The solitary position assigned to the evidence of miracles in the controversies of the last century was mischievous to the interests of religion. I believe with Coleridge, "how little of divine, how little fitting to our nature a miracle is, when insulated from spiritual truths, and disconnected from religion as its end:"--and I would ask with him, "What then can we think of a theological theory, which, adopting a scheme of prudential legality, common to it with 'the sty of Epicurus,' as far at least as the springs of moral action are concerned, makes its whole religion consist in the belief of miracles!" There is some room for this severe censure of theologians in the last century, who failed to insist "on the creating of a new heart, which collects the energies of a man's whole being in the focus of the conscience--the one essential miracle, the same, and of the same evidence to the ignorant and the learned, which no superior skill can counterfeit, human or demoniacal." I should assign a higher place to the physical miracle than Coleridge did,--but there is to my mind a true and deep sense in what he asks respecting the moral one:--"Is it not that implication of doctrine in the miracle, and of miracle in the doctrine, which is the bridge of communication between the senses and the soul?"[55] Christianity as a whole, at the present time, establishes its claims by the new spiritual creation which it effects in its sincere disciples. And here, let me add: looking at the position of our inquiry at the present day, it appears of great importance, not to lay down as a principle, that miracles are indispensable in the authorization of a Divine message. To do so hampers our argument. To do so contradicts Scripture,--"John did no miracle." If one eminent servant of the Most High could make good his authority without effecting any physical marvel, so might another. Regarding Jesus simply as a Divine Teacher, there would, then, be no absolute necessity for His working wonders in the fields of material nature. His moral acts, His freedom from moral defects, and the whole moral tenor of His life, would evince the holiness of His character, and the oneness of His own spirit with that of the Father of spirits, the fountain of love and truth; for what He said of men applied to Himself, "By their fruits ye shall know them." Yet, though I cannot see that miracles, as some think, were essential to the proof of what He said respecting Himself, they are, as indicated already, what might be expected in one who was all that Jesus of Nazareth claimed to be; they also corroborate claims to spiritual authority, resting on other grounds; and, still further, the manner in which some of them were performed, points to the higher nature which tabernacled in His humanity.