In reply to this question, we will proceed to mention certain phenomena which seem to belong to the same order as the works of Jesus. The distinction between the miracles of Christ and all those portents will be pointed out hereafter.
In the “Atlantic Monthly” for February and March, 1864, there appeared an account (written, we believe, by R. Dale Owen), of the Convulsionists of St. Médard. The facts therein stated seem to contradict all the known laws of physiology. The lower side of miracles, namely, their apparent violation of physical laws, here appears as fully developed and as fully attested as the most careful sceptic could desire. If, therefore, any one objects to believing the miracles of Jesus on the ground that they seem to be violations of physical laws, we ask what they mean to do with these facts, so extraordinary, and yet so fully attested. If believed, there is no reason, based on the abnormal character of Christ's works, for rejecting those. But if disbelieved, it can be done only by setting aside all the ordinary rules of evidence, and all the laws of belief, in favor of a negative prepossession of a purely empirical character. Phenomena somewhat similar to these have occurred elsewhere, among Protestants as well as Catholics, during periods of great religious excitement. The beginnings of most religious systems—Methodism, Quakerism, &c.—have stories like these of supernatural influences. They have usually been disbelieved because their friends have claimed too much: they have claimed that such phenomena were divine attestations to the truth of the doctrine preached. What is proved by them is the simple fact that the soul of man is capable, under high excitement, of suspending, or rather overcoming, all common physiological laws. We have seen similar results follow often from such causes, only in ordinary ways. A sick person is made well in a moment by some moral influence; a weak and sickly mother will nurse a sick child, night after night, without rest or sleep, and keep well, where a strong man would break down. Mesmerism brings forward multitudes of like facts. There are, for example, the well-attested facts concerning the transfer of the senses: that people under the influence of animal magnetism can read [pg 078] with their forehead, the pit of their stomach, or the back of their head. We have seen a weak boy, some thirteen years old, when magnetized, lift a chair with three heavy men standing on it. Clairvoyance, or seeing things at a distance, though not so well proved, is confirmed by a vast number of facts. We come, then, to our final statement concerning miracles, which is this:—
I. There is in man a power, as yet undeveloped, and only occasionally seen in exceptional conditions, of overcoming the common laws of nature by force of will; and this is sometimes voluntary, and sometimes involuntary.
II. This phenomenon takes these forms:—
A. Power of the soul over the body (a.) to resist pain, as in the case of martyrs, who are burned alive without any appearance of suffering; (b.) to resist physical injury, as in the case of the Convulsionists; (c.) to dispense with the usual service of the senses, as in the case of the girl at Worcester Insane Asylum, Massachusetts, under the care of Dr. Woodward, who could read a book in a perfectly dark room and with bandaged eyes; (d.) to give a preternatural energy and strength to the body.
B. Preternatural knowledge—such cases as that narrated by Dr. Bushnell, of Yonnt, in California; or knowledge through dreams, waking presentiments; cases of foresight, or prophecy; of insight, or knowledge of what is passing in other minds; of clairvoyance, or knowledge of what is happening at a distance, of which multitudes of facts are narrated in such books as the “Seeress of Provorst,” Mrs. Crowe's “Night Side of Nature,” Robert Dale Owen's “Footfalls from the Boundary of the Unseen World,” which, after being sifted by a fair criticism, will leave a large residuum of irresolvable facts.
C. Higher than these is a preternatural elevation of the whole character, as in such cases as that of Joan of Arc, where a young girl, ignorant, a peasant, destitute of all common [pg 079] means of influencing any one, by the simple power of faith, because she believed herself inspired and commissioned, succeeded in gaining the command of the armies of France, and then of achieving a series of victories, equal, on the whole, as mere military exploits, to those of the first captains of the world.
In all these cases we see manifestations of a power in the soul over nature, body, men, and the laws of time and space. So we say, secondly,—
III. This power was possessed in the highest degree known in this world by Jesus of Nazareth, and it differed in him from these other cases in these points:—
1. It was always voluntary in its exercise, never involuntary. He was not possessed by it, he possessed it. He used it just when and where he chose to use it. It was always at his command; he never appears to have tried to work a miracle, and failed. So,—