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 nesses?" asks St. Augustine. And why were the guards not punished for neglect of duty? St. Matthew boldly charges the chief priests with giving them, instead, a great sum of money, promising them security from prosecution (XXVIII, 12, 13). Besides, the timidity exhibited by the Apostles during the Passion of Christ clearly showed that they were not the men to do so daring a deed. The only explanation which is not absurd is that which St. Peter publicly gave to the assembled Jews: "This Jesus God raised again, whereof we are witnesses" (Acts II, 32). His disciples saw Him repeatedly alive in their midst, touched Him, ate with Him, beheld His sacred wounds; and Thomas, because still incredulous, was invited by Christ to lay his finger in the wounds of the nails and his hand into the side; and, overcome by the evidence, he adored Christ as his Lord and God (Jo. XX, 28).

If Christ was hot risen, then we must say that all the Apostles had conspired to practise this huge and wicked deceit on the world. What had they to gain by it in this life or in the next? Would they have given their blood in testimony of this false pretence? Men never act that way. Nor could they have deceived the world, even had they wished to do so. And the five hundred disciples who saw the risen Christ, were they all impostors? Did they deceive the many thousands of converts, some from among the Pharisees, and to such an extent that their imposture has never been detected? No fact in history is more certain than Christ's Resurrection: he who refuses to accept it will accept no historic proof whatever.

29. Another class of credentials that prove a messenger to be from God consists of prophecies, either verified in his person, or uttered by him and afterwards accom-