which he knew had never occurred. This is in entire accordance with what we find in the whole history of ecclesiastical miracles, from those recorded in Scripture down to those of St. Francis of Assisi in the thirteenth century, and of St. Francis Xavier in the sixteenth. Innumerable as are the accounts of miracles said to have been wrought by relics or by other holy persons, there is no instance of any statement by any credible person that he had himself worked a real miracle. St. Augustine describes in detail many wonderful miracles, including resurrections from the dead, which he said had been wrought to his own knowledge, within his own diocese of Hippo, by the relics of the martyr Stephen. In fact, he says that the number of miracles thus wrought within the last two years since when these relics had been at Hippo, was at least seventy. This testimony is far more precise than any for the Gospel miracles, for it comes from a well-known man of high character, who was on the spot at the time, and speaks of these and many other miracles having occurred to his own knowledge. But he never asserts that he himself had ever wrought a miracle.

In like manner Paulinus relates many miracles of his master, St. Ambrose, including one of raising the dead; but Ambrose himself never asserts that he performed a miracle. Neither does St. Francis of Assisi, or any of the 25,000 saints of the Roman calendar to whom miracles are attributed.

Even Jesus himself seems, on several occasions, to have disclaimed the power of working miracles, as when He refused to comply with the perfectly reasonable request of the Jews to attest His Messiahship by a sign, if He wished them to believe in it.

There is every reason, therefore, to believe that when we find narratives making no mention of important miracles which were afterwards commonly received, they must be taken from records of an earlier date, and proceeding directly from those who, if the miracles were true, would have been the principal eye-witnesses to vouch for them. But, if this be so, how near to the fountain-head do these narratives carry us? We lose the miracles, but in compensation we get what may be considered fresh and lively narratives of the life and conversation of Jesus, and confirmation both of His being an historical personage, and of the many anecdotes and sayings which depict His character, and bring Him before us as He really lived. The mythical theory cannot stand which found in every saying and action an ex post facto attempt to show that He fulfilled prophecies and realized Messianic expectations. We can see Him walking through the fields on a Sunday afternoon with His disciples, plucking ears of corn, and rebuking the Pharisees for their puritanical adherence to the letter of the observance of the Sabbath; we can see Him taking little children in His arms, and talking familiarly at the well with the woman of Samaria; we can hear Him preaching the Sermon on the Mount, and dropping parables from His mouth like precious pearls of instruction in love, charity, and all Christian virtues. We can sympathize with the agony in the garden as with a real scene, and hear the despairing cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

It seems to me that faith in the reality of scenes like these is worth a good deal of faith in the metaphysical conundrums of the Athanasian Creed, or in the actual occurrence of incredible miracles.

Another argument in favor of the early date and genuine character of the primitive records which have been worked up in the Synoptic

Gospels, is afforded by the sayings attributed to Jesus. It is impossible to imagine that these could be the invention of a later age, when theological questions of faith and doctrine had absorbed almost the entire attention of the Christian world. We have already seen how wide is the difference, both as regards style and phase of thought, between the discourses reported in the fourth Gospel and those of the Synoptics. No one writing in the second or towards the end of the first century, or even earlier in the religious atmosphere of St. Paul's Epistles, could have composed the Sermon on the Mount or the Lord's Prayer. The parables and maxims, instead of teaching nothing but a pure and sublime morality in simple language, must have contained references to the doctrine of the Logos, and the disputes between the Jewish and the Gentile Christians. Even if these discourses had passed long through the fluctuating medium of oral tradition, they must, when finally reduced to writing, have shown many traces of the theological questions which agitated the Christian world. The only explanation is that Apostles like St. Matthew, and St. Peter through Mark, really recorded these sayings in writing while they were fresh in memory, and that their authority secured them from adulteration.

At the same time it must be borne in mind that while portions of the original narrative appear to carry us back very near to the fountain-head, a large part of the Gospels in their present form is evidently of much later date and of uncertain origin. It is clear that Papias, writing about the year 150, knew nothing of the Gospels of Luke and John, and nothing of those of Matthew and Mark in their present form. The discourses of Matthew and the disconnected notes of Mark, to which he refers, were something very different from the complete histories of the life and teaching of Jesus contained in the present Gospels. It is equally clear that Justin Martyr and Hegesippus, who wrote about the middle of the second century, and made frequent quotations of the sayings and doings of the Lord, made them, not from the present canonical Gospels, but from other sources relating the same things in different order and different language. "A Gospel according to the Hebrews" and "Memoirs of the Apostles" seem to have been the principal sources from which they quoted.

It is evident however, that during the first two centuries there were a great number of so-called Gospels and Apostolic writings floating about in the Christian world along with oral traditions. The author of Luke tells us this expressly, and later writers refer to a number of works now unknown or classed as apocryphal, and complain of forged Gospels circulated by heretics. None of these writings, however, seem to have had any peculiar authority or been considered as inspired Scripture, which term is exclusively confined to the Old Testament, until the middle of the second century.

At length, by a sort of law of the survival of the fittest, the present Gospels acquired an increasing authority and superseded the other works which had competed with them; but the selection was determined to a great extent, not by those principles of criticism which would now be applied to historical records, but by doctrinal considerations of the support they gave to prevalent opinions. In other words, orthodoxy and not authenticity was the test applied, and it is probable that no Christian Father of the second or third century would have hesitated to reject an early manuscript traceable very clearly to an Apostle, in favor of a later compilation of doubtful origin,

if the former contained passages which seemed to favor heretical views, while the latter omitted those passages, or altered them in a sense favorable to orthodoxy.

To sum up the matter, it appears that while the antecedent improbability of miracles has been enormously increased by the constant and concurrent proofs of the permanence of the laws of Nature, the evidence for them when dispassionately examined, is altogether insufficient to establish even an ordinary fact.

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CHAPTER IX.

CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT MIRACLES.

AN Christianity continue to exist without miracles?

To answer this question we must distinguish between practi cal and theoretical Christianity. The essence of practical Christianity consists in such a genuine acceptance of its moral teaching, and love and reverence for the life and character of its Founder, as may influence conduct, and be a guide and support in life. Theoretical Christianity is that which professes to teach a complete theory of the creation of the world and man, of the relations between man and his Creator, and of his position and destiny in a future state of existence.

The former needs no miracles. The Sermon on the Mount, and St. Paul's description of Christian charity, carry their own proof with them, and such parables as that of the Good Samaritan require no support, either from historical evidence or from supernatural signs, to come home to every heart whether in the first or in the nineteenth century. The fact that the son of a Jewish mechanic, born in a small town of an obscure province, without any special aid from position, education, or other outward circumstance, succeeded, by the sheer force of the purity and loveliness of his life and teaching, in captivating all hearts and founding a religion which for nineteen centuries has been the main civilizing influence of the world and the faith of its noblest men and noblest races; this fact, I say, is of itself so admirable and wonderful as not to require the aid of vulgar miracles and metaphysical puzzles in order to be recognized as worthy of the highest reverence. And when such a life was crowned by a death which remains the highest type of what is noblest in man, self-sacrifice in the cause of truth and for the good of others, we may well call it divine, and not quarrel with any language or any forms of worship which tend to keep it in view and hold it up to the world as an inducement to a higher life.

Miracles are not only unnecessary for a faith of this description, but are a positive hindrance to it. To put it at the lowest, miracles, in an age which has learned the laws of Nature, must always be open to grave doubts, and thus throw doubt on the reliability of the narratives which are supposed to depend on them. Moreover, the touching beauty and force of example of the life of Jesus are almost lost if He is evaporated into a sort of supernatural being, totally unlike any conceivable member of the human family. We may strive to model our conduct at a humble distance on that of the man Jesus, the carpenter's son, whose father and mother, brothers and sisters, were familiar

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figures in the streets of Nazareth, but hardly on that of a "Logos," the incarnation of a metaphysical conception of an attribute of the Deity, who existed before all worlds and by whom all things were made.

But, on the other hand, miracles are indispensable for the dogma, or theoretical side of Christian theology. Let us consider frankly what this dogma is, and how far it is true-that is, consistent or inconsistent with known and indisputable facts.

The Christain dogma cannot be better stated than in the words of St. Paul, who was its first inventor, or, at any rate, the first by whom it was elaborated into a complete theory.

"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

This may be expanded into the following propositions:

1. That the Old Testament is miraculously inspired, and contains a literally true account of the creation of the world and of man.

2. That, in accordance with this account, the material universe, earth, sun, moon, and stars, and all living things on the earth and in the seas, were created in six days, after which God rested on the seventh day.

3. That the first man, Adam, was created in the image of God and after His own likeness, and placed, with the first woman, Eve, in the Garden of Eden, where they lived for a time in a state of innocence, and holding familiar converse with God.

4. That by an act of disobedience they fell from this high state, were banished from the Garden, and sin and death were inflicted as a penalty on them and their descendants.

5. That after long ages, during which mankind remained under this curse, God sent His Son, who assumed human form, and by His sacrifice on the cross appeased God's anger, removed the curse, and destroyed the last enemy, death, giving a glorious resurrection and immortal life to those who believed on Him.

This theory is a complete one, which hangs together in all its parts, and of which no link can be displaced without affecting the others. It is the theory which has been accepted by the Christian world since its first promulgation; and, although expounded with metaphysical refinements in the Athanasian Creed, and set forth with all the gorgeous surroundings of poetical imagination in Milton's "Paradise Lost," it remains in substance St. Paul's theory, that "as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

It is obvious that this theory is open to grave objections on moral grounds. It is more in the character of a jealous Oriental despot than of a loving and merciful Father, to inflict such a punishment on hundreds of millions of unoffending creatures for an act of disobedience on the part of a remote ancestor. And it is still more inconsistent with our modern ideas of justice and humanity to require the vicarious sacrifice of an only Son as the condition of forgiving the offence and removing the curse.

Nevertheless it must be admitted that, notwithstanding these objections, and harsh as the theory is, it has had a wonderful attraction for many of the highest intellects and noblest nations of the human race.

It was the creed of Luther, Cromwell, and Milton, and the inspiring spirit of Scotch Presbyterianism and English Puritanism. It has

inspired great men and great deeds, and although responsible for a good deal of persecution and fanaticism, it must always be spoken of with respect, as a creed which has had a powerful effect in raising men's minds from lower to higher things, and has on the whole done good work in its time.

But the question of its continuance as a creed which it is possible for sincere men to believe, as literally and historically true, depends not on wishes and feelings, or on reverence for the past, but on hard facts. Is it or is it not consistent with what are now known to be the real truths respecting the constitution of the universe and the origin of life and of man?

To state this question is to answer it. There is hardly one of the facts shown in the preceding chapters to be the undoubted results of modern science which does not shatter to pieces the whole fabric. It is as certain as that two and two make four that the world was not created in the manner described in Genesis; that the sun, moon, and stars are not lights placed in the firmament or solid crystal vault of heaven to give light upon the earth; that animals were not all created in one or two days, and spread over the earth from a common centre in Armenia, after having been shut up in pairs for forty days in an ark, during a universal deluge. And finally, that man is not descended from an Adam created quite recently in God's image, and who fell from a high state by an act of disobedience, but from a long series of Palæolithic ancestors, extending back certainly into the Glacial and probably into the Tertiary period, who have not fallen but progressed, and by a slow and painful process of evolution have gradually developed intelligence, language, arts, and civilization, from the very rudest and most animal-like beginnings.

Belief in inspiration, the very key-stone of the system, becomes impossible when it is shown that the accounts given of such important matters in the writings professing to be inspired are manifestly untrue; and when the ordinary rules of criticism are brought to bear upon these writings it is at once seen that they are compilations of different ages from various and uncertain sources.

The improbability of miracles is enormously increased by the proof of the uniform operation of natural law throughout the vast domains of space, time, matter, and life; and where the supernatural was formerly considered to be a matter of every-day occurrence, it has vanished step by step, until only the last vestige of it is left in a possible belief in some of the more important and impressive miracles of the Christian dispensation. Even this faint belief is manifestly founded more on reverence for tradition, and love of the religion which the miracles are supposed to support, than on any dispassionate view of the evidence on which they rest. Tried by the ordinary rules of evidence, it is apparent that it is contradictory and uncertain, and not such as would be sufficient to establish in a court of law any ordinary fact, such as the execution of a deed. It is apparent also that the evidence for the most crucial and important of all miracles, that of the Ascension, is not nearly so precise and cogent as that for a number of early Christian and medieval miracles which we reject without hesitation.

What follows? Must we reject these venerable traditions as old wives' fables? I answer, No; but we must accept them as parables.

A great deal of the best teaching of the New Testament is con