Trembling with awe and fear, the mind inquires—
"What master spirit, now, the bard inspires;
What bold philosophy shall dare assign
A law to govern miracles divine—
Tell how effects transpire without a cause,
And how kind nature breaks kind nature's laws?"
Among the popular errors of modern times, an opinion prevails that miracles are events which transpire contrary to the laws of nature, that they are effects without a cause.
If such is the fact, then, there never has been a miracle, and there never will be one. The laws of nature are the laws of truth. Truth is unchangeable, and independent in its own sphere. A law of nature never has been broken. And it is an absolute impossibility that such law ever should be broken.
That which, at first sight, appears to be contrary to the known laws of nature, will always be found, on investigation, to be in perfect accordance with those laws. For instance, had a sailor of the last century been running before the wind, and met with a vessel running at a good rate of speed, directly in opposition to the wind and current, this sight would have presented, to his understanding, a miracle in the highest possible sense of the term, that is, an event entirely contrary to the laws of nature, as known to him. Or if a train of cars, loaded with hundreds of passengers, or scores of tons of freight, had been seen passing over the surface of the earth, at the rate of sixty miles per hour, and propelled, seemingly, by its own inherent powers of locomotion, our fathers would have beheld a miracle—an event which would have appeared, to them, to break those very laws of nature with which they were the most familiar.
If the last generation had witnessed the conveyance of news from London to Paris, in an instant, while they knew nothing of the late invention of the electric telegraph, they would have testified, in all candour, and with the utmost assurance, that a miracle had been performed, in open violation of the well known laws of nature, and contrary to all human knowledge of cause and effect.
But, once familiar with the arts of the living age, all those miracles cease to be such, and the laws of nature, and of cause and effect, are found to be still moving, unimpaired, in all the harmony of primeval existence and operation.
The same views will apply, with equal force, to all the spiritual phenomena of the universe.
The terms miracle and mystery must become obsolete, and finally disappear from the vocabulary of intelligences, as they advance in the higher spheres of intellectual consistency. Even now they should be used only in a relative or limited sense, as applicable to those things which are not yet within reach of our powers, or means of comprehension.
We will here remind the student of two principles, or laws of existence, developed in a former chapter of this work, which will account for all the miraculous powers of the universe—all the mighty works ever manifested by God, or by His servants.
First. All the elements of the material universe are eternal.