Such is the narrative of the Gospel. Is it true? Did these things really happen? In regard to one fact, Christians, Jews and Romans were agreed. The body of Jesus Christ was removed from a closed and sealed tomb, guarded by Roman soldiers, by early dawn on the morning of Easter Sunday. It was removed either by Divine power, or by human ingenuity. The rulers of the Jews circulated the report, which they have repeated to this day, that his disciples came and stole him away, while the guard was sleeping. "What!" exclaims St. Augustine, "you will prove your cause by sleeping witnesses?" If they were asleep, they knew nothing of the way by which the body disappeared. And if they were awake to see the disciples steal it, why did they not kill them on the spot. { 53} The guard were sleeping! A guard of Roman soldiers. Who can believe that? For a Roman soldier to sleep at his post was an extraordinary and most disgraceful thing, and here we have a whole band of them, with an officer at their head--sleeping. The punishment was death. In this case especially, no mercy could have been expected, where both Roman and Jewish rulers were so deeply interested in putting an end to the religion of Christ. How did they dare confess their sleeping, unless they were in connivance with the authorities, and bribed to repeat this story. Why was no trial held? Why were not these soldiers examined before a tribunal? Why was no search made for the body of Jesus, and for his disciples? Why is the whole matter hushed up by common consent between Pilate and Caiphas? There is only one possible supposition. And that is: that the soldiers saw the resurrection of the Lord--that they related it to their rulers, and that by bribes and threats their testimony was suppressed. I will not pause to accumulate arguments. { 54} I will not speak of the impossibility that Jesus Christ should be able to predict that his disciples would attempt such an incredible task as the removal of his body, and succeed in it. I will not speak of their timidity, and their perfect want of all plan of action, all means of carrying out any project whatever; of their complete perplexity and helplessness; and of the utter madness of sacrificing all their worldly goods and their lives, to carry out a manifest imposture. These things are so plain, that reasoning only seems to weaken the effect with which they strike conviction to the mind at the first statement.