This question has a very important bearing on the subject before us. It has been alleged that while nothing has been more common than the ascription of miracles to eminent men, it is impossible to find a man of sound judgment and high moral character who has deliberately affirmed that he has performed one himself. That such affirmations have been very rare is certain, and for the simple reason, that miracles have been very rare occurrences. But the assertion that no such cases are to be found is inaccurate. One, at all events, exists, although probably the only one, but it is that of a man of the most undoubted veracity, the Apostle Paul. As I have already observed, four of the most important writings which have been attributed to him are admitted by a vast majority of those unbelievers who are competent to form an opinion on the subject, to be his genuine productions. These are before us, and we can form from them a full judgment as to the character of the man. In them he distinctly tells us that he performed miracles. He writes: “I have therefore whereof I may glory in those things which pertain to God. For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me to make the Gentiles obedient by word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the Gospel of Christ.” (Rom. xv. 18, 19.) Here at least we have a direct affirmation on the subject. It is not the only one made by him. But there is also one which is equivalent to another affirmation made by One whom unbelievers must admit to have been the greatest man who ever lived, Jesus Christ Himself. Those with whom I am reasoning allow that the discourses in the Synoptic Gospels are accounts of His real utterances. In them He directly affirms that He performed miracles. Even those against whose opinions I am arguing, will concede that the characters of Christ and St. Paul stand at the greatest height of moral elevation. If there are any other persons whose utterances have been handed down to us, who have deliberately made this affirmation, their numbers are unquestionably few. Certainly no other thoroughly great and elevated character has done so. This is a remarkable fact and well worthy of consideration. While many of the Fathers have affirmed that miracles were performed by others, not one of them has affirmed that he has wrought any himself. The supernaturalism of the New Testament differs, as we have seen, from all other alleged kinds of supernatural occurrences. It differs moreover in this respect, that one of the persons through whose agency these miracles are declared to have been performed, has made a deliberate affirmation that he wrought them; and that the founder of Christianity, in recorded utterances which are admitted to be genuine, has likewise asserted that miracles were wrought by Him.