"Such is, I think, a fair epitome of the common arguments in favor of the cessation of miracles; and they are undoubtedly very plausible and very cogent; but, after all, what do they prove? Not that miracles have ceased, but that, _supposing_ them to have ceased, there is nothing surprising or alarming in the fact. ... This is the full extent to which they can legitimately be carried. As an _à priori_ proof, they are far too weak to withstand the smallest amount of positive testimony. Miracles, it is said, are intended exclusively to accredit an inspired messenger. But, after all, what proof is there of this? It is simply an hypothesis, plausible and consistent it may be, but entirely unsupported by positive testimony. Indeed, we may go further, and say that it is distinctly opposed by your own facts. ... You must admit that the Old Testament relates many miracles which will not fall under your canon. ... But the ecclesiastical miracles, it is said, are often grotesque; and appear _primâ facie_ absurd, and excite an irresistible repugnance. A sufficiently dangerous test in an age when men find it more and more difficult to believe any miracles whatever. A sufficiently dangerous test for those who know the tone that has been long adopted, over an immense part of Europe, toward such narratives as the deluge or the exploits of Samson, the speaking ass or the possessed pigs! Besides this, a great proportion of the ecclesiastical miracles are simply reproductions of those which are recorded in the Bible; and if there are mingled with them some that appear manifest impostures, this may be a very good reason for treating these narratives with a more jealous scrutiny, but is certainly no reason for maintaining that they are all below contempt. The Bible neither asserts nor implies the revocation of supernatural gifts; and if the general promise that these gifts should be conferred may have been intended to apply only to the apostles, it is at least as susceptible of a different interpretation. If these miracles were actually continued, it is surely not difficult to discover the beneficial purpose which they would fulfil. They would stimulate a languid piety; they would prove invaluable auxiliaries to missionaries laboring among barbarous and unreasoning savages, who, from their circumstances and habits of mind, are utterly incapable of forming any just estimate of the evidences of the religion they are called upon to embrace. .... To say that these miracles are false because they are Roman Catholic is to assume the very question at issue."--Vol. i. pp. 173-177. {80}