458 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



witnesses and contemporaries, affords any guarantee of the object- 

 ive truth of their statements, when we know that a firm belief in 

 the miraculous was ingrained in their minds, and was the pre- 

 supposition of their observations and reasonings. 



Therefore, although it be, as I believe, demonstrable that we 

 have no real knowledge of the authorship, or of the date of com- 

 position of the Gospels, as they have come down to us, and that 

 nothing better than more or less probable guesses can be arrived 

 at on that subject, I have not cared to expend any space on the 

 question. It will be admitted, I suppose, that the authors of the 

 works attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, whoever 

 they may be, are personages whose capacity and judgment in the 

 narration of ordinary events are not quite so well certified as 

 those of Eginhard ; and we have seen what the value of Egin- 

 hard's evidence is when the miraculous is in question. 



I have been careful to explain that the arguments which I 

 have used in the course of this discussion are not new ; that they 

 are historical and have nothing to do with what is commonly 

 called science ; and that they are all, to the best of my belief, to 

 be found in the works of theologians of repute. 



The position which I have taken up, that the evidence in favor 

 of such miracles as those recorded by Eginhard, and consequently 

 of mediaeval demonology, is quite as good as that in favor of such 

 miracles as the Gadarene, and consequently of Nazarene demon- 

 ology, is none of my discovery. Its strength was, wittingly or 

 unwittingly, suggested, a century and a half ago, by a theological 

 scholar of eminence ; and it has been, if not exactly occupied, yet 

 so fortified with bastions and redoubts by a living ecclesiastical 

 Vauban, that, in my judgment, it has been rendered impregnable. 

 In the early part of the last century, the ecclesiastical mind in 

 this country was much exercised by the question, not exactly of 

 miracles, the occurrence of which in biblical times was axiomatic, 

 but by the problem, When did miracles cease ? Anglican divines 

 were quite sure that no miracles had happened in their day, nor 

 for some time past ; they were equally sure that they happened 

 sixteen or seventeen centuries earlier. And it was a vital ques- 

 tion for them to determine at what point of time, between this 

 terminus a quo and that terminus ad quern, miracles came to 

 an end. 



The Anglicans and the Romanists agreed in the assumption 

 that the possession of the gift of miracle-working was 'prima facie 

 evidence of the soundness of the faith of the miracle-workers. 

 The supposition that miraculous powers might be wielded by 

 heretics (though it might be supported by high authority) led to 

 consequences too frightful to be entertained by people who were 



