millions of the earth are too superstitious for them. Some how or other, it so happens that nature has made the people of the world with certain feelings and tendencies; but then these are very wrong. Nature has made them almost universally inclined to believe miracles, to credit wonderful stories, ayè, to court them, and to be fond of surrendering their reason to their sweet and insinuating blandishments; but, then, this inclination is all bad and unphilosophical.

But, to speak seriously, it is the part of true philosophy to endeavour to control, not to extinguish, the feelings and tendencies of mankind; to put them into a right channel, not to bring them into ridicule and contempt. Eating and drinking must not be declared unphilosophical, because they are dreadfully abused; and reading and writing must not be suppressed, because they are converted by multitudes into instruments of evil. The greatest philosophers have acknowledged that what every body believes must be right, I say everybody, for the exception of a very small minority only proves the rule, and that the voice of the world is the voice of reason and of truth. They have argued thus indeed, as we

have already observed in support of the being of a God and of a future state. And does not, then, the general tendency of mankind to believe in miracles similarly establish a solid foundation for a belief in their existence? If it is not so, we must go to the full extent of the consequences: we must accuse the Creator of folly, and charge Him with the censure, that He has made a world fitted only for fools, and not for wise men; and that, therefore, He himself was foolish and not wise in framing such a world, and placing its inhabitants under so ridiculous a constitution!

And, indeed, the opinions of our objectors are found in practice to lead them to form a very contemptuous opinion of the world and its inhabitants. They regard creation rather as an exhibition of weakness than of power, of folly than of wisdom. It is granted that Nature is not without its difficulties; but our inability to solve them may be better resolved into the littleness of our comprehension, than into the weakness of God. Certainly this system of turning all creation into a joke and jest ought not to be considered a sign of superior wisdom, but rather of the most outrageous folly; for surely we have not yet arrived at

so high a state of intellectual excellence as to laugh at the very Being who framed our intellect, and who made us what we are!

In short, the world wants for its guides plain, practical men, and not theoretical dreamers of vain, visionary, atheistic speculations. Let us confess that God has made all things not at random, but with design; not for laughter, but for adoration. And let us be desirous of following where He leads us; and, instead of putting out the light of experience, (a fault which is vainly charged upon us here by our theorists, but which we throw back on them,) let us be glad to be illuminated by its rays, and to use it, as on all subjects, so on that of miracles, to a good and practical purpose.

Be

It is urged, indeed, that there have been so many false assumptions of miraculous power, that there can be no such thing as a true one. But we do not reason so in other matters. cause there are numerous pretenders to science, no one will say that there is no such thing as science. Because there is a great deal of imposition in the world, this does not prove that there is no truth or sincerity in it. Because there is much bad coin, this does not prove there is none genuine. Indeed, false preten

sions only establish more powerfully the reality and genuineness of that to which such false pretensions are made; for wherefore should they be made at all, but that men attach a value and an existence to that which is thus counterfeited?

I have advanced in this section a few arguments which lie on the surface. The reader will see the subject fully illustrated by Bishop Butler in his Analogy, Part ii. ch. 2; and by Archdeacon Paley in the Preparatory Considerations of his Evidences of Christianity; works which are too extensively circulated to allow anything but a reference to them.

JOHN V.

SECTION XLV.

4.-" For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then FIRST after the troubling of the water stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had."

IT is thought a strange thing that only the first should be cured. If any one were cured, how not all?

But how often does it happen that, of persons similarly afflicted, some are cured of their diseases, while others die? Some have means, through friends or pecuniary resources, of travelling to the sea-side, of the advice of physicians of celebrity, and of various alleviations, while others have not these advantages. So that in the natural world some have no man to put them within the means of restoration; but, while they are going on and suffering without hope, others go before them into the path of recovery, and become whole. The principle