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really addressed to Jesus, the term God might well have been applied, according to known Jewish usage, and in its lower sense, to one who now had manifested undeniably that he was the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, the Son of God, and the King of Israel. Lastly, the answer of Jesus himself excludes the supposition that he was addressed as the Supreme God. For he said unto his disciple, "Thomas, because thou hast seen me thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." Now this must mean, 'Because thou hast seen me here alive, after my crucifixion and burial, thou hast believed that I am raised from the dead; and it is well; but blessed are they who cannot have such evidence of the senses, and yet shall believe in the glorious truth, from your evidence, and that of your brethren.” He could not have meant, that they were blessed, who, though they had not seen him, yet had believed that he was God; because there is no connexion between the propositions; because the fact of the resurrection of Jesus cannot, to the mind of any one, be of itself a proof of his Deity; and, because no one thinks of requiring to see God, in order to believe that he exists. In conclusion, it must be remembered, that these considerations are so obvious, that they

have been fully adopted by some of those who still have professed their belief, founded on other evidence, of the Deity of Christ.

It cannot be doubted that the decided and resolute character of Thomas, fitted him eminently for his apostolic duties. But the accounts which we have of his life and works after the ascension of his Master, though sufficiently copious, are too contradictory to claim our entire confidence. Some general facts, however, seem to be well established, and they are of an exceedingly interesting character. There is no good reason to doubt, that this apostle penetrated as' far into the East with his heavenly mission, as to the Coromandel and Malabar Coasts of Indostan, and even to Taprobane, or Ceylon, visiting and preaching in other countries by the way. On those coasts he made a great number of converts, the descendants of whom, still professing Christianity, exist in that part of India at the present day, and are called the St. Thomas Christians, according to the testimony of Dr. Buchanan, Bishop Heber, and other enlightened travellers. This is a remarkable confirmation of the general statements of early ecclesiastical writers; and is a proof that we may receive many of their principal facts, without relying on their minute details

or marvellous legends. These Christians of St, Thomas were known to the western world in early times, but appear to have been lost sight of afterwards, till they were again discovered by navigators at the commencement of the sixteenth century. The see of Rome endeavoured to bring them under its subjection, but with only partial success. A part of them are now Roman Catholics, but the majority form a church entirely independent of the church of Rome. They possess the New Testament in the Syriac language.

The martyrdom of Thomas is stated to have taken place at Malipur or Meliapor, on the Coromandel coast, not far from the present city of Madras, where he had converted the king of the country, and many of his subjects, and had built a church. The Brahmins were enraged at his success, and by one of them he was run through the body with a lance, while he was kneeling at his devotions before a tomb. He was buried in the church which he had built; but his bones are said to have been afterwards translated to Edessa in Mesopotamia.

The following narrative by Bishop Heber, touching these events in the life of St. Thomas, is taken from his Journal in India, vol. iii. pages 212-214.

"We went in a carriage to the military station of St. Thomas' Mount, eight miles from Madras, intending, in our way, to visit the spot marked out by tradition as the place where the Apostle St. Thomas was martyred. Unfortunately the 'little Mount,' as this is called, (being a small rocky knoll with a Roman Catholic Church on it, close to Marmalong bridge in the suburb of Meilapoor,) is so insignificant, and so much nearer Madras than we had been given to understand, that it did not attract our attention until too late. That it really is the place, I see no good reason for doubting; there is as fair historical evidence as the case requires, that St. Thomas preached the Gospel in India, and was martyred at a place named Milliapoor or Meilapoor. The eastern Christians, whom the Portuguese found in India, all agreed in marking out this as the spot, and in saying that the bones, originally buried here, had been carried away as relics to Syria. They and even the surrounding heathen, appear to have always venerated the spot, as these last still do, and to have offered gifts here on the supposed anniversary of his martyrdom. And as the story contains nothing improbable from beginning to end, (except a trumpery fabrication of some relics found here by the Portuguese monks about a

century and a half ago,) so it is not easy to account for the origin of such a story among men of different religions, unless there were some foundation for it.

"I know it has been sometimes fancied that the person who planted Christianity in India was a Nestorian Bishop named Thomas, not St. Thomas the Apostle; but this rests, absolutely, on no foundation but a supposition, equally gratuitous and contrary to all early ecclesiastical history, that none of the Apostles except St. Paul went far from Judea. To this it is enough to answer, that we have no reason why they should not have done so; or why, while St. Paul went, or intended to go, to the shores of the further west, St. Thomas should not have been equally laborious and enterprising in an opposite direction. But that all the Apostles, except the two St. Jameses, did really go forth to preach the Gospel in different parts of the world, as it was, à priori, to be expected, so that they did so we have the authority of Eusebius and the old Martyrologies, which is at least as good as the doubts of a later age, and which would be reckoned conclusive if the question related to any point of civil history. Nor must it be forgotten, that there were Jews settled in India at a very early period, to convert whom