If the facts of order, and design, and special adaptation which crowd the universe, and the _à priori_ ideas of an unconditioned Cause and an infinite Intelligence which arise in the mind in presence of these facts, are inadequate to produce the logical conviction that it is the work of an intelligent mind, how can any preternatural display of _power_ produce a rational conviction that God exists? "If the universe could come by chance or fate, surely all the lesser phenomena, termed miraculous, might occur so too."[94] If we find ourselves standing amid an eternal series of events, may not miracles be a part of that series? Or if all things are the result of necessary and unchangeable laws, may not miracles also result from some natural or psychological law of which we are yet in ignorance? Let it be granted that man is _not_ so constituted that, by the necessary laws of his intelligence, he must affirm that facts of order having a commencement in time prove mind; let it be granted that man has _no_ intuitive belief in the Infinite and Perfect--in short, no idea of God; how, then, could a marvellous display of _power_, a new, peculiar, and startling phenomenon which even seemed to transcend nature, prove to him the existence of an infinite _intelligence_--a personal God? The proof would be simply inadequate, because not the right kind of proof. Power does not indicate intelligence, force does not imply personality. [Footnote 94: Morell, "Hist. of Philos." p. 737.] Miracles, in short, were never intended to prove the existence of God. The foundation of this truth had already been laid in the constitution and laws of the human mind, and miracles were designed to convince us that He of whose existence we had a prior certainty, spoke to us by His Messenger, and in this way attested his credentials. To the man who has a rational belief in the existence of God this evidence of a divine mission is at once appropriate and conclusive. "Master, we know thou art a teacher sent from God; for no man can do the works which thou doest, except God be with him." The Christian missionary does not commence his instruction to the heathen, who have an imperfect, or even erroneous conception of "the Great Spirit," by narrating the miracles of Christ, or quoting the testimony of the Divine Book he carries along with him. He points to the heavens and the earth, and says, "There is a Being who made all these things, and Jehovah is his name; I have come to you with a message from Him!" Or he need scarce do even so much; for already the heathen, in view of the order and beauty which pervades the universe, has been constrained, by the laws of his own intelligence, to believe in and offer worship to the "Ἄγνωστος Θεος"--the unseen and incomprehensible God; and pointing to their altars, he may announce with Paul, "this God _whom ye worship_, though ignorantly, him declare I unto you!"