ent witnesses. He was seen first bv one woman alone, tlien by several women together, then by one man, then by two men, and each time in the open air. Then He was seen by ten dis- ciples in the evening iu a room, then by eleven disciples again in a room, and afterwards on five different occasions, at one of which no less than five hundred people were present. Those to whom He appeared, touched Him, talked with Him, and saw Him eat and drink. (Matt, xxviii. 9 ; John xx. 27 ; Luke xxiv. 42.) Nor must it be forgotten that all who saw Him were most unwilling at first to believe, and most slow to credit the report of His resurrection. Yet they were all finally con- vinced ! If there is any fact in Christianity that is well sup- ported by evidence, it is the fact of Christ rising again from the dead. It is the one fact that no infidel has ever fairly grappled with. One thing at any rate is most undeniably cer- tain, and no infidel can escape it. The Apostles a few weeks after our Lord's crucifixion, were utterly and entirely different men in every way from what they were before the crucifixion, — bolder, more decided, more unhesitating followers of Jesus of Nazareth, than they used to be, to a most enormous extent. Even such men as the German Rationalists, Paulus and Strauss, according to Tholuck, are obliged to make the curious admission, — " Something extraordinary must have occurred."
(c) Concerning the best mode of harmonizing the accounts which the four Evangelists give of our Lord's appearances, after He rose again from the dead, there is undeniably some difficulty. But it is probably far more apparent than real. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, each tell their own story. There is a most decided absence of any appearance of concert or collusion about them. How to reconcile the seeming dis- crepancies in their narratives, has exercised the skill of com- mentators in every age. Dean. Alford says fiatly, that he *' attempts no harmony of the accounts, and that he believes all such attempts to be fruitless." I do not agree with him at all, and I think the statement to be unworthy of the able writer who makes it. I think the accounts can be harmonized and reconciled, and that too without any unfair violence to the nar- ratives of the four Gospels.
The order of Christ's eleven appearances between His resur- rection and ascension, I believe to be as follows : (1) to Mary Magdalene alone (Mark xvi. 9 ; John xx. 14) ; (2) to certain women returning from the sepulchre (Matt, xxviii. 9, 10) ; (8) to Simon Peter alone (Luke xxiv. 34) ; (4) to two disciples go- ing to Etnmaus (Luke xxiv. lo); (o) to ten Apostles at Jerusa- lem, and some other disciples, Thomas being absent (John xx. 19) ; (0) to eleven Apostles at Jerusalem, Thomas being pres- ent (John XX. 2G — 29); (7) to seven disciples fishing at "the sea of Tiberias (John xxi. 1) ; (8) to eleven Apostles on a mountain in Galilee, and perhaps some others with them (Matt, xxviii. 16) ; (9) to above five hundred brethren at once (1 Cor. xv. 7) ;