54 MIRACLES, LAW, EVOLUTION. 
it is not in the degree of power required ; for raising the 
dead is a less thing than the birth and growth of an in- 
dividual. It is less to set in motion a watch that has 
stopped than to make one. Causing the widow’s oil and 
meal to increase was a small matter in comparison with 
providing daily food for the millions that cover the earth. 
Nor is it that miracles are intrinsically more wonderful 
than those things which we regard as the effect of law. 
Nothing is more common, or less excites our. surprise, 
than the working of the law of gravitation; yet, what is 
more wonderful than a force which, according to Laplace, 
travels more than fifty million times faster than light, 
itself moving with the inconceivable velocity of nearly 
two hundred thousand miles in a second ? 
Were, to-night, in some far distant constellation, an- 
other sun called into existence, ages would pass before 
its light could reach our earth, but only a few seconds 
would elapse before the earth would feel its presence. 
Nor is the velocity of gravitation the only or the great- 
est cause for wonder. Another property of this force far 
surpasses that. I mean its ability to adjust itself with 
omniscient accuracy to every change in mass, or position, 
of bodies however widely separated. 
The adjustment of position and movement of every 
member of our solar system, and, I may add, of the uni- 
verse, to the mass, distance, and position of that new 
sun would at once begin and, in due time, complete itself 
with an exactness which no human measurements can 
hope to equal. And since every atom is attracted by 
every other atom in the universe, it is a sober fact that 
the fall of a sparrow is registered in every star fifty mil- 
lions of times sooner than light can speed its way across 
the abyss that separates our earth from them. Can any 
miracle be more wonderful than that ? 
We may extend the comparison as far as we please, 
and we shall find in all cases that miracles differ from 
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