These supernatural gifts of the Spirit, with two exceptions, produced no results on external nature. They constituted enlargements of the powers of the human mind. As such, they cannot with strict propriety be said to belong to the class of evidential miracles, although like all other supernatural operations of which God is the Author, they cannot fail to be indirectly evidential. It is important to observe that they belong to a separate class of supernatural phenomena, which were as necessary in reference to the Christian revelation, contemplating as it did the institution of a divine society, as the order of supernatural manifestations which directly attested the divine mission of Jesus Christ and His Apostles. If this was their end and purpose we can understand why they were withdrawn at a very early period, before they could be submitted to the tests of our modern _savants_. They were given for a special purpose, and they were withdrawn when they had accomplished it. The Apostle who affirms their existence asserts that they were not intended permanently to continue in the Church. There is one more allegation which is occasionally urged against the miracles of the New Testament, and which I must briefly consider. It is alleged that pious frauds have been very general in all ages of Christian history; that many good men have not hesitated to participate in them; and that literary forgeries were very abundant in the first ages of Christianity, and were even common in the days of the Apostles. It is insinuated that this state of mind throws great suspicion on the alleged miracles of the apostolic age.