I. Evil and error are painful facts, and universal. There is not merely the dulness of error, but an appreciable cleverness in evil; indeed, a skill of the very highest, subtlest kind in the various combinations of physical and psychical, mental and moral evil. There is hope of reform when a dull untaught stolid man, or an excitable weakling, is led by accident or temptation into guilt; but if men of ability and education, capable of honourable distinction, enter dark tangled defiles to attain, by ingenuity and through besetting perils, the success of fraud or the fleeting enjoyment of vice, of such men is little hope: good angels abandon them for ever. The determined meditative energy which some employ in the conception and execution of crime—crime which fascinates in proportion to the intellect of the criminal-seems everywhere to testify of Satanic craftiness and inhuman malice against God and holiness; to reveal an intricately devised and elaborately executed maze of iniquity, entangling the course of history, perverting all life, making the whole earth to groan. Evil, moreover, connected with strange mythologies, idolatry, spirit-culture, devil-worship, appears to be allied with an Evil Principle asserting himself in marvels-diabolically wrought, inciting men to selfishness and sensuality, obscenity and superstition. Not merely men of benighted. mind, only "illumined by a kind of miserable astuteness, and that cunning of the belly which is born of want to engender avarice;" but men of vast power who, like Cæsar Borgia-the murderer, the poisoner, the fratricide —are munificent patrons with exquisite appreciation of art, of marvellous persuasive, even poetic power. No wonder that evil creates the greatest difficulty as to faith

in the existence and personality of God: it seems to defy and deny the omnipotence, omniscience, and beneficence of the Supreme.

To reveal truth, to be a warning against error, and a means of resisting and overcoming evil, Divine miracles were wrought. To believe that the facts and doctrines of our Faith were received, and made their way, without miracles, is to believe something more miraculous than all that our books record. The people, amongst whom miracles were performed, attained the highest development of morality in the world. In the men lay those germs of spirit and activity which enable men to obtain renown in bold career. In the women was that yet finer stuff and more spiritual essence which lifts holy minds to the sacred atmosphere and life of Heaven. As for the prophets, through whose Inspiration came Revelation and Might, they lived for the honour and service of the One Holy Lord. It is not credible that these men, these women, these prophets, lied and deceived in the name of that Holy One; that tricks of jugglery should be passed off as miracles by votaries of the purest morality, who taught the grandest and most spiritual doctrines of which the world has ever obtained knowledge.

No sane man regards such a horrible thing as possible. The worst and most immoral of unbelievers allow that the Apostles, and those after them, were not deceivers; they rather charge them with being deceived. The plea of mistake will not avail. The mistake would some time or other leak out, but these men are always true; and men are only true, even to their genius, when the genius is at home in their career. The writers of the Old Testament, of the Gospels, of the Acts, of

the Epistles, of the Revelation, declare, as a fact, that they themselves had performed miracles, had seen, known, tested, the reality of miraculous works, and were ready to die in witness of their truth. "Wonderful as the whole Gospel History is, the most wonderful thing of all is, that a Jewish peasant should have succeeded in changing the religion of the world. That He should have succeeded in doing this without displaying any miracles would have been more wonderful than all the miracles that are recorded; and that He should have accomplished all this by means of pretended miracles, when none were really performed, would be most incredible of all" (Archbishop Whately).

It is a confirmation of the previous arguments, that Satanic-possibly pretended-miracles, preceded, accompanied, and followed Scripture marvels; that ignorance and superstition hollowed a channel for a stream of diabolical delusions to run through the whole course of human history and life. Indeed, the existence, or asserted existence, of these evil marvels accounts for the surprisingly little influence exercised by real miracles: the Jews, in many instances, not being persuaded however great the wonders that were wrought. As for marvels, generally refused, some of the best thinkers and holiest of men honestly believe that "ecclesiastical miracles" were not all delusions; and men of highest intelligence recognize a possible reality, and an actual wickedness, in Witchcraft. It is plain from Scripture, either that superhuman prodigies were wrought—or so craftily simulated as to seem real (Deut. xiii. 1-5). That they were real may be inferred from the fact that our Lord's whole life was a contention against them, and

His death and resurrection are for deliverance from them. That lying signs and wonders (not unreal but perverting to destruction) will be wrought in the last days no Christian doubts (Matt. xxiv. 24; 2 Thess. ii. 9; Rev. xiii. 13, 14). On this account, miracles appeal, rather, to common sense than to extravagant expectations; are meant to call our attention to holiness, to truth, rather than to remove the abnormal scepticism of morbid intellectuality. Only in contending against malice and unbelief-more than human, and against a more than world-power, craftily sustained by stupendous signs-are miracles wrought. Christ positively refused to work any miracle for the conviction of unbelievers. An opponent has no warrant for saying, "Revelation rests upon miracles, and miracles rest only upon Revelation, therefore, I reject both :" for the argument, as to Christianity, is not so much that we ought to receive it because of the marvels, but that the sublime mind, perfect purity, farsighted sagacity of the Saviour, could not possibly have allied Him or His Gospel to a lie. It is equally impossible that men who loved Him for His truth, who lived in maintenance of His holiness, and died on behalf of both; could have distorted His life and defiled His teaching, or could have lived in falsity and died traitors against His purity. There is no escape from the fact that miracles are possible at all times and in all places; but we rightly test all alleged miracles as severely as we can, and receive them only when the evidence in their favour appears to be reasonably irresistible.

II. Miracles obtain verification of a peculiarly convincing character, when viewed in connection with the wide plan, profound doctrines, and holy precepts of

Christ-which doctrines and precepts they clothe with superhuman authority.

The plan embraces all time, all men, all earthly things, and is mysteriously linked with intelligences and operations in other worlds. It proposes and undertakes the abolition of evil, the establishment of purity, and the raising of all things to a higher stage of being and existence. As it is a part of the plan to act by moral and loving persuasion on behalf of right, purity, truth, Revelation and Miracles are launched with only so much force as is necessary to win and maintain their acceptance by the pure-minded; in nowise to coerce the wilful unbeliever, or to compel the wicked and malicious. When conversion to holiness has been wrought by consideration and knowledge of God's Plan of Salvation; when love enters the heart, and constrains the affections to forsake sin; then miracles are the seal of God that the Truth is not of human invention, but Divine. The men thus won receive an exaltation and vividness of cerebral faculties amounting almost to a new sense. It is not "religiosity," "religentem esse oportet, religiosum nefas" ("Poeta apud A Gellium"), it is not a preternatural exaltation of imagination, not a goading of the mind to an unnatural state of susceptibility, but specifically spiritual. A power, a vividness, a purity, a farsightedness, such as possess men who say on the approach of their dissolution, "Many things are growing clear to us." Socrates declared, in his defence, "I am now arrived at the verge of life, wherein it is familiar with people to foretell what will come to pass." To the testimony of philosophers may be added that of poets