1888. | NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENUES. 157 
tion, for it was the servants that drew out the wine and bore it to 
the governor of the feast. 
Would He feed the hungry thousands? He commanded them 
to sit down, took the bread and fishes, broke them, and gave to 
the disciples to distribute. Thus far all was in accordance with 
law, and it was as far as law could go. At that moment, the 
divine power came in and did the one thing impossible for 
nature: it caused the bread and fishes to multiply. 
Even here he kept as close to the natural method as was pos- 
sible. Would we have an increase in our stock of food, we take 
wheat, and it produces its own kind, or barley, and it produces 
barley. In all cases by natural law, we take a portion of that of 
which we would have more, and it multiplies. So here. He 
would have more bread, he took that, and it produced its own 
kind. He would have more of the fishes, and the animal fabric 
grew under his hands, and from what he had, came more of 
the same kind, It was like producing like, in a strange, ab- 
normal way, it is true, but no more inexplicable, in the last 
analysis, than is now what we call the natural process by which 
we get our food. 
After the increase of the loaves and fishes, there was no further 
need of miracle, all else proceeded in the usual way. ‘lhe mul- 
titude ate and were refreshed in the ordinary manner, and the 
disciples gathered up the fragments. 
Would He supply tribute money for His disciples? He told 
them what they could have learned from no power in nature, 
viz,, where to throw the line to catch the fish which had seized 
the glittering coin, as it sank in the water of the lake. Up toa 
certain point, all was natural, the hungry fish voraciously seiz- 
ing the sinking coin, the line, the fisherman; the one thing 
needed to complete the transaction, the omniscience which 
notes the fall of a sparrow, was supplied by Christ. The dis- 
ciples did the rest. They took the money and paid the tribute. 
When He raised the dead child, He brought back life and 
health, but He commanded those present to give her food. She 
got life from Him, but strength she was to get in the ordinary 
way. 
When He restored Lazarus to his sisters, he bade the Jews 
standing around roll the stone away from the tomb. Then they 
reached their limit. At this instant of absolute helplessness, 
when nature and man could do nothing, He interposed and 
gave life to the dead body, but it was the living Lazarus himself 
that walked out of the sepulchre, and it was those standing by 
who loosed him from the grave clothes. Christ’s exercise of 
miraculous power, here also, was confined to the one thing law 
could not do, the restoration of life. 
