ARTICLE THIRTY-FIVE. What Are Miracles? Not Contrary to Law.-Miracles are results flowing from superior means and methods of doing things. They do not happen contrary to law. They are in strict conformity therewith. It could not be otherwise; for the universe, natural and supernatural, is governed by law. But there are greater laws and lesser laws, and the greater have power to suspend the operation of the lesser. When this occurs, people exclaim: “A miracle!" Others say: "It never happened, for it is contrary to law." And indeed it may seem contrary to ordinary law, with the workings of which their everyday experience is familiar. But that does not prove it contrary to some higher law concerning which they may know little or nothing. Elisha and the Axe.-When the Prophet Elisha relieved the distress of the young man who had lost an axe -a borrowed axe-in the stream on the bank of which he was hewing timber,a it may have been supposed, by some skeptical on-looker, that the man of God was working in opposition to law. The account given states that "he cut down a stick" and cast it into the water, and "the iron did swim”—in spite of the fact that it is the nature of iron to sink. The law of gravitation required that the axe remain at the bottom of the stream, unless, by the application of some counter-force, ordinary or otherwise, it could be recovered. The force applied in this case was extraordinary. Elisha invoked a law superior to the law of gravi a, 2 Kings, 6:1-7. tation, suspending its complete action upon that particular piece of iron." Scientific Achievements.-Today, iron ships are floating upon every sea. While this is not a miracle such as Elisha wrought, it would have been deemed a miracle in earlier ages of the world, before such wonders became commonplace. The achievements of modern science, compared with past conditions in the same field of thought and action, ought to convince any reasonable mind that the days of miracles are not over. Light Production. Men once made light by briskly rubbing together two pieces of wood, until friction generated flame. Gas light or electric light, with the present b, "What are the Laws of Nature?" asks Carlyle, and continues: "To me perhaps the rising of one from the dead were no violation of these laws, but a confirmation, if some far deeper law, now first penetrated into, and by spiritual force, even as the rest have all been, were brought to bear on us with its material force." "But is it not the deepest law of Nature that she be constant?' cries an illuminated class: 'Is not the machine of the universe fixt to move by unalterable rules?' Probable enough, good friends. And now of you, too, I make the old inquiry: What those same unalterable rules, forming the complete statute book of Nature, may possibly be? ""They stand written in our works of science,' say you; 'in the accumulated record of man's experience.' Was man with his experience present at the creation, then, to see how it all went on? Have any deepest scientific individuals yet dived down to the foundations of the universe, and guaged everything there? Did the Maker take them into his counsel, that they read his ground-plan of the incomprehensible All, and can say, This stands marked therein, and no more than this? Alas, not in any wise!" "To the minnow, every cranny and pebble and quality and accident, of its little native creek may have become familiar; but does the minnow understand the ocean tides and periodic currents, the trade winds and monsoons and moon's eclipses, by all which the condition of its little creek is regulated, and may, from time to time (unmiraculously enough) be quite upset and reversed? Such a minnow is man; his creek this planet earth; his ocean the immeasurable All; his monsoons and periodic currents the mysterious force of Providence through aeons of aeons.”—Sartor Resartus, Natural Supernaturalism, pp. 275-278. means of producing them, would have filled the souls of such men with fear and wonder. To them it would have been a miracle. And yet, to press a button or turn a switch, and thus obtain light, is a very clumsy device or will be so considered when men learn to make light as God made it on the morning of creation.c "The Earth Moves."-The telegraph, the telephone, the electric car, the automobile, the airship-these and a hundred other marvelous manifestations of scientific power, now quite common, would have been deemed visionary and impossible in former ages. To have avowed even a belief in them would have imperiled one's life or deprived him of his liberty, in the days when Galileo was threatened with torture for declaring that the earth moves, or when women, in later times were hanged or burned as witches for nothing at all. So dangerous is human prejudice, in its fanatical opposition to things new and strange. This, of course, refers only to former ages and to semibenighted peoples. We would not have done as our forefathers did! So each generation thinks. Let us be thankful that the earth "does move," and that the mind of man moves with it, so that perils such as confronted Galileo and others of his class are now less likely to show their ugly features. The Other Extreme. But just a word of caution here. We must not rush to the opposite extreme, and become obsessed with that ultra-practical spirit which would make all things commonplace, not only in manifestation, but in origin. Miracles, after all, are facts, not fictions, and some of them have their causes far back of and beyond the known principles of science. c, Gen. 1:3. Disbelief in Divine Interposition.-But there is a disposition in these modern days to do away with everything savoring of the supernatural, "Higher Criticism," so-called, seems to regard this as its special mission. Some people, even if they give credence to works of wonder, invariably refer them to ordinary causes-anything rather than acknowledge divine interposition. Moses and the Red Sea. For instance, when they read of Moses parting the waters of the Red Sea, they either deny the event in toto, or set Moses and the miracle aside, and susbtitute some convulsion of nature as the accidental cause of the mighty deliverance, when those waters, afer allowing the Israelites to pass through in safety, returned just in time to engulf their pursuing enemies, the Egyptians.d A very convenient earthquake, truly! Nothing could have been more timely! But why could not Divine Power have done it all-done it designedly, in the manner and with the means specified in the sacred narrative? Is God impotent in the presence of Nature-fettered by his own creation? Alas! these learned theorists believe not in God, and that is why they deny his works and put nature with its blind forces in his stead. d, "Everybody recalls how the Red Sea was rolled aside in order that the Israelites under Moses might pass over safely; how the river Jordan, a few years later, was driven back, that Joshua and his army might cross; and how Sodom and Gomorrah were overwhelmed with fire and brimstone for their sins. Geologists are now inclined to believe that the recession of the sea might have been caused by an earthquake pushing up a rock stratum under tremendous pressure. The water would return in some degree upon the subsidence of the stratum. The various miraculous events referred to occurred about the year 1500 B. C., and there is a curious similarity between them. It now appears probable from scientific research that these occurrences were the last of a series of terrific earthquake disturbances that changed the entire surface of the globe."-W. H. Ballou, D. Sc. e. Ex. 14:21-31. Joshua and the Sun.-They laugh to scorn the idea of Joshua commanding the sun to stand still, deeming it "a sin and a disgrace" that such things should be preached and taught, and denying, of course, that the miracle ever took place. Because, forsooth, the whole solar system would have come crashing down into chaos, had the sun halted for one moment in its decreed course! Yes, that might have happened, such a calamity might have occurred-had there been no God to uphold the solar system and administer the law. for its preservation. "The Lord Fought for Israel."-But there is a God, and he was there as he is everywhere, by his allprotective, all-administrative power--the God to whom Joshua prayed before uttering the sublime command: "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon!" "And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies; for the Lord fought for Israel."g There you have it-it was the Lord's doing. Joshua was merely the instrument, just as Moses had been. But because such things are not happening every day, and because doubt cannot do them, therefore are they impossible to Faith! Such is the logic of those who scoff at the power of Deity and deny even the miracles of the Savior. Nothing Too Difficult for Omnipotence. For my part, I see nothing inconsistent in these Bible storiesnothing to justify doubt or denial. A Power that could create the sun and moon and set them whirling in their orbits, could stop them in their decreed course—or stop f, Joshua 10:12. g, lb. vv. 13, 14. |