social character of the life led by these men. The motive is a low and vulgar one. Could such a motive be a tenant of minds laboring at the peril of life to establish a system of morality, the purest, the most elevated and refining the world has ever known? A tree is known by its fruits. Could love of adventure have been an adequate motive? This passion, it cannot be denied, is often strong, and leads to wonderful achievements, whose thrilling narrations hold spell-bound readers or listeners of all ages. But between these adventurers and the apostles there is an essential difference. The disciple of Christ would persevere though death were certain. The adventurer will only hazard life. So soon as he is required to go beyond this, the enterprise is naturally abandoned. If he dies, he gains nothing. The glory is not, as with the Christian, in dying, but in approaching near as possible to death and yet escaping it. His glory is not in laying himself upon the altar, but in warding off the sacrificial knife with dexterity. But the most valid auswer to this question is that there was nothing in the habits of these twelve men-and we might add of their companions-which corresponded to such a motive. If strong enough, it is not suitable in kind. Though ready to die if the cause required it, they showed no temerity, no bravado; they always avoided danger whenever they could do so, and not sacrifice truth. It was with reference to this apparent inconsistency, claiming to be ready at one time to surrender life, at another fleeing from city to city, that the apostle utters that remarkable explanation: "If we be beside ourselves it is to God; if we be sober it is for your cause; for the love of Christ constraineth us." When arraigned before the Roman tribunals their religion was represented as evil, because it led them to madly rush on death; while, by the scornful multitude, they were reproached not only for their inconsistency, but for their actual cowardice. It was to repel this slander that Paul uttered the passage just quoted. Here was no infatuation, no fanaticism, no rash excitement which the adventurer necessarily experiences, but the nicest discrimination, one purely moral in its character. If God's honor required him to be offered up, he was ready; but if that honor would be promoted by his protracted labors, both he and his companions coolly protected life, as do other men. The desire for wealth is another strong passion. Could it have been this? This passion leads men to hazard life, but not deliberately to surrender it. The supposition is absurd. Beyond death it presents no prize. In this respect it resembles the love of adventure. But the apostles not only disavowed such a motive, claiming to have left all things, to be crucified to the world, but they engaged in no financial schemes, as avaricious men do. A money-making spirit is nowhere seen in their history. The last charge which can be brought against the followers of Him who had not where to lay his head, is greediness of filthy lucre. Balaam was covetous, and ran greedily after gain. His conduct resembled his spirit. The apostles, unlike this, ran with patience the race set before them—a race of trial, hardship, and want. Could it have been a desire for notoriety? This is not only a low, but ordinarily a feeble incentive; is never felt as a steady force, however strong the impulse. Its force, when it has any, is spent in single acts, as in the assassination of the late President Lincoln. The suspicion of such a motive finds no place in the mind of one familiar with the New Testament history. Could it have been a desire for personal influence? This is a subtle principle of action, widely felt in the human heart. It has a character very unlike that of a love of wealth or a desire for notoriety. It may be innocent, and even noble. In the patriot, the philanthropist, and the Christian, it is generous. Christ felt it stronger than death. Every good man feels it. The nature and strength of this motive, when awakened and purified by the gospel, will soon be examined in connection with some of those religious motives which we claim to have impelled the apostles. But it may be a very vicious element of character, low and selfish. Its nature is indicated by the very etymology of the word—influo— to flow into, naturally to run into other men's business, with a meddlesome spirit. It is one of the elements of ambition, but not so comprehensive. Persons under the control of this principle act sometimes from curiosity, sometimes from vanity, frequently from love of esteem; but the apostles whose character we are dissecting sought, in sincerity, power over the souls of others. It was not to seem, but to be, influential. That the apostles had influence, and that they sought it, we have no disposition to deny. They became all things to all men for this reason. But that the motive was not a vicious one, but rather holy and truthful, and was based on their belief in the doctrines which the miracles only could authenticate, cannot be questioned by a candid mind. But there remains one passion-revenge-which it must be confessed is adequate in strength. It is often stronger than death. There have been also remarkable examples of the persistency of this passion-leading him who is under its malignant power to sacrifice for years, even till death, all that the mind in its normal state holds dear. Ordinarily it is a sudden gush of feeling, which as hastily subsides. But cases are on record in which this passion lay deep down in the heart, the intensity of its heat being fed by fuel furnished from within and not from without. It is a hidden fire, which never burns itself out. These however are rare cases. Were the apostles for years-some twenty, fifty, or even more years-urged or drawn by such a secret passion? To give a serious answer to this question is useless. No one can believe it. If their motives were worldly and selfish, they were not revengeful. Though the provocations were not wanting, yet motives to produce a given course of conduct must be suitable in kind as well as adequate in strength. Meekness is the spirit of the gospel. Christ was meek and lowly of heart. His disciples were clothed with humility as with a garment. The enemies of Christianity never assert this as a motive. Such ascribe to the apostles delusion, and not malignity. We do not claim to have exhausted the list of evil or worldly motives which may influence dishonest men. But who will deny that these are the master passions of the human heart, and the ones above all others that could be supposed to operate under such circumstances? If these were not the motives which influenced the apostles, then no other evil ones did, and so they acted without motives (to believe which is impossible), or they believed the miracles to be true, and found in this just such motives as were adequate. We do not believe any one, if he will analyze the motives we have briefly examined, will pretend by these to account for such a course of life. No one of them, nor all united, could they all exist in one mind at the same time, can be supposed to have led a single individual through what several of the apostles are known to have suffered. But that twelve men could have been selected who, conscious all the time of insincerity, could be induced to persevere, is a moral impossibility. -Or how, or why Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie? Adequate Religious Motives. Dryden. There are religious motives which, if felt, will account for the lives of these men. It has been previously proved they could not be deceived. We now seek to show their sincerity.1 Man is naturally truthful. Hence, when nothing is known to the contrary, the presumption is that a man speaks the truth. This presumption, acknowledged alike in social and civil life, is based on a recognized constitutional tendency to speak the truth. As man's moral depravity does not wholly destroy the conscience, no more does it this natural tendency to truthfulness. This is realized independently of renewing grace; otherwise society would be destroyed. Though the love of truth is often feeble, it may be strong, and is proper in character.2 A sense of moral obligation is a motive not only suitable, but may be of sufficient strength. It is not necessary to prove that this sense of obligation cannot be overcome. It is overcome the world over. It is enough to show that this impulse may have sufficient force. This feeling of obligation, like every other moral feeling, acts directly on the will; and as it is a dictate of the conscience, nothing can intervene between it and the will. Hence were the impulse as coercive as that of the temptation, it would invariably control us. It is only when conscience is inactive or feeble that we fail in duty. But 1 The subsequent course of reasoning may, at first thought, have the appearance of an a pri ori argument. It is not so, but strictly a posteriori. Our object is not to prove the sufferings by admitting the motives; but to prove motives as necessary (not probable) by admitting the sufferings for which we are to account. We reason from effects to causes, and not from causes to effects. 2 Dr. Reid, one of the most careful observers of the mental habits, has the following language, as philosophical as pertinent: "The wise and beneficent Author of Nature, who intended that we should be social creatures, and that we should receive the greatest and most important part of our knowledge by the information of others, hath for these purposes implanted in our natures two principles that tally with each other. The first of these is a propensity to speak the truth. . . . This principle has a powerful operation, even in the greatest liars; for where they lie once, they speak truth a hundred times. Truth is always uppermost, and is the natural issue of the mind. . . . . Lying, on the contrary, is doing violence to our nature, and is never practiced, even by the worst of men, without some temptation. Another original principle, implanted in us by the Supreme Being, is a disposition to confide in the veracity of others. This is the counterpart of the other. . . . . As we find good reason to reject testimony in some cases, so in others we find good reason to rely upon it with perfect security, in our most important concerns."--Inquiry into the Human Mind, chap. vi, section 24. conscience may be made inconceivably cogent. An honest purpose, like the rock of ocean, may be made to withstand the heaviest pressure. We have no doubt that there are and have been multitudes, whom not only allurement could not draw aside, but death could not terrify. They may and do love life, but they love the peace of a good conscience more. Falsehood, or to withhold the truth, with such men is a moral impossibility. God cannot lie, and they are his children. The apostles claimed to be thus influenced, and their conduct can be accounted for in no other way. "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you, more than unto God, judge ye; for we cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard." Praying, and having received a miraculous token that their prayer was heard, they "spake the word with boldness," and "with great power gave witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus." The expectation of an eternal reward would, if felt, account both for their religious life and voluntary sufferings. To forego present happiness to secure greater good in the future, is the law of our being. It is done in proportion as we are rational. This is often done also where the expectation amounts only to a probability. There was promised to the disciples, on condition of their fidelity and persistency as witnesses, "an eternal weight of glory." This motive, if believed, must have strength enough, and was fitted in its character to enable them to endure. It need not be added that it would have had no force unless accepted as true-true because attested by miracles as an infallible. "sign." How natural the exulting language of St. Paul, "I am now ready to be offered"; and his paternal exhortation to Timothy, "Watch thou in all things, endure afflictions." It is the same principle which leads men to suffer present evil to escape a greater in the future. Christ threatened his disciples with the severest punishment in the life to come, if they denied him in this. "Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I deny before my Father." Hence the woe dreaded by the apostle, if he preached not the gospel. An adequate motive, and one peculiarly appropriate to the apostles' course of life, would. be an earnest desire for the salvation of others. A desire for the happiness of others, present and future, though often enfeebled by sin, is as constitutional as innocent selflove. Philanthropy is native to the soul. This active principle is seen strongest in pity. The apostles professed to be painfully distressed in view of the religious condition of the world. St. Paul says: "I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart." In harmony with this is the unparalleled dissuasion of the Epistle to |