The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-01-19

direct interposition of such personal
. supernatural force as to produce re-
suits or effects manifestly different
from what unaided natural forces could
have produced.
This thought may be illustrated by
the familiar effects upon matter pro-
duced by voluntary human action.
When you see a piece of iron held upon
the surface of water by the visible sup
port of a human hand there is no mar
vel. But if EHshas pupil drops his
axehead into a river, and it floats upon
the surface, it is called a miracle, be-
cause in the former case the support
ing hand which obstructs the action of
gravity is seen, while in the latter the
supporting agency is an invisible one,
apparently supernatural, manifesting
the presence and power of God or his
angel. In neither case is the law of
gravitation subverted or violated. In
both cases the action of gravity is
simply DISTRACTED by a personal force.
1t is certainly competent for us to
credit the doctrine that the Universe
contains multitude of invisible per-
sonal agents, capable of acting upon
the forces of matter just as we human
personal agents do, only with greater
power and skill. And it is equally COM
petent for us to believe that the Su-
preme Creator of all can do the same
thing with unlimited power and skill,
without at all violating the laws of
matter. In all such notifications of
the effects produced, there is simply
new personal force interposed, and no
subversion' of existing forces.
BIBLE MIRACLES.
In farther illustration of this char
acter of miracles, let US iadduce some
of the most remarkable miracles re-
corded in the Bible. Perhaps no
miracle is more apparently sub
versive of great physical laws than
that of the arrest of the motions
of the sun and moon by Joshua. At
first thought this miracle seems to in
volve an absolute stoppage of the revo-
luton of the earth upon its axis, the
effect of which would naturally be to
shoot violently into space not only
everything on the surface of the globe
but everything in its interior. Such eff
feet would seem aVoidable only by
complete subversion of the law of in
ertia so as to hold everything in place
while the globe stopped rotating, and
again when it resumed its rotation
Now while I would not deem it nee
essary to insist upon this miracle OF
Joshua as a genuine historical record, |
it may be quite in place to point out |
that an apparently fixed position OF
the sun and moon might have been |
secured for a short time without any |
such violent interference with the laws
IF matter. 1t simply needed that the /
rays of those Iuminaries should be so
detected by refraction or reflection as
% make them apparently retain the
same position. Such bending of their
avs could be produced by the Divine
land entirely in accordance with the
avs of light by interposing suitable
Medium to refract or reflect them
Or take again the recorded marvel OF
he Hebrew children unconsumed IN
he furnace. We need not suppose any
;ubversion of the laws of heat, but only
such a supernatural reinforcement Of
he vital forces of the three persons
Is to resist and neutralize the effects
# heat. We may suppose such power
impaired to their living bodies as to
.manate an aura enveloping them and