the fourth Gospel, with artistic perfection, and read generally with reverential wonder untempered by a thought of criticism, these miracles have seemed to be surrounded by a mystic halo certainly not emanating from themselves. It must not be forgotten, therefore, that the miracle lies in the bare act, and not in its dramatic arrangement. The restoration of life to a dead man is the very same miracle whether it be effected by the relics of a saint or by the word of an apostle. A miracle is not antecedently more credible because of the outstretched arm and word of command, than it is in the silence of the shrine. Being supernatural, the real agency is not seen in either case, although the human mind is more satisfied by the presentation of an apparent cause in the one case, which seems to be absent in the other. In preferring the former type, we are not only influenced by a more dramatic narrative, but we select for belief the miracle from which we can unconsciously eliminate more of the miraculous elements, by tracing it to a visible natural cause which cannot be seen in the latter. The antecedent incredibility of miracles, however, is not affected by literary skill, and is independent of scenic effect. The Archbishop of Dublin says: "Few points present greater difficulties than the attempt to fix accurately the moment when these miraculous powers were withdrawn from the Church;" and he argues that they were withdrawn when it entered into what he calls its permanent state, and no longer required "these props and strengthenings of the infant plant."(1) That their retrocession was gradual, he considers natural, and he imagines the fulness of Divine power as gradually waning as it was {158} subdivided, first among the Apostles, and then amongst the ever-multiplying members of the Church, until by sub-division it became virtually extinct, leaving as a substitute "the standing wonder of a Church."(1) This, of course, is not argument, but merely the Archbishop's fanciful explanation of a serious difficulty. The fact is, however, that the Gospel miracles were preceded and accompanied by others of the same type, and we may here merely mention exorcism of demons, and the miraculous cure of disease, as popular instances; they were also followed by a long succession of others, quite as well authenticated, whose occurrence only became less frequent in proportion as the diffusion of knowledge dispelled popular credulity. Even at the present day a stray miracle is from time to time reported in outlying districts, where the ignorance and superstition which formerly produced so abundant a growth of them are not yet entirely dispelled.