It avails nothing to preach repentance of sin and salvation from judgment to come, to minds which are truly empty of the belief that God has any care for morality.

I of course do not say, and have never said, that the doctrine of the divine holiness, goodness, truth, must have been previously an active belief of the heathen hearer.

To have stated a question clearly is often half the solution; and the teacher, who so states a high doctrine, gives a great aid to the learner's mind.

But unless, after it has been affirmed that there is a Great Eternal Being pervading the universe, who disapproves of human evil and commands us to pursue the good, the conscience and intellect of the hearer gives assent, no argument of moral religion can have weight with him; therefore neither can any argument about miracles, nor any appeal to the "Bible" as authoritative.

Of course the book has not as yet any influence over him, nor will its miracles, any more than its doctrines, be received on the ground of their being in the book.