of plausible objection, as Paley showed. The moment we introduce the historic element, the question seems transferred to a higher court. Primitive, early, and unscientific man, is at all times and everywhere prone to see miracle in everything that appears odd or strange to his limited experience. Ignorant of nature's laws, he finds no difficulty in assuming their violation; he lives in an atmosphere of fiction, fable, and myth, and much prefers a miraculous explanation of an event to a rational or real one. The belief in miracles is universal in wholly unscientific times. With the growth of culture it diminishes; with the extension of science it disappears. Miracles are never supposed to occur except where and when an antecedent belief in them exists. In other words, the belief in miracles depends not upon objective facts, but on the subjective conditions of the witnesses' minds.

Paley tried to parry the obvious objection that the best way to silence the gainsayers of miracles would be to repeat them. "To expect, concerning a miracle, that it should succeed upon repetition, is to expect that which would make it cease to be a miracle; which is contrary to its nature as such, and would totally destroy the use and purpose for which it was wrought;' a remark less acute than Paley's re

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marks usually are. Assuming that a miracle reveals the presence of a supernatural power, why should its repetition destroy its miraculous character; above all, why should it destroy its use? If miracles are intended to convert the stiff-necked and hard of heart, what more likely way of bringing them to submission than the repetition of miracles? And according to Scripture, this was precisely the way in which Pharaoh, King of Egypt, was humbled. He resisted the miracles wrought by Moses and Aaron with stubbornness all through the first nine plagues; but the universal slaying of the first-born broke even his spirit. Such must always be the effect of repeated miracles; and there can be no doubt that even at this day, in the midst of all this science and scepticism, if miracles were again wrought in a public place and manner, so as to remove the suspicion of trickery and legerdemain, the effect of them would be greater than ever it was. Suppose a prophet of God were to appear among us, and announce that he had a revelation to make. According to Paley, his only way of making it would be by miracle; he therefore would perform miracles. As all difficulties vanish before Almighty power, one miracle would be the same as another to him; and let us suppose him to walk on the water, down the centre of the Thames, from Putney to Mortlake. May we not be sure that one

such achievement would produce a sensation perfectly overwhelming, not only in London, but to the furthest limits of the civilized world? If he rapidly followed up this miracle by others-fed with a few loaves the crowds on Hampstead Heath on a Bank Holiday, or those on Epsom Downs on the Derby day; gave sight to a man notoriously blind from his birth, or raised from the dead a putrescent corpse which had lain four days in the grave-can we remotely conceive a limit to the excitement which would ensue? Would not such a reaction against current scientific notions set in, as would sweep everything before it? Supposing always that the miracles were bonâ fide miracles, such as are assumed to have been wrought in Judæa some eighteen hundred years ago, we may even be sure that many, if not all, of the chief men of science would be among the most impressed, if not the most excited, and be prompt to own that they had made a great mistake in asserting the invariability of nature's laws. A complete recast of the philosophy of the inductive sciences would be one of the least results of a manifestation of genuine miracles. As for its effect on the cause of religion, there can be little room for doubt. The passionate yet hopeless yearning, which now fills so many minds, to retain a rational belief in the supernatural, would be replaced

by a serene joy over the triumph of faith. It may suit Paley to say that repetition of miracles would destroy their use, but he must be a lukewarm theologian who does not at times wish from the depth of his heart that an authentic miracle could be produced. Yet it is at this momentous crisis in the religious affairs of the world, when the enemy is carrying one position after another, and has all but penetrated to the citadel of belief, that no miracles occur that no miracles are claimed, except, indeed, of the compromising species made at Lourdes, and now and then of a fasting girl exhibited in Belgium and in Wales. When no one doubted the possibility or the frequency of miracles they abounded, we are told; that is, when by reason of their number and the ready credit accorded to them, their effect was the least startling, then they were lavished on a believing world. Now, when they are denied and insulted as the figments of a barbarous age, when the faith they might support is in such jeopardy as it never was before, when a tithe of the wonders wasted in the deserts of Sinai and the "parts beyond Jordan" would shake the nations with astonishment and surprise -when, in short, the least expenditure of miracle would produce the maximum of result-then miracles mysteriously cease. This fact, which is utterly beyond contest, has borne fruit, and will yet bear more.

Instead of a short chapter, a long volume would be needed to set forth in detail even a spicilegium of the rationalistic arguments which have operated to produce a decay of belief. Any one interested in the subject will easily find them in the appropriate quarters in the attacks on, and still better, in the defences of, the Bible. The width of the breach between reason and faith, between theology and science, is hardly denied ; and the noteworthy fact is, that only one of the parties hopes for, or believes in, an ultimate reconciliation. Reason and science have made up their minds on the subject, and would gladly leave it alone, and attend to their own affairs. It is theology that cannot resign herself to a permanent quarrel, and is always pursuing science with a mixture of entreaty and reproach, and begging the latter to hear her cause over again, and not to say with cruel harshness that the separation is for good and all. We may, therefore, leave this side of our subject with a concluding observation.

On no point were apologists more confident than on the impossibility of explaining the uprise of Christianity otherwise than by a supernatural principle. In the words of Archbishop Whately, "No complete and consistent account has ever been given of the manner in which the Christian religion, supposing it a human contrivance, could have arisen