“The difficulties which seem to you impossibilities,” said John, “are easily met. The process is perfectly intelligible from the spiritual stand-point. Attend to my elucidation of it; for it involves the true nature of miracles and of the redemptive work of the Lord. “You understand that Christ exists consciously and actively in both worlds at the same time; in his spiritual body here, in his natural body upon earth. You know this, for you have seem Him in both spheres. “He is performing a series of divine works in both worlds at once; and a wonderful parallelism exists between his works here and his works there. What he does in this sphere is repeated in that in a different but corresponding form. “This is the world of causes, that is the world of effects. There is no effect without a cause. It seems to men in the flesh that the miracles of Jesus are performed by his word alone—by the breath of his mouth. That is a mistake. They are the natural effects of spiritual causes. Jesus is engaged in this world of spirits in instituting a series of causes which are to produce certain natural effects; among them, his benevolent works called miracles. “Miracles are not violations of natural law. They are only proofs that spiritual or divine forces govern in all the transformations of matter. They teach men the true source and origin of causes, and the true relation between the spiritual and natural worlds. All things are miracles. They are only wonderful when the events are new, extraordinary, not understood, or misinterpreted. “Christ could not restore natural sight to a blind man, unless he excited into activity those spiritual causes which produce both spiritual and natural sight. Imparting spiritual light or wisdom to the spiritually blind in this world, he originates a force which, passing through his own natural body, restores vision to the correspondingly blind man on the earth upon whom he lays his hands. “He here infuses moral vigor into souls who had lost the power of performing their spiritual duties. This becomes a cause producing a corresponding effect upon earth; namely, that the touch even of the hem of his garment will restore muscular strength and will to the paralytic. “When the Divine Man resists and subdues the evil spirits who would destroy him, the natural effect is, that He stills the tempest and treads upon the waves,—that even the winds and the seas obey him. “When he preaches spiritual truth to those who have never risen above the perception of natural things, and their minds are lifted from the natural to the spiritual degree of thought, the natural effect is, that he turns water into wine. “So of all his miracles, even that of raising the dead. When he imparts spiritual life here to those who are spiritually dead, he sets in operation a spiritual cause which imparts life again to those who are dead in the natural sense.