MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES 



times the fighting power of each of 

 Joshua's soldiers, not for the few hours 

 necessary to the extinction of a handful 

 of Amorites, but for millions of years. 

 All this wonder is silently passed over by 

 the sacred historian, manifestly because 

 he knew nothing about it. Whether, 

 therefore, we consider the miracle as 

 purely evidential, or as a practical means 

 of vengeance, the same lavish squander- 

 ing of energy stares us in the face. If 

 evidential, the energy was wasted because 

 the Israelites knew nothing of its amount ; 

 if simply destructive, then the ratio of 

 the quantity lost to the quantity em- 

 ployed may be inferred from the fore- 

 going figures. 



To other miracles similar remarks 

 apply. Transferring our thoughts from 

 this little sand-grain of an earth to the 

 immeasurable heavens, where countless 

 worlds with freights of life probably 

 revolve unseen, the very suns which 

 warm them being barely visible across 

 abysmal space, reflecting that beyond 

 these sparks of solar fire suns innumer- 

 able may burn, whose light can never 

 stir the optic nerve at all, and bringing 

 these reflections face to face with the 

 idea of the Builder and Sustainer of it 

 all showing Himself in a burning bush, 

 exhibiting His hinder parts, or behaving 

 in other familiar ways ascribed to Him in 

 the Jewish Scriptures, the incongruity 

 must appear. Did this credulous prattle 

 of the ancients about miracles stand 

 alone ; were it not associated with words 

 of imperishable wisdom, and with ex- 

 amples of moral grandeur unmatched 

 elsewhere in the history of the human 

 race, both the miracles and their "evi- 

 dences " would have long since ceased to 

 be the transmitted inheritance of intelli- 

 gent men. Influenced by the thoughts 

 which this universe inspires, well may we 

 exclaim in David's spirit, if not in David's 

 words : " When I consider the heavens, 

 the work of thy fingers, the moon, and 

 the stars, which thou hast ordained, 

 what is man that thou shouldst be mind- 

 ful of him, or the son of man that thou 

 shouldst so regard him ?" 



If you ask me who is to limit the out- 

 goings of Almighty power, my answer is, 

 Not I. If you should urge that, if the 

 Builder and Maker of this universe chose 

 to stop the rotation of the earth, or to 

 take the form of a burning bush, there is 

 nothing to prevent Him from doing so, 

 I am not prepared to contradict you. I 

 neither agree with you nor differ from 

 you, for it is a subject of which I know 

 nothing. But I observe that in such 

 questions regarding Almighty power your 

 inquiries relate, not to that power as 

 it is actually displayed in the universe, 

 but to the power of your own imagina- 

 tion. Your question is, not Has the 

 Omnipotent done so and so ? or Is it in 

 the least degree likely that the Omni- 

 potent should do so and so ? but, Is my 

 imagination competent to picture aBeing 

 able and willing to do so and so ? I am 

 not prepared to deny your competence. 

 To the human mind belongs the faculty 

 of enlarging and diminishing, of distort- 

 ing and combining, indefinitely the 

 objects revealed by the senses. It can 

 imagine a mouse as large as an elephant, 

 an elephant as large as a mountain, and 

 a mountain as high as the stars. It can 

 separate congruities and unite incon- 

 gruities. We see a fish and we see a 

 woman ; we can drop one half of each, 

 and unite in idea the other two halves to 

 a mermaid. We see a horse and we see 

 a man ; we are able to drop one half of 

 each, and unite the other two halves to 

 a centaur. Thus also the pictorial repre- 

 sentations of the Deity, the bodies and 

 wings of cherubs and seraphs, the hoofs, 

 horns, and tail of the Evil One, the joys 

 of the blessed, and the torments of the 

 damned, have been elaborated from 

 materials furnished to the imagination 

 by the senses. It behoves you and me 

 to take care that our notions of the 

 Power which rules the universe are not 

 mere fanciful or ignorant enlargements 

 of human power. The capabilities of 

 what you call your reason are not denied. 

 By the exercise of the faculty here ad- 

 verted to, you can picture to yourself a 

 Being able and willing to do any and 



