THEORY OF DIRECT CREATION. 23 



the loaves and fishes, are recorded of Elijah and 

 Elisha, but without sufficient data to enable us 

 to judge of the real agencies at work to produce 

 the recorded effects, even if these accounts may 

 be trusted. I am not aware of any precisely 

 similar occurences recorded on good authority 

 in modern times ; but in principle they may be 

 paralleled by that familiar class of special pro- 

 vidences of which Mtiller's Orphan Asylum is 

 a good example ; but to the reality of which 

 thousands of earnest men, belonging to every 

 religious faith in the world, will bear grateful 

 testimony. 



If all authenticated miracles occur in accord- 

 ance with natural law, the moral character of a. 

 miracle would cease to be an argument for or 

 against the possibility of its occurrence, although 

 there may be a deep truth in Bulwer Lytton's 

 suggestion* that the highest powers of Nature 

 are beyond the reach of any but the good. 

 Neither Christ nor Mohammad relied upon mir- 

 acles to prove their divine mission, but appealed 

 to the character of their teachings. The first of 

 these great prophets claimed, and apparently 



* " Zanoni," b. iv. ch. ii. ; Compare also K. Dale Owen's "Debatable 

 Land," p. 121. 



