of its reality!  A difficulty grounded on the fact of temporal and outward privations and sufferings, is solved by being infinitely increased, that is, by the assertion of the same principle on the determination of our inward and everlasting weal and woe.  That there is nothing in the Christian Faith or in the Canonical Scriptures, when rightly interpreted, that requires such an argument, or sanctions the recourse to it, I believe myself to have proved in the Aids to Reflection.  For observe that “to solve” has a scientific, and again a religious sense, and that in the latter, a difficulty is satisfactorily solved, as soon as its insolvibility for the human mind is proved and accounted for.

Ib. (Disc.  XIV. pp. 500-502.)

  Christianity proved by Miracles.

I cannot see and never could, the purpose, or ‘cui bono’, of this reasoning.  To whom is it addressed?  To a man who denies a God, or that God can reveal his will to mankind?  If such a man be not below talking to, he must first be convinced of his miserable blindness respecting these truths; for these are clearly presupposed in every proof of miracles generally.

Again, does he admit the authenticity of the Gospels, and the veracity of the Evangelists?  Does he credit the facts there related, and as related?  If not, these points must be proved; for these are clearly presupposed in all reasoning on the particular miracles of the Christian dispensation.  If he does, can he deny that many acts of Christ were wonderful;—­that reanimating a dead body in which putrefaction had already commenced,—­and feeding four thousand men with a few loaves and fishes, so that the fragments left greatly exceeded the original total quantity,—­were wonderful events?  Should such a man, ‘compos mentis’, exist, (which I more than doubt,) what could a wise man do but stare—­and leave him?  Christ wrought many wonderful works, implying admirable power, and directed to the most merciful and beneficent ends; and these acts were such signs of his divine mission, as rendered inattention or obstinate averseness to the truths and doctrines which he promulgated, inexcusable, and indeed on any hypothesis but that of immoral dispositions and prejudices, utterly inconceivable.  In what respect, I pray, can this statement be strengthened by any reasoning about the nature and distinctive essence of miracles ‘in abstracto’?  What purpose can be answered by any pretended definition of a miracle?  If I met with a disputatious word-catcher, or logomachist, who sought to justify his unbelief on this ground, I should not hesitate to say—­“Never mind whether it is a miracle or no.  Call it what you will;—­but do you believe the fact?  Do you believe that Christ did by force of his will and word multiply instantaneously twelve loaves and a few small fishes, into sufficient food for a hungering multitude of four thousand men and women?” When I meet with, or from credible authority hear of, a