102 



LECTURES AND ESS A YS 



only a meteoric appearance in the shape 

 of a cross, it gave some token of preter- 

 natural agency, bui not full evidence." 



In the Catholic canton of Switzerland 

 where I now write, and still more among 

 the pious Tyrolese, the mountains are 

 dotted with shrines, containing offerings 

 of " all kinds, in acknowledgment of 

 special mercies legs, feet, arms, and 

 hands of gold, silver, brass, and wood, 

 according as worldly possessions enabled 

 the grateful heart to express its indebted- 

 ness. Most of these offerings are made 

 to the Virgin Mary. They are recogni- 

 tions of " special providences," wrought 

 through the instrumentality of the Mother 

 of God. Mr. Mozley's belief, that of the 

 Methodist chronicler, and that of the 

 Tyrolese peasant, are substantially the 

 same. Each of them assumes that 

 nature, instead of flowing ever onward 

 in the uninterrupted rhythm of cause 

 and effect, is mediately ruled by the free 

 human will. As regards direct action 

 upon natural phenomena, man's wish 

 and will, as expressed in prayer, are 

 confessedly powerless ; but prayer is the 

 trigger which liberates the Divine power, 

 and to this extent, if the will be free, man, 

 of course, commands nature. 



Did the existence of this belief depend 

 solely upon the material benefits derived 

 from it, it could not, in my opinion, last 

 a decade. As a purely objective fact, 

 we should soon see that the distribution 

 of natural phenomena 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 Metho- 



dist 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 hunting-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 provi- 

 dence, 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 pro- 

 vidence is a doubtful miracle. Why, 

 then, not call it so ? The term employed 

 by Mr. Mozley conveys no negative sug- 

 gestion, whereas the negation of certainty 

 is the peculiar characteristic of the thing 

 intended to be expressed. There is an 

 apparent unwillingness on the part of 

 the lecturer to call a special providence 

 what his own definition makes it to be. 

 Instead of speaking of it as a doubtful 

 miracle,. he calls it " an invisible miracle." 

 He speaks of the point of contact of 

 supernatural power with the chain of 

 causation being so high up as to be 

 wholly, or in part, out of sight, whereas 

 the essence of a special providence is 

 the uncertainty whether there is any con- 

 tact at all, either high or low. By the 

 use of an incorrect term, however, a 

 grave danger is avoided. For the idea 

 of doubt, if kept systematically before 

 the mind, would soon be fatal to the 

 special providence, considered as a means 

 of edification. The term employed, on 

 the contrary, invites and encourages the 

 trust which is necessary to supplement the 

 evidence. 



This inner trust, though at first rejected 

 by Mr. Mozley in favour of external proof, 



