CHARLES B. WARRING. 55 
what we regard as the effect of law, neither in the amount 
of power required nor in their intrinsic wonderfulness. 
We must, therefore, seek for some other characteristic 
by which they may be distinguished. So far as I can 
see, this lies in the continuity of the one, and the absence 
of continuity of the other. Ina world where no vegeta- 
tion existed, the production of an oak would be a mira- 
cle. To usitis merely the outworking of law, because 
it goes on continuously. The first plants and the first 
‘animals came into existence bya miracle. They continue 
to come into being, and now itis law. In every law the 
first of the series was a miracle, and, had we been pres- 
ent, would have excited our profound wonder. But 
often repeated, it ceases to excite surprise, yet the thing 
itself is unchanged. 
The dead rising, the deaf hearing, the blind seeing, 
when commanded by Christ or in His name, were miracu- 
lous occurrences. But if thishad continued, if every time 
a dead man was told in that name to rise, or'a deaf man to 
hear, ora blind man to see, he had obeyed, no more sur- 
prise or wonder would be excited than now that men 
wake from sleep. It would be simply the way in which 
nature works. 
So far, then, as I can see, the peculiarity of miracles 
lies in their uniqueness. Each standsby itself. A mira- 
cle may be represented by a point; law by a line; suc- 
cessive points make a line. Miracles indefinitely re- 
peated crystalize into law. In briefest phase, law is con- 
tinuous miracle. Those, therefore, err who rank miracles 
as higher or more divine than law ; for as two are more 
_ than one, and four more than three, and a series greater 
than any one of its terms, so law is greater and intrinsi- 
cally more wonderful than miracle. Neither admits of 
explanation other than the will of that First Cause which 
lies back of all. 
