are not the strongest evidence for the Christian miracles.  Only one of the four, in its present shape, is claimed as the work of an Apostle, and of that the genuineness is disputed.  The Acts of the Apostles stand upon very much the same footing with the Synoptic Gospels, and of this book we are promised a further examination.  But we possess at least some undoubted writings of one who was himself a chief actor in the events which followed immediately upon those recorded in the Gospels; and in these undoubted writings St. Paul certainly shows by incidental allusions, the good faith of which cannot be questioned, that he believed himself to be endowed with the power of working miracles, and that miracles, or what were thought to be such, were actually wrought both by him and by his contemporaries.  He reminds the Corinthians that ’the signs of an Apostle were wrought among them ... in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds’ ([Greek:  en saemeious kai terasi kai dunamesi]—­the usual words for the higher forms of miracle—­ 2 Cor. xii. 12).  He tells the Romans that ’he will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought in him, to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God’ ([Greek:  en dunamei saemeion kai teraton, en dunamei pneumator Theou], Rom. xv. 18, 19) He asks the Galatians whether ’he that ministereth to them the Spirit, and worketh miracles [Greek:  ho energon dunameis] among them, doeth it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?’ (Gal. iii. 5).  In the first Epistle to the Corinthians, he goes somewhat elaborately into the exact place in the Christian economy that is to be assigned to the working of miracles and gifts of healing (1 Cor. xii. 10, 28, 29).  Besides these allusions, St. Paul repeatedly refers to the cardinal miracles of the Resurrection and Ascension; he refers to them as notorious and unquestionable facts at a time when such an assertion might have been easily refuted.  On one occasion he gives a very circumstantial account of the testimony on which the belief in the Resurrection rested (1 Cor. xv. 4-8).  And, not only does he assert the Resurrection as a fact, but he builds upon it a whole scheme of doctrine:  ‘If Christ be not risen,’ he says, ‘then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.’  We do not stay now to consider the exact philosophical weight of this evidence.  It will be time enough to do this when it has received the critical discussion that may be presumed to be in store for it.  But as external evidence, in the legal sense, it is probably the best that can be produced, and it has been entirely untouched so far.