credited had not God's promise to our fallen parents that their seed should conquer sin and death been fulfilled in the person of the risen Saviour. This supreme importance of the Resurrection as an historic fact was recognized by Christ's enemies and friends alike. The Jewish nation's honor was at stake, for if Christ rose again they were forever branded as the murderers of the Messias, but if He failed to rise they could take credit to themselves for having justly punished an impostor; and hence they sought by every means to prove His promise unfulfilled. The Apostles, on the other hand, seem to have preached at first as though the Resurrection was the only dogma of our faith, styling themselves the witnesses thereof and taking care to elect as Judas's successor an eye-witness of the Lord's arising. " For," says St. Paul, " if Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain and our faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God and we are yet in our sins, and they who have died in the Lord have perished and we are of all men the most miserable." Whereas, I repeat, and repeat and repeat again, if Christ did rise from the dead we are bound by inexorable logic to admit His divinity, to accept all His teachings and all the teachings of His Church, and to conform our lives thereto — we are bound to fall at the Saviour's feet with St. Thomas, and repeat Thomas's all-embracing profession of faith: "My Lord and my God."
Brethren, what evidence, therefore, have we of the truth of Christ's Resurrection? What evidence! In
