St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-03-18
ALL ABOUT MIRACLES.
Jesus Rebuked the People Who
Asked for Miraculous Signs.

Asked for Miraculous Signs.
At the first Unitarian church yester-
day morning Rev. 81. Nj. Simmons
preached on Miracles" He said
Jesus seems to have protested against
people asked him for miraculous signs,
Jesus rebuked them and added: ever
lily say unto you. there shall no sign
be given unto this generation" Many
think that Mark was right, and that
Jesus never claimed to work miracles,
but that the New Testament stories of
them are only what grew up in legend
afterward. Joseph Cook says there was
not time for such legends to grow in
the twenty-five years before Paul wrote.
But we have but to read the writings
of the Church Fathers to see that still
more marvellous stories grew up IN
much less time then that. st. Angus
tine, for instance, writing of his own
city of Hippo. says in the last two
years seventy miracles have been
wrought there by the relics of st.
Stephen alone, and among them at
least three cases of dead per
sons restored to life. Here
are then as many and as great
miraculous stories as are told of Jesus
their growth, but only two. Such stories
continued to arise in the same way for
the next thousand years. We may form
some idea of their number by remem-
bering that the incomplete s'B0llandiSt
Collection" tells of some $4,000 saints,
all of whom worked miracles. and fills
fifty live (55) great folio volumes with
their deeds.
The cessation of these miracles has
been no loss, but a great gain to the
world; for it has only revealed the
larger miracle of laws that can be
trusted and used for the benefit of man.
The knowledge of the laws of disease
has helped the world more than all the
miracles of healing; and has length
ened not merely the lives OF few men
here and there, but the average dura-
tion of life through great nations. Even
the miracles of st. Patrick, which
should be reverently mentioned to-day,
are still done, and outdone, by the
modern reliance upon law. st.
Patrick is said to have slain an
enemy by lightning; but the world
has learned to use lightning to better
purpose, and makes it light our cities
and bear messages around the world,
and bind nations in closer brotherhood.
st. Patrick turned his enemies fertile
turns boys into fertile fields. st. Pat
rick made stone float and save a man
from drowning; but modern navigation
makes iron ships carry millions of men
safely across the seas, and crops to feed
them too, and turns the very waves
into steam to carry them quicker. st.
Patrick, like st. Sebald, of Nuremberg,
built fire out of ice; but any chemist
can do that to-day, and water is already
widely used to make fuel go further.
st. Patrick drove the Serpents from
Ireland; and a folk story tells that the
= last one was SO large that when its
head was going forth from the harbor
of Cork, its tail was just leaving the
cave near Dublin, 140 miles away. But
the worst serpent of oppression and
wrong, which has long covered Ireland
with It's coils, is already yielding
before the faith in divine justice and
human rights. Nor does the loss of the
old miracles harm the saints them
selves. These miracles of ST. Patrick
are no longer much believed by the
Irish themselves; but his day is still
kept as Loyalty and he is honored as
much as before. Not the miracles, but
the man himself, is what is really
valued, and his noble spirit of devotion
has spread through millions since, and
still lives in IriShmen to-day. So Christ
mas day will be kept as Loyalty. and
Christ be honored as truly, when the
church no longer believes those mir
acles which He himself protested
against; and Christ will still live in the
heart of humanity. So of all the old
miraculous stories. The petty miracles
of disorder and violated law Will pass
away; but they will only melt before
the universal and better miracle of
order. law, lie and love,