MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 17 



now dealing, it is evident that, in the demonstration of 

 moral goodness, the quantity of the miraculous comes 

 into play. Had Christ, for example, limited himself to 

 the conversion of water into wine, He would have fallen 

 short of the performance of Jannes and Jambres; for 

 it is a smaller thing to convert one liquid into another 

 than to convert a dead rod into a living serpent. But 

 Jannes and Jambres, we are informed, were not good. 

 Hence, if Mr. Mozley's test be a true one, a point must 

 exist, on the one side of which miraculous power de- 

 monstrates goodness, while on the other side it does 

 not. How is this ' point of contrary flexure ' to be de- 

 termined? It must lie somewhere between the magi- 

 cians and Moses, for within this space the power passed 

 from the diabolical to the Divine. But how to mark 

 the point of passage how, out of a purely quantitative 

 difference in the visible manifestation of power, we are 

 to infer a total inversion of quality it is extremely 

 difficult to see. Moses, we are informed, produced a 

 large reptile; Jannes and Jambres produced a small 

 one. I do not possess the intellectual faculty which 

 would enable me to infer, from those data, either the 

 goodness of the one or the badness of the other; and in 

 the highest recorded manifestations of the miraculous 

 I am equally at a loss. Let us not play fast and loose 

 with the miraculous; either it is a demonstration of 

 goodness in all cases or in none. If Mr. Mozley accepts 

 Christ's goodness as transcendent, because He did such 

 works as no other man did, he ought, logically speak- 

 ing, to accept the works of those who, in His name, had 

 cast out devils, as demonstrating a proportionate 

 goodness on their part. But it is people of this class 

 who are consigned to everlasting fire prepared for the 

 devil and his angels. Such zeal as that of Mr. Mozley 

 for miracles tends, I fear, to eat his religion up. The 



