SUPERNATURAL IN NATURE. 141 



intervene to itensify, or sublimate tlieni. Man can, as we have seen, do this to a certain 

 extent ; but only by making use of mechanical contrivances, or other physical forces. The 

 Creator, on the contrary', can do it in the same way as he produced them, by an act of the 

 will. If then miracles can be explained by this extraordinary intervention of the Creator, 

 intensifying and suldimating physical forces, they are clearly possible, and not out of harmony 

 with the ordinary course of events, although immensely above them. We can make this 

 more apparent by an illustration. Here is a grand organ of such compass and volume as 

 would fill, with musical waves, every nook and corner of a mighty cathedral. An organist 

 of fairly good attainments is playing on it. He delights the ordinary ear by his execution, 

 and even the cultured admit that witliin a certain compass his work is faultless. An 

 eminent master is standing by listening to the performance. He knows that there are 

 depths of melody in the organ which the player cannot awaken. He approaches, and 

 requesting the organist to continue the piece, he touches the keys, and evokes a soul 

 moving chord immeasurably grander, and yet in harmony with that produced by the less 

 skilled player. They are from the same instrument, but how dissimilar in their similarity. 

 Not otherwise is it in nature. The universe is the vast organ on which the laws of nature 

 are at work, delighting the student by their wonderful and various results. At times the 

 master hand of the Creator strikes the keys, and without disturbing or interfering with the 

 ordinar}^ series of results, produces one not altogether dissimilar, yet evidently so far above 

 and beyond them as to be called a miracle. 



Let us now consider if this extraordinarj^ intervention, which has been shown to be 

 quite possible, acting in the manner we have described, can satisfactorily account for, and 

 explain miracles. A few examples will sutBee. 



Here is a man cast out from the society of his fellows, lest he should infect them with 

 his own loathsome malady. Covered with leprosy, the corrupted flesh dropping from his 

 face and hands, a nameless terror in his soul, and despair in his heart, he is doomed to seek 

 the lair of wild beasts for shelter, and should any healthy human being cross his path he is 

 obliged, as he sliuifles painfully away, to raise the warning ciy, — unclean ! unclean ! Love, 

 hope, ambition, all that life holds of pleasure and contentment are crushed out ; there is no 

 cure for him ; no saving ointment to heal his sores ; no friendly hand to wash his festering 

 wounds, and yet the desire to live survives in his afflicted soul. He feels, rather than under- 

 stands, that his cure is not incompatible with physiological laws. His disease whilst more 

 baffling to the physician, and of a more malignant type than many others, is after all, only 

 an effect of some abnormal condition of his system. Hearing the noise of an apjjroaching 

 crowd he looks forth from his hiding place, and is fascinated by the divinely compassionate 

 face of One after whom the crowd is evidently following. He reads boundless tenderness, 

 unfathomable pity, unlimited power, in that noble countenance, and a new hope is born in 

 his breast. He comes forth from his lurking place ; the hunted look is no longer in his 

 eyes ; his li[is, half eaten away, do not give forth the old despairing cry of warning — 

 unclean ! unclean ! The crowd falls back in dismay as the leper approaches. They would 

 fain stone him, but an unknown power restrains them. The leper humbly bowing before 

 the Master cries : " Lord, if thou wilt, thou cans't make me clean."' Tlie One thus addressed 

 sweetly smiles at this beautiful profession of faith, and hastens to reward it. In tones that 

 are as gentle as the soothing accents of a loving mother, yet as powerful as those wiiidi 

 once said — " Let there be light," he speaks — " I will ; be thou cleansed," and straightway 



