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that Pharaoh's magicians could turn a rod into a living serpent. Who believes it now? In the early ages it was assumed that men could work miracles, such as healing the sick, raising the dead; and they met the claims of the evangelists, not by denial, but by asserting; and they believed no doubt, that the men of their faith and the philosophers of the past had performed as great wonders as were ascribed to Christ and his apostles. Ours is a different age. It is not inclined to accept a history of the supernaturally marvellous as a verity, whether it relate to past or present experience, without an amount of proof commensurate to the demands it makes upon its credulity. Gibbon, in chapter xv. of his great history, says: "Accustomed long since to observe and to respect the invariable order of nature, our reason, or at least our imagination, is not prepared to sustain the visible action of Deity. But in the first ages of Christianity the situation of mankind was extremely different. The most curious, or the most credulous, among the pagans were often persuaded to enter a society which asserted an actual claim of miraculous powers. The primitive Christians perpetually trod on mystic grounds, and their minds were exercised by the habit of believing the most extraordinary events. They felt, or they fancied, that on every side they were assaulted by demons, confronted by visions, instructed by prophesy, and surprisingly delivered from danger, sickness, and from death itself, by the supplications of the church. The real or imaginary prodigies, of which they so frequently conceived themselves to be the objects, the instruments, or the spectators, very happily disposed them to adopt with the same ease, but with far greater justice, the wonders of evangelic history; and thus miracles, which exceeded not the measure of their own experience, inspired them with the most lively assurance of mysteries which were acknowledged to surpass the limits of their understanding."

In a superstitious age wonders of all kinds abound, and from friend and foe of any particular faith find ready credence. Such was the apostolic age. Many of the Jews no doubt credited the miracles said to have been wrought by Christ and his followers. Why should they not? Their sacred books told of prodigies as marvellous as any the evangelists record. If a heathen magician could turn sticks into snakes, and if an ass, in human speech, could rebuke a prophet, why should a Jew marvel at anything?

CHAPTER XVIII.

REPLY TO CHAPTER XVII.

Miracles-Hume-Gibbon-Witchcraft a Superstition-Catholic Testimony— "The Star in the East" and the " Wise Men"-Fenelon and the Bible Question—Josephus-Tooley Street Tailors—The Prodigies Attending the Birth of Jesus-Renan on Miracles.

"THE question of miracles seems now to be admitted on all hands to be simply a question of evidence." ("The Reign of Law," by the Duke of Argyll.)

"It is not for us to demonstrate the impossibility of a miracle; it is for the miracle to demonstrate itself. What proof have we that sirens and centaurs do not exist except that they have never been seen? What has banished from the civilized world a belief in the old demonology, except the observation that all the deeds formerly attributed to demons are well enough explained without their agency? A being who does not reveal himself by an act, is, for science, a being without existence" (Ernest Renan).

Ingersoll.-"How is it known that it was claimed during the life of Christ that he wrought a miracle?"

Lambert." It is known from four histories written by four well-known historians who were contemporaries of the Jewish historian Josephus. Their names are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."

Ingersoll.-"And if the claim was made, how is it known. that it was not denied?"

Lambert.-" There is contemporary evidence that the claim was made and admitted, and there is no evidence whatever that it was ever denied. On the contrary, all history takes those miracles as facts that have been passed upon, as no longer legitimate subjects of dispute."

Right here let me inquire whether it is true that all history takes these alleged miracles as facts. Gibbon was a historian second to few, if any; did he believe in miracles? Hume was one of the most erudite and accomplished of historians; did he believe in miracles? He wrote a treatise to prove that no possible amount of testimony was sufficient to render a miracle credible. As to Gibbon, further on. I dissent from Hume's doctrine, and agree with Argyll that the question of miracles is a question of evidence. Can we or should we accept as true the statement that miracles were ever wrought— such as healing the sick, raising the dead, the conversion of water into wine, and the manufacture from five loaves and two fishes of bread and fish sufficient in quantity to feed five thousand men and a multitude of women and children, leaving twelve basketfuls remaining? Should we accept such statements on the same kind and amount of evidence as we do the reign of a monarch, the history of a battle or the constitution of a State? No, for there is an antecedent improbability that such things ever happened. They contradict human experience. They imply the intervention of a force unknown either to science or philosophy. Not only so, but we find them wedded to superstitions which the educated world has long ago discarded.

Who now questions that astrology was a compound of superstition and imposition, or that witchcraft was a delusion? Not the Catholic Church, surely, for I hold in my hand "The Faith of our Fathers," by the Rt. Rev. James Gibbons, D. D., in which he speaks of the "ridiculous charge of witchcraft"

(p. 245). He says: "And who is ignorant of the number of innocent creatures that suffered death in the same State [Massachusetts] on the ridiculous charge of witchcraft toward the end of the seventeenth century?" Yet astrologers are called in to testify to the birth of Jesus. They saw his star in the east and came to worship him (Matt. ii. 1, 9-11). And who were those "wise men," Magi or magicians? They were the illusionists, the sleight-of-hand performers of the east, filled with the religion of Zoroaster and all the mysticism which a warm climate could generate in superstitious brains. Let me introduce you to these worshipful witnesses. Gibbon in his history, chapter viii., says: "The memory of Zoroaster, the ancient prophet and philosopher of the Persians, was still revered in the east; but the obsolete and mysterious language in which the Zandavesta [Persian Bible] was composed opened a field of dispute to seventy sects, who explained the fundamental doctrines of their religion and were all indifferently derided by the crowd of infidels, who rejected the divine mission and the miracles of the prophet. To suppress the idolaters, reunite the schismatics, and confute the unbelievers by the infallible decision of a general council, the pious Artaxerxes summoned the Magi from all parts of his dominions. These priests, who had so long sighed in contempt and obscurity, obeyed the welcome summons; and on the appointed day appeared to about the number of eighty thousand. But as the debates of so tumultuous an assembly could not have been directed by the authority of reason, or influenced by the art of policy, the Persian synod was reduced, by successive operations, to forty thousand, to four thousand, to four hundred, to forty and at last to seven Magi, the most respected for their learning and piety. One of these, Erdivirath, a young but holy prelate, received from the hands of his brethren three cups of soporiferous wine. He drank them

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