Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-04-03
THE RELATION OF MODERN MIRACLES
TO HISTORY.

The fact that no pagan historian has any
mention of the supernatural events which
are said to have occurred during the found
ing of Christianity, has often been dis.
cussed, and various unsatisfactory attempts
to explain it have been made. If, how
ever, students of history could bring them
selves to realize that human nature in its
Observation-Disclosures essentially the same
in all ages, they mightderive some valuable
aids to the Interpretation of the past from
the development of superstition which is
still actively proceeding in all parts of the
world. Thus the assumption of some
churches that the age OF miracles has
passed would be to-day denied with in
dignant conviction by scores of millions of
Roman Catholics. The age of miracles has
never passed for that church, and indeed
Rome is far more logical and consistent in
this respect than is Professionalism, for If
miracles were ever credible, there is not,
and cannot be, any valid reason for ceasing
to believe them at or after particular
time. Miracles, however, have seldom
been more abundant than at present In
France, in Ireland, in Belgium, in Spain,
in Italy, they are occurring continually,
and in the two first. named countries they
have aroused the most profound and pas
sionate emotion, and caused the greatest
excitement. Yet while Catholic publica-
lions are discussing these things as soberly
and gravely as if they were matters of fact,
the world outside the Catholic Church
pays no attention whatever to them beyond
simply recording the latest pilgrimage in a
brief dispatch. The modern miracles are
not controverted. No scientific man thinks
it worth while to run a tilt at them.
Even Protestant theologians for the most
part let them alone, and Rome her.
self generally manifests sort of shame
facedness in giving her solemn sanction
to the last winking Virgin or perspiring
Saint. The world, in fact, is content
to leave the dense credulity which is
capable of being deluded in these ways, to
its own devices, and unless some such
actively mischievous superstition as that
of withcraft should revive, and threaten
to produce social disturbances, it would
not be induced to NEEDLE with the matter.
This is the state of opinion we see in action
around us, and it is not far-fetched or
improbable assumption that a similar con-
temptuous Indifference to supernatural
pretensions which no contemporary intelli-
gence of any consequence accepted, was
the cause of that silence regarding the
miraculous claims of the early Christians
which has puzzled the commentators. A
thousand years hence it is conceivable that
some inquiring race may discover the ac-
counts of the miracles at Lourdes or in Ire
land, and draw from them the same infer
ences which modern students have
drawn from the stories of Christian
experimentation, at the same time wonder
ing, as modern students have wondered,
why no attention was paid to these re-
markable events by the best trained intel
Licences of the age. Educated men to-day
hold almost unanimous opinion about
miracles, but it is not sufficiently realized
that 1900 years ago there was an educated
class as capable OF penetrating delusions as
modern scholars are, and that its opinion
on the supernaturalism of early Chris
tianity may reasonably be supposed to
have correspondent in all essentials with
the modern opinion concerning the alleged
miracles of the present time. A careful
comparison between the educated intelli-
gences of the pre-Christian era and those