Of the two grounds, then, on which our Lord claimed men’s allegiance—His personal influence and the signs He worked—our Lord rests preferably on the first, but the second has its place and it is an important one. Our Lord is the great physician who deals with all according as the case and the constitution require. In different ages men’s minds require different kinds of proof. I believe that such different kinds are provided—that there is lying ready for each generation and each type of mind the degree of evidence which is good for it and of the kind which it is fitted to assimilate. Miracles are not the sort of evidence most wanted now; but it was the sort which for many centuries was looked on as the most incontrovertible. It spoke to those who could understand nothing else. It was for many ages what men especially wanted, and there it was to their hand. A future generation may find their main ground of belief in Christ in a realization of His Personality; and they may in this way arrive at that kind of knowledge of Him which our Lord had hoped that Philip might have gained. This we can scarcely obtain without a careful study of our Lord’s ways of influencing men. I have not yet spoken of our Lord’s miraculous knowledge of events or of His insight into men’s hearts. There have been a few persons in the course of the world’s history who have, in a wondrous way, discerned the ends towards which events were working; and others who have divined the thoughts of other men. These gifts in the fullest degree our Lord possessed; and when He needed stronger illumination for the purpose of His work these faculties were exalted beyond human range. The superhuman supervened, proceeding along the lines of human action; and this, like the powers whereby His other works were wrought, came from the Father in answer to prayer. By displaying this divining power He converts Nathanael, and He forcibly impresses the woman of Samaria. But effective as the display of this superhuman penetration was for bringing about conviction, it was much more than an evidence of Divine power. The knowledge of this insight of their Master into their hearts played a large part in the Apostles’ Schooling. They were habituated by means of it to feel that their hearts were known, and this habit became so much a part of themselves that when Christ had left the world they could realize to themselves that they were under His eye still. This condition of mind was required for their special work, and Christ’s training was directed to develop it within them as I hope to show. In the next Chapter I pass to the discussion of the Laws which our Lord appears to follow in His working of Signs. CHAPTER V. THE LAWS OF THE WORKING OF SIGNS.