"Has mine then no miracles to bring forward?" said the old man meekly: "and why should I not recognise them? But should the truth of revelation be grounded upon these alone, we were then indeed entrapped in the worst of errors. That, which habit renders necessary to us, we call nature and its laws: When I see a deviation from this, which surprises and confounds me, I speak of miracles; as if these so named laws were not likewise miracles; as if I were able to interpret, to comprehend and explain the daily phenomena; as if each flower did not blossom before me as a miracle; my origin, growth and decay, sun, moon, and stars, light, air, and water, nay, the organisation of the smallest fly were not also miracles like horror and spectre. All life surrounds me spiritually, miraculously; or, if my spirit is torn out of the peaceful element of its heavenly atmosphere; then love becomes hatred and despair, and wisdom as well as the revealed word of the Lord madness and blasphemy." Edmond was mute. "Know I then," continued the old man, "that which I call nature and its energies, the mind and its faculties? how each day it varies in different men for the most insignificant occasions! The poet, the artist knows how to speak of feelings, which to the uninitiated must appear as delirium, or miracle: energies unfold themselves, of which the former world was ignorant, many others have in the course of time declined, or have been forgotten; they appear again probably to astonish, or to give a firmer foundation to true science. Would my mind set limits to the Almighty, and know I, what God from wise, unsearchable causes will permit or execute? but no miracle can ever be elevated to a religious mystery; revelation requires not this to announce its eternal truth; the Saviour himself did not perform his miracles for that purpose, and reproaches the pharasees and people; miracle seeking testifies disbelief and irreligion, and where passion, party or sect, in the conflict of opinions, relies upon these inexplicable phenomena and wish to found conviction, or even to prove and explain for ever and ever out of what is indefinite, then is it all over long since with every sincere examination, with all true religion."