he wrote to a public to whom it was an undoubted article of faith that thunder and lightning, hail and snowstorms, came direct from the Father of the gods in the sky. Even to a late period this was the general faith, and the prayers in our rubric for rain or fine weather remain as a survival of the belief that these things, when unusual or in excess, are supernatural manifestations. But Benjamin Franklin said, ‘No, there is nothing supernatural about lightning. I will bring it down from the clouds and manufacture it by turning a wheel.’ Appeal being made to _fact_, the verdict is that Franklin was right, and that lightning-conductors protect ships and houses better than prayers or incantations. Again, when Galileo and the Church joined issue as to whether the earth was round or flat, inspiration and authority were cited in vain for the received theory; _fact_ said it was round, and it was proved to be so by men sailing round it. The law of gravity was considered a very dangerous heresy, and for a long time pious divines held out against its conclusions, and contended that it was no better than atheism to doubt that comets were signs of God’s anger sent to warn a sinful world. But Halley calculated the time of his comet’s return according to the laws of gravity, and appeal being made to fact, the comet returned true to time. This has occurred so often that few are left who doubt the universal prevalence of law in the material universe, where former generations saw miracles at every turn. Nor is the defeat of miracle less conspicuous in the spiritual world. Where former ages and rude races saw, and still see, possession by evil spirits, modern doctors see fevers, epilepsies, or insanity. Once more appeal being made to _fact_, the old medicine-men administered incantations, the new ones quinine—which cure the most patients? In like manner demonology and witchcraft, with all their train of cruelties and horrors, once universally believed even by men like Justice Hale, have passed into oblivion as completely as the Lamiæ, Phorkyads, and other fantastic figures of the classical Walpurgisnight. Is the world the better or the worse for this triumph of natural law over supernaturalism? The triumph has been so complete in innumerable instances, without a single one to the contrary, that belief in the permanence and universality of natural law has become almost an instinct in all educated minds, and even those who cling to old beliefs must admit that the most cogent and irresistible evidence is requisite to establish the fact of a real supernatural interference. It may be taken as an axiom that wherever a natural explanation is possible, a miraculous one is impossible. Now this is just the point on which, as knowledge has increased, the evidence for miracles has become weaker, almost in the exact ratio in which the necessity for evidence has become stronger.