In the remote periods of Phos, Chrysos, and Ephestes, gods and mortals conversed in Chaldee with the most interesting familiarity. A god warned King Xissuter that there would be a deluge in Armenia, and that it was necessary he should, as soon as possible, build a vessel five stadii in length and two in width. Such things do not happen to the Dariuses and the Alexanders. The fish Oannes, in former times, came every day out of the Euphrates to preach upon its banks; but there is no preaching fish now. It is true that St. Anthony of Padua went and preached to the fishes; however, such things happen so very rarely that they are scarcely to be taken any account of. Numa held long conversations with the nymph Egeria; but we never read that Cæsar had any with Venus, although he was descended from her in the direct line. The world, we see, is constantly advancing a little, and refining gradually. But after being extricated out of one slough for a time, mankind are soon plunged into another. To ages of civilization succeed ages of barbarism; that barbarism is again expelled, and again reappears: it is the regular alternation of day and night. Of Those Who Have Been So Impiously Rash As To Deny The Miracles Of Jesus Christ. Among the moderns, Thomas Woolston, a learned member of the University of Cambridge, appears to me to have been the first who ventured to interpret the Gospels merely in a typical, allegorical, and spiritual sense, and boldly maintained that not one of the miracles of Jesus was actually performed. He wrote without method or art, and in a style confused and coarse, but not destitute of vigor. His six discourses against the miracles of Jesus Christ were publicly sold at London, in his own house. In the course of two years, from 1737 to 1739, he had three editions of them printed, of twenty thousand copies each, and yet it is now very difficult to procure one from the booksellers. Never was Christianity so daringly assailed by any Christian. Few writers entertain less awe or respect for the public, and no priest ever declared himself more openly the enemy of priests. He even dared to justify this hatred by that of Jesus Christ against the Pharisees and Scribes; and he said that he should not, like Jesus Christ, become their victim, because he had come into the world in a more enlightened age. He certainly hoped to justify his rashness by his adoption of the mystical sense; but he employs expressions so contemptuous and abusive that every Christian ear is shocked at them.