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    be doing enough- if we meet our author ' s argument in a field lying parallel to it We will suppose some future Mesmeric Church defending i t s doctrines against sceptics , and defending them in the style of the ' Restoration of Belief . To prevent all cavil , we will not prejudge the question of Clairvoyance . Be Clairvoyance possible or impossible , every one is aware that in some cases , at least , it has been the cloak of charlatans , and that its " miracles" are impostures . Now we ask , is it enough to establish the acceptance of these miracles , that among those who witnessed them were persons of high moral character , of public importance , of scientific reputation , above all suspicion , their interests decidedly against any implication in the cheat ? And when History records these miracles in conjunction with other events , will the credibility of the events serve as a guarantee for the miracles ? In the following passage , read Mesmerism for Miracles , and see what can be made of it : —

    " There are three mental conditions , easily distinguishable from each other , in which I can imagine an indubitable miracle to be witnessed . The first is that of medieval credulity—or an incurious , unreasoning , inconsequential passiveness , to which all things , natural and supernatural , come alike , and pass away without leaving an impression . The second state is that of our modern , dry , cold , sophisticated , scientific temper;—scientific more than philosophical . Witnessed in this mood , a miracle would astound us—it would just curdle the brain , and produce no effect whatever upon the moral nature . " But I can form an idea of a mental condition as much unlike the first of these

    two states as the second . I can imagine myself to have come into a disce rnment of those unchanging realities of the spiritual and moral system which indeed affect my welfare , present and future ; so that the witnessing of a miracle would produce a feeling entirely congruous with such perceptions , and would neither astound nor agitate the mind . I can imagine myself to have so profound a sense of primary moral truths as that miracles would be confluent with the deep movements of the soul , and would produce no surge . I can imagine myself to have such a prospect of the plains of immortality—a prospect moral , not fanciful , not sensuous , as that

    the spectacle of the raising of the dead should assort itself with my feelings . So to see ' death swallowed up in victory / would excite no amazement . I read this very quietness in the apostolic epistles ; and it sheds the steady brightness of the morning upon St . Paul ' s discourse concerning the resurrection . This great fact , concerning the destiny of man , which he there expounds , I also hold to be a truth , undoubted . But if , beside thus believing it with modern logical persuasion , if instead of this belief I had St . Paul ' s sight and consciousness of it , then , like him , I could speak of miracles briefly , firmly , and without a note of wonder .

    " The miracles of the evangelic history come to us with the force of Congeuity , just so far as we can bring ourselves morally within the splendour . those eternal verities which are of the substance of the Gospel . While we stand remote from that illuminated field , they are to us only a galling perplexity ; for we can neither rid ourselves of the evidence that attests them , nor are prepared to yield ourselves to it . At this moment the Christian argument is an intolerable torment to hundreds of cultivated minds around us . " In the crowd of those who witnessed the miracles of Christ there were some

    who mocked ; there were some who gnashed their teeth ; there were many who marvelled and applauded , and soon forgot what they had seen . But there were some into whose minds the doctrine—the moral purport—the spiritual reality of his discourses had so entered that , beside being conscious of the fitness of which already I have spoken , they felt , with overwhelming force , a Congruity of another kind ; I mean that of these miracles with the majestic bearing and style of Him who wrought them ; for ho did these ' mighty works' with the spontaneous ease of one in whom this power , and much more , was inherent /'

    In fact , the miracles recorded may have been recorded by the very men who witnessed them ; these men may have been the most moral and enlightened of that age ; they may have been recorded in the most sincere conviction of their truth ; aiid yet , so little does Christianity gain by all these admissions , that the calm verdict of . Reason is against the acceptance of the Miracles , precisely as it is against the acceptance of the Mesmeric marvels , and no amount of Congruity or Historic Cohesion will make Reason accept them . Let us examine one of the Miracles , and see how beautiful the " historic cohesion" is , and how little it helps credibility . Wo beg to quote the ( Gospel narrative in all its integrity . " And they came over unto the other

    side of the sea , into the country of the ( iadarenes . And when he was come out of the ship , immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit , who had his dwelling among the tombs ; and no man could bind him , no , not with chains ; because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains , and the chains had been plucked asunder by him mid the fetters broken in pieces : neither could any man tame him . And always , night and day , he was in the inountainH , and in the tombs , crying , and cutting himself with stones . And when be saw Jesus afar off , he ran and worshipped him , and cried with a loud voice , and Naid , What h : ivo I to do witb thee , Jesus , tbou Son of the most high ( iod P [ adjure thee by God , that tliou torment me not . i'or he said unto him ,

    Come out of the man , tbou unclean spirit . And lie asked bini . What is Iby immep And he answered . My 11 : 11110 is Legion ; for we are many . I Ijiike is more precise in his language : "And be said Legion : because many devils were entered into him . " | And they besought him niueh 'hat he would not wend them away out of tbe country . Now there was there ni < rh ,,,, (() |] , mountains a great herd of swine feeding . And all the devils besought ] , j m > saying , Send us into the swine , that we may enter " > t <> them . And forthwith . Jemis gave them leave . And the unclean spirits went out , and entered into the swine ; and the herd ran violently < l <>\\ n a , steep place into the sen , ( they were about two thousand ;) and were ' bohed in the se ; .,. "

    Now it is indisputable that I lie " cohesion" here is perfect . Mattliow , Mark , and Luke record iXxo . fart ( Matthew says there were two men possessed with devils ) . The " history" has no AW ; but we aslc , Can any H j" >«> man in this nineteenth century Iwl . iciw itP Can he not neo that it ¦ here |> n any truth whatever in this history , it is that of a maniac cured ( [> '" soothed ) by . Jesus P The believer must believe— 1 ° , That there wvro « l (! vils in the iim ,,. 2 " , That the devils besought Jesus to send them into 'ho swine—a not very intelligible preference , and one which greatly < lisi" « Kardod the feelings and the " property" of the swino owner . 3 ° , " Tiiafc

    all present heard the devils ask this , and in very good Hebrew . 4 ° , That they were made spectators of the transference of these numerous devils from the man to the swine . And if he believes ail this—he has a very splendid capacity for belief . We foresee that there will be some " interpretation" resorted to . The devils will he called a " metaphorigpil expression" for insanity ; or some such loophole will be sought . But— -not ' to complicate the question by reference to the swine- —let us remind the reader that here we have a distinct bit of miraculous " history , " in which the " cohesion" is perfect ; and that if once the latitude of " interpretation" be allowed , the whole history of Christianity is resolvable into a Myth . Apropos of miracles , we cannot resist the quotation of one passage , wherein our author , always bold in his assertions , seems to us to employ an audacity that approaches irony : —

    " Among these miracles there are no portents—such as are related by classic writers ; there are no exhibitions of things monstrous;—there are no contrarieties to the order of nature ; there is nothing prodigious , there is nothing grotesque . Nor among them are there any of that kind that might be called theatric . There are no displays of supernatural power , made in the presence of thousands of the people , summoned to witness them . Although claiming to be sent of God into the world , with a sovereign authority , Christ did not , as Elijah had done , convene the people , and then challenge his enemies to dispute with him his mission by help of counter-attestations . " ] NTo contradictions to the " order of Nature ! " —What , then , is a miracle P No displays of power in the presence of thousands ! What was the miracle of the loaves and fishes ? Another specimen of the kind of easy , confident statement which imposes on acquiescent minds , is the following , on the first general Epistle of Peter : —

    " The apostolic antiquity of this Epistle is a fact out of question—I mean among those whose readings in German have not denuded them of their English common sense . Yet even here , though very unwilling to seem to concede anything to pedantry and affectation—I should be willing , as to its bearing upon my argument , to take this Epistle as ( though not genuine ) so like to the genuine , as to secure for itself universal acceptance as such . " The calm majesty , the fervour , the bright hopefulness , and the intense moral import of ithe Epistle , carry it home to every ingenuous mind as an embodiment of whatever is the most affecting in theology , and the most effective and salutary in ethics . With those—if there are any—who have no consciousness of these qualities in the writing before us , I should not court controversy . In any suck instance nature must have dealt in a very parsimonious manner with the mind and heart ,

    and sophistry must have greatly overdone 7 ier part . " The author , having taught us suspicion , induced us by these praises to turn to the epistle in question , and we earnestly beg our readers not to content themselves with any general recollection , but at once to read over that Epistle , and be astounded at the audacity of such sentences as those just quoted . The first twelve verses contain a general assertion of Christ ' s mission ; the " intense moral import" of the remainder is the exhortation to live a sober , holy life , and to love each other fervently—very excellent doctrine , assuredly , but to be met with elsewhere besides in Peter ' s Epistle . The author , however , has his reasons for discerning this intense moral import ( which you are to see also under pain of having a bad heart ) , and thus he employs them : —

    " But he aflirms also the resurrection of Christ , in varied phrases , five times in this Epistle . These affirmations are all of them adjunctive to his proper subject , and inseparable from the context . They include not only the fact of the resurrection , but that also of Christ ' s assumption to the throne of celestial dominion ( iii . 22 ) . We have here in hand an instance of the Cohesion of the supernatural and the historic which is of a peculiar kind . " In any composition , if three , four , or five subjects , of different classes , are brought together , that one among them must be regarded as the one uppermost in the mind of the writer , in illustration of which the ! other subjects—two , three , or four—are introduced . That one is the leading subject ; the others the subjunctive and subdividing .

    " According to this plain rule , the drift of this Epistle is ethical . Tim main intention of the-writer , and his ruling impulse , was so to fortify the minds of the Christian people under his care , its to secure the purity , rectitude , and religious consistency of their conduct . In going about to make good tliis , bis main purpose , he brings in those principal facts on which fhe Christian profession rested , and in behoof of which Christians wen ! lisrhlc to sutler . These facts stand >»¦ . scries , commencing with a merely historic fact—namely , the crucifixion , and the death of Christ going on to those that were wholly remote from human cognizance , and coming to 11 close in the visible " , yet supernatural fact , of Christ ' s ascent from earth to heaven . " Now this instance of indissoluble Cohesion may be dealt with , and it has often been so dealt with , in a style of extenuation or apology , as thus : 'Can we imagine , or oik //// , we to suppose , that , u writer who is so careful to enforce moral principles , and who so well understands them , should himself , through life , be the propagator of what , be must , always have known to be- a falsehood ? ' Reasonably we

    can imagine no such thing ; but just , now I should state the case ; in other terms , as thus " I bring this document , into Court . In doing so I protest against , any pleading that take for granted the very question which is now to be argued , and upon which the plaintiff and defendant have joined issue . That question involves the reality of" a series of facts , including those that , are miraculous . " As to the genuineness of this particular document , it has already passed under revision , in the proper Court ; and it , has been duly countersigned there , as authentic It . stands open to no exceptions that could be available for the plaiiitill ' , except , this one that it , bears upon the verdict in a sense unfavourable (<> himself . Hut this exception , of course , stands for nothmir .

    " I read my document from beginning to end , and then ask— ' Including- the plainfill ' s nugatory objection , which is grounded upon bis apprehension of an adverse verdict , would this lOpistle surest any oilier idea Hum Ibis , that I be writer's own mind was tranquil mid well-ordered ; and that , bis intention in writing it was of that , sort which is becoming to a wise and virtuous man ; especially to one who in in a " place of authority r " " The answer in niuni / cKL This KnisMe , if mid apart from any reference to tho

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    October 2 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 951

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 2, 1852, page 951, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1954/page/19/