always cases of momentary miracles; by which term I mean to denote miracles of which the whole existence is of short duration, in contradistinction to miracles which are attended with permanent effects.  The appearance of a spectre, the hearing of a supernatural sound, is a momentary miracle.  The sensible proof is gone when the apparition or sound is over.  But if a person born blind be restored to sight, a notorious cripple to the use of his limbs, or a dead man to life, here is a permanent effect produced by supernatural means.  The change indeed was instantaneous, but the proof continues.  The subject of the miracle remains.  The man cured or restored is there:  his former condition was known, and his present condition may be examined.  This can by no possibility be resolved into false perception:  and of this kind are by far the greater part of the miracles recorded in the New Testament.  When Lazarus was raised from the dead, he did not merely move, and speak, and die again; or come out of the grave, and vanish away.  He returned to his home and family, and there continued; for we find him some time afterwards in the same town, sitting at table with Jesus and his sisters; visited by great multitudes of the Jews as a subject of curiosity; giving, by his presence, so much uneasiness to the Jewish rulers as to beget in them a design of destroying him. (John xii. 1, 2, 9, 10.) No delusion can account for this.  The French prophets in England, some time since, gave out that one of their teachers would come to life again; but their enthusiasm never made them believe that they actually saw him alive.  The blind man whose restoration to sight at Jerusalem is recorded in the ninth chapter of Saint John’s Gospel did not quit the place or conceal himself from inquiry.  On the contrary, he was forthcoming, to answer the call, to satisfy the scrutiny, and to sustain the browbeating of Christ’s angry and powerful enemies.  When the cripple at the gate of the temple was suddenly cured by Peter, (Acts iii. 2.) he did not immediately relapse into his former lameness, or disappear out of the city; but boldly and honestly produced himself along with the apostles, when they were brought the next day before the Jewish council. (Acts iv. 14.) Here, though the miracle was sudden, the proof was permanent.  The lameness had been notorious, the cure continued.  This, therefore, could not be the effect of any momentary delirium, either in the subject or in the witnesses of the transaction.  It is the same with the greatest number of the Scripture miracles.  There are other cases of a mixed nature, in which, although the principal miracle be momentary, some circumstance combined with it is permanent.  Of this kind is the history of Saint Paul’s conversion. (Acts ix.) The sudden light and sound, the vision and the voice upon the road to Damascus, were momentary:  but Paul’s blindness for three days in consequence of what had happened; the communication made to Ananias in another place, and