MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES 17 



Did the existence of this belief depend solely upon 

 the material benefits derived from it, it conld not, in my 

 opinion, last a decade. As a purely objective fact, we 

 should soon see that the distribution of natural phenom- 

 ena is unaffected by the merits or the demerits of men; 

 that the law of gravitation crushes the simple worshippers 

 of Ottery St. Mary, while singing their hymns, just as 

 surely as if they were engaged in a midnight brawl. The 

 hold of this belief upon the human mind is not due to 

 outward verification, but to the inner warmth, force, and 

 elevation with which it is commonly associated. It is 

 plain, however, that these feelings may exist under the 

 most various forms. They are not limited to Church of 

 England Protestantism they are not even limited to 

 Christianity. Though less refined, they are certainly not 

 less strong in the heart of the Methodist and the Tyrolese 

 peasant than in the heart of Mr. Mozley. Indeed, those 

 feelings belong to the primal powers of man's nature. A 

 " sceptic" may have them. They find vent in the battle- 

 cry of the Moslem. They take hue and form in the hunt- 

 ing-grounds of the Red Indian; and raise all of them, as 

 they raise the Christian, upon a wave of victory, above 

 the terrors of the grave. 



The character, then, of a miracle, as distinguished from 

 a special providence, is that the former furnishes proof, 

 while in the case of the latter we have only surmise. 

 Dissolve the element of doubt, and the alleged fact passes 

 from the one class of the preternatural into the other. In 

 other words, if a special providence could be proved to 

 be a special providence, it would cease to be a special 

 providence and become a miracle. There is not the least 

 cloudiness about Mr. Mozley 's meaning here. A special 



