bedded, as it were, and involved in the great revealed fact of the Incarnation.

So much is plain at starting, but more is plain too. Miracles are not only not unlikely, they are positively likely, and for this simple reason, because, for the most part, when God begins, He goes on. We conceive that when He first did a miracle, He began a series; what He commenced, He continued; what has been, will be. Surely this is good and clear reasoning. To my own mind, certainly, it is incomparably more difficult to believe that the Divine Being should do one miracle and no more, than that He should do a thousand; that He should do one great miracle only, than that He should do a multitude of less besides. This beautiful world of nature, His own work, He broke its harmony, He broke through His own laws, which he had imposed on it; He worked out His purposes, not simply through it, but in violation of it. If He did this only in the lifetime of the Apostles; if He did it but once, eighteen hundred years ago and more, that isolated infringement looks as the mere infringement of a rule; if Divine Wisdom would not leave an infringement, an anomaly, a solecism, on His work, He might be expected to introduce a series of miracles, and to turn the apparent exception into an additional law of His Providence. If the Divine Being does a thing once, He is, judging by human reason, likely to do it again. This surely is common sense... Suppose you yourselves were once to see a miracle, would you not feel that experience to be like passing a line? should you, in consequence of it, declare, "I never will believe another if I hear of one"? would it not, on the contrary, predispose you to listen to a new report? would you scoff at it, and call it priestcraft, for the reason that you had actually seen one with your own eyes? I think you would not; then, I

ask, what is the difference of the argument, whether you have seen one or believe one? You believe the Apostolic miracles, therefore be inclined, beforehand, to believe later ones. Thus you see, our First Principle, that miracles are not unlikely now, is not at all a strange one in the mouths of those who believe that the Supreme Being came miraculously into this world, miraculously united Himself to man's nature, passed a life of miracles, and then gave His Apostles a greater gift of miracles than He exercised Himself. So far on the principle itself; and now, in the next place, see what comes of it. This comes of it, that there are two systems going on in the world, one of nature and one above nature; and two histories, one of common events, and one of miracles; and each system and each history has its own order. When I hear of the miracle of a Saint, my first feeling would be of the same kind as if it were a report of any natural exploit or event. Supposing, for instance, I heard a report of the death of some public man, it would not startle me, even if I did not at once credit it, for all men must die. Did I read of any great feat of valour, I should believe it, if imputed to Alexander or Cœur de Lion. Did I hear of any act of baseness, I should disbelieve it, if imputed to a friend whom I knew and loved. And so, in like manner, were a miracle reported to me as wrought by a member of Parliament, or a Bishop of the Establishment, or a Wesleyan preacher, I should repudiate the notion were it referred to a Saint, or the relic of a Saint, or the intercession of a Saint, I should not be startled at it, though I might not at once believe it. And I certainly should be right in this conduct, supposing my First Principle to be true. Miracles to the Catholic are facts of history and biography, and nothing else; and they are to be regarded and dealt with as other facts; and as natural

facts, under circumstances, do not startle Protestants, so supernatural, under circumstances, do not startle the Catholic.' They may or may not have taken place in particular cases; he may be unable to determine which; he may have no distinct evidence; he may suspend his judgment; but he will say, "It is very possible;" he never will say, "I cannot believe it."2.

(III.)

Such, then, is the answer I would make to those who urge against us the multitude of miracles recorded in our Saints' Lives. We think them true in the sense in which

1

1 Douglas, succeeding Middleton, lays down the sceptical and Protestant First Principle thus: "The history of miracles (to make use of the words of an author whose authority you will think of some weight), is of a kind totally different from that of common events; the one to be suspected always of course, without the strongest evidence to confirm it; the other to be admitted of course, without as strong reason to suspect it," &c. Criterion," p. 26.

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2 ["Though it is a matter of faith with Catholics that miracles never cease in the Church, still that this or that professed miracle really took place, is for the most part only a matter of opinion, and when it is believed, whether on testimony or tradition, it is not believed to the exclusion of all doubt, whether about the fact or its miraculousness. Thus I may believe in the liquefaction of St. Pantaleon's blood, and believe it to the best of my judgment to be a miracle, yet, supposing a chemist offered to produce exactly the same phenomena under exactly similar circumstances by the materials put at his command by his science, so as to reduce what seemed beyond nature within natural laws, I should watch with some suspense of mind and misgiving the course of his experiment, as having no Divine Word to fall back upon as a ground of certainty that the liquefaction was miraculous." "Grammar of Assent," p. 193.]

Protestants think the details of English history true... If, indeed, miracles never can occur, then, indeed, impute the narratives to fraud; but, till you prove they are not likely, we shall consider the histories which have come down to us true on the whole, though in particular cases they may be exaggerated or unfounded, Where, indeed, they can certainly be proved to be false, there we shall be bound to do our best to get rid of them; but till that is clear, we shall be liberal enough to allow others to use their private judgment in their favour, as we use ours in their disparagement. For myself, lest I appear to be in any way shrinking from a determinate judgment on the claims of those miracles and relics, which Protestants are so startled at, and to be hiding particular questions in what is vague and general, I will avow distinctly, that, putting out of the question the hypothesis of unknown laws of nature (that is, of the professed miracle being not miraculous), I think it impossible to withstand the evidence which is brought for the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius at Naples, and for the motion of the eyes of the pictures of the Madonna in the Roman States. I see no reason to doubt the material of the Lombard Crown at Monza ; and I do not see why the Holy Coat at Trèves may not have been what it professes to be. I firmly believe that portions of the true Cross are at Rome, and elsewhere, that the crib of Bethlehem is at Rome, and the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul also. I believe that at Rome, too, lies St. Stephen, that St. Matthew lies at Salerno, and St. Andrew at Amalfi. I firmly believe that the relics of the Saints are doing innumerable miracles and graces daily, and that it needs only for a Catholic to show devotion to any Saint in order to receive special benefits from his intercession. I firmly believe that the Saints in their lifetime have before now raised the dead to life, crossed the sea without vessels,

multiplied grain and bread, cured incurable diseases, and superseded the operation of the laws of the universe in a multitude of ways. Many men, when they hear an educated man so speak, will at once impute the avowal to insanity, or to an idiosyncrasy, or to imbecility of mind, or to decrepitude of powers, or to fanaticism, or to hypocrisy. They have a right to say so, if they will; and we have a right to ask them why they do not say it of those who bow down before the Mystery of mysteries, the Divine Incarnation. If they do not believe this, they are not yet Protestants; if they do, let them grant that He who has done the greater may do the less.-("Present Position of Catholics," p. 298.)

THE EARLIEST RECORDED APPARITION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

I KNOW of no instance to my purpose earlier than A.D. 234, but it is a very remarkable one. . . St. Gregory Nyssen,' then, a native of Cappadocia in the fourth century, relates that his namesake, Bishop of Neo-Cæsarea, surnamed Thaumaturgus, in the century preceding, shortly before he was called to the priesthood, received in a vision a Creed, which is still extant, from the Blessed Mary at the hands of St. John. The account runs thus:-He was deeply pondering theological doctrine, which the heretics of the day depraved. "In such thoughts," says his namesake of Nyssa, "he was passing the night, when one appeared,

1 1 [See "Essay on Doctrinal Development," p. 386.]