How could we prove, for instance, the miracle of the loaves and fishes? There were plenty of other loaves and other fishes in the world? Each one of the five thousand could have had a loaf and a fish with him. We would have to show that there was no other possible way for the people to get the bread and fish except by miracle, and then we are only half through. We must then show that they did, in fact, get enough to feed five thousand people, and that more was left than was had in the beginning. Of course this is simply impossible. And let me ask, why was not the miracle substantiated by some of the multitude? Would it not have been a greater wonder if Christ had _created_ instead of multiplied the loaves and fishes? How can we now prove that a certain person more than eighteen hundred years ago was possessed by seven devils? How was it ever possible to prove a thing like that? How can it be established that some evil spirits could talk while others were dumb, and that the dumb ones were the hardest to control? If Christ wished to convince his fellow-men by miracles, why did he not do something that could not by any means have been a counterfeit? Instead of healing a withered arm, why did he not find some man whose arm had been cut off, and make another grow? If he wanted to raise the dead, why did he not raise some man of importance, some one known to all? Why did he do his miracles in the obscurity of the village, in the darkness of the hovel? Why call back to life people so insignificant that the public did not know of their death? Suppose that in May, 1865, a man had pretended to raise some person by the name of Smith from the dead, and suppose a religion had been founded on that miracle, would it not be natural for people, hundreds of years after the pretended miracle, to ask why the founder of that religion did not raise from the dead Abraham Lincoln, instead of the unknown and obscure Mr. Smith? How could any man now, in any court, by any known rule of evidence, substantiate one of the miracles of Christ? Must we believe anything that cannot in any way be substantiated? If miracles were necessary to convince men eighteen centuries ago, are they not necessary now? After all, how many men did Christ convince with his miracles? How many walked beneath the standard of the master of Nature? How did it happen that so many miracles convinced so few? I will tell you. The miracles were never performed. No other explanation is possible.