Many laborious and voluminous discussions might have been saved, if the simple and very reasonable rule had been adopted of waiving investigation into the credibility of any narrative of supernatural or pretended supernatural events, said to have taken place upon consecrated ground, or under sacred roofs. Fanes, caves, groves, churches, convents, cells, are places in which the lover of history will make but a transient stay: and he may easily find better employment than in sifting the evidence on which rest such stories as that of the roof-descended oil, used at the baptism of Clovis; or that of the relics discovered by Ambrose for the confutation of royal error, and a thousand others of like nature. Those who, reading church history cursorily, are perplexed by the frequency of suspicious miracle, are probably not aware, generally, how very large a proportion of all such annoying relations may be readily and reasonably disposed of by adhering to the rule above stated. The miraculous powers existing in the church after the apostolic age, rest under a cloud that is not now to be thoroughly dispelled. But with safety the following propositions may be affirmed: first, That the Christian doctrine probably received some miraculous attestations after the death of the apostles; secondly, That so early as the commencement of the fourth century, fraudulent or deceptive pretensions to miraculous power were very frequently advanced; and lastly, That at that period, and subsequently, there are instances, not a few, of a certain sort of sincerity and fervor in religion, conjoined with very exceptionable attempts to acquire a thaumaturgal reputation. These deplorable cases deserve particular attention, especially as they show what are the natural fruits of fictitious pietism. If we choose to read the church history of the early centuries in the spirit of frigid scepticism, all the toil and perplexity that belong to the exercise of cautious and candid discrimination will be at once saved; and we shall, in every instance, where supernatural interposition is alleged, and whatever may be the quality of the evidence, or the character of the facts, take up that obvious explanation which is offered, by attributing a greedy credulity to the laity of those times, and a villanous and shameless knavery to the clergy. But this short method, how satisfactory soever it may be to indolence, or how gratifying soever to malignity, can never approve itself to those who are at once well informed of facts, and accustomed to analyze evidence with precision. The compass of human nature includes many motives, deep, and intricate, of which infidelity never dreams, and which, in its unobservant arrogance, it can never comprehend.