Miracles were more especially necessary amongst the Jews; they demanded signs from all those who spoke to them in the name of the Lord, and there was little difficulty in working them, before an ignorant and credulous people, ready to receive as such every thing that was shewn to them. In spite of a disposition so favourable to miracle-mongers, we do not find that those of Jesus himself and afterwards of his apostles, produced on the Jews those effects which we have a right to expect from them. We find that at the time they were performed they convinced nobody and drew those who worked them, into difficult situations. It was not until a long time had elapsed that these prodigies produced their effects, and by a miracle that we can never cease to admire, we find, that these prodigies, which were discarded by those who saw them, were most firmly believed by those who did not see them, and are now ranked amongst the strongest evidences of the divinity of the Christian religion. There are only some reasoners who persist in judging of these ancient miracles in the same manner as the contemporaries who did not see them, or who, if they did see them, regarded them as so many instances of deception and slight of hand, incapable of imposing on them. It is only the simplicity, of faith, that is to say, an implicit confidence in the assertions of our guides, which can make us see miracles, or cause us to believe in those we have not seen. But this simple faith is the effect of an especial grace that God grants only to those who are poor in spirit, and harshly refuses to those who think and reason. As soon as we want confidence in the operators, we see no more miracles, or at least we doubt of those that are shewn to us.