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which science shows, more and more, to be teleological. Even if no miraculous work had been done within our present age, that would be no argument: for we may see miracles any day that our faith makes us conversant with spiritual powers. If in the last days there are to be seducing spirits, we may be sure that their evil works will be counteracted by mightier. There is no antecedent improbability against a great manifestation of miraculous power in our day. As for asserted miracles, we should not credit any evidence that is less than intellectually irresistible; yet to say "a miracle is impossible," would be absurd. Even wicked men admit a sort of providence-call it luck, or whatever they mayby which they are under discipline; and feel that, though free, they are not independent. The unseen hand, the unheard voice, helping-commanding-forbidding-may be resisted; but it is certain that the Power who upholds all worlds can, when He sees fit, reveal Himself by special wonders-" Fides aroma scientiarum." Only by such, or somewhat similar, process of thought concerning religious faith in marvels, are we able to obtain an approximate view of the universe as a harmonious whole; or to link the obvious physical order with the discernible religious order. We discover a law, as to conservation of energy, by which power, ever transforming itself, is never lost. According to this law, by some polarization of forces, are crystals; by higher process, we obtain organic life; by an unconscious operation-for which we have no name—and by conscious operation, called “cerebration," we derive intelligence. All these forces are known gradational manifestations of energy. We ascend from physical force to vital, from vital to mental, from

mental to emotional, and seem, in our most graced and gifted men, partly to possess those heights of spirituality which approach the Supreme. The whole circle of being goes out from God and returns to God. There are wheels within wheels, worlds within worlds, infinities and infinitudes of manifold order. Every outer operation is the shell of an inner process. Automatism, physical and vital, is the earthly birthplace for nature's offspring-of life and intelligence. By the marriage of Life and Intelligence children are procreated for ascending grades of freedom. The willing and capable rise to the understanding, love, and service of the Almighty.

Where all is change, and that without ceasing; where all is interference, and that without limit; departures from the ordinary mode of change, such as those of which Religion enforces belief, belong to that indefinite number of varieties which fill the universe, and supernaturalize the natural. They are varieties, wrought by known or unknown powers, which man has never mastered, and probably never will. "The course of nature, in truth, is not only uniform, it is infinitely various" (Mill's "Logic," Bk. III. ch. iii.). "Nobody can find two leaves of any tree, or any two natural productions of ordinarily visible size, which are not visibly different, far more so than any artist could make any great number of them out of his own head" (Sir E. Beckett, "Origin of Laws of Nature," p. 77). Were all the miracles, recorded in Holy Scripture, wrought now in one day before our eyes, they would not equal in number or magnitude those other marvels of change, accomplished in the self-same day, for

which science neither has-nor can have cognition as to the cause; neither presents-nor ever will present an accurate explanatory formula of the process. Our soundest lawyers, greatest physicians, most skilful scientists, acutest reasoners, believe that there have been, are, and will be miracles. The thoughtful know what presses darkly and most bitterly on the human mind. Those highest in graces and gifts, who worship the Glorious One, would give their earthly all for the privilege of justifying the ways of God to men. They do not dream, nor invent, their spirit goes out to the future and returns with prophecy :—we shall awake at last, and heart gladly answer where genius now complains.

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"The miracles of the Bible are not only emblems of power in the spiritual world, but also exponents of the miracles of nature, experiments, as it were, made by the Great Teacher in person, on a small scale and within a limited time, to illustrate to mankind the phenomena that are taking place through longer periods throughout the universe. .. The philosophy of miracles is, therefore, the revelation of the living God as the God of nature."-Macmillan.

...

"Man is a little world, for all the mysteries of nature are treasured up in him."

RESPICE-We are sure, looking back upon our argument, that miracles, physical and moral, are verified. Nature is God Almighty's Garment,

"Der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid ;"

Faust, Act i. sc. I.

which He fashioned by Creation, which He uses in Providence. Those who tell us that to work a miracle the Lord must derange and change the universe to utmost limits, may well be told-The will of man changes and conquers the course of nature, rendering every law submissive; if man does this without derangement of the universe, shall the Almighty be incompetent? We know, moreover, that Nature was not always complete, as to

the past; nor is it now eternally complete for the future; change is so universal amidst the seeming uniformity, that never for two moments are worlds precisely the same. Nature winneth evermore victories from chaos for life and beauty; we see but the smallest part of the Lord's Dominions and Works.

Aspice-We look around, faith in God-in the Supernatural, is that bright star which guides into a safe haven. Miracles are sparks glistening on the wheel of Divine Providence as it revolves in ordinary work. They are probable, reasonable, natural, coming from Him by whom nature exists; and Supernatural as controlling nature. Nature is afflicted with a fatal malady.

“νοσεῖ πρόπας στόλος.”

SOPHOCLES, Edipus Rex, 168.

“ ἐν ἀνθρώποισι δὲ

κακοῖς νοσοῦντα σύγχυσιν πολλὴν ἔχει.”

EURIPIDES, Frag. Pel.

Miracles are a part of the means, elixirs in the prescription of the Great Physician. It is in the course of Nature that medicines heal, change the otherwise regular current of things, bring in a new and endless range of consequent events, that, instead of death, life rules and man is saved:

6 Ἰατρικὴ δὲ καὶ μαντικὴ καὶ πάνυ συγγενεῖς εἰσὶ.”

HIPPOCRATES, Epist. ad Philop.

Things are not fated, not bound with a chain of inseparable links; there are insertions of variety, links not welded-magnetic links under control of a Great Electrician, for translation of Divine Will into natural effect, human and superhuman effort. History, art, science, all experience, show that the universe is miracu

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