If we turn over the volumes of the Acta Sanctorum, we shall find, on the contrary, some of the brightest names in the annals of literature, piety, and philanthropy; some of the deepest scholars, the most acute reasoners, the most elaborate thinkers recorded in the annals of fame; of men whose works have been and still are the guiding lights of theological and philosophical investigation. There are Bridferth, Eadmer, Lanfranc, Anselm, William of Malmesbury, Thomas à Kempis, Bonaventura, and many others, all distinguished for intellect and piety. Some of them, too, were honored by a personal acquaintance with the subjects of their memoirs, as in the case of Bridferth, the contemporary of Dunstan, of Eadmer of Anselm, of Thomas of Celano and St. Francis. Can it be that these scholars, trained to philosophical investigation—these profound thinkers—these holy archbishops and bishops should connive together to delude posterity with a tissue of lies—of wanton lies, which might have been easily contradicted by contemporary writers, many of whom were bitter enemies both of the writers and their religion? Yet we find no such contradiction.
We have plenty of contemporary history handed down tolerably perfect as regards incidents, dates, accurate reports of great councils, descriptions of battles and sieges, lives of statesmen, warriors, and scholars, with views of both sides, debated, refuted, or confirmed. And are we to believe that in this matter of the lives of the saints only have all contemporary writers, friends and foes, scholars, holy men, great benefactors of their age, conspired successfully together to hand down an enormous fabric of falsehood, and at the same time secure the silence of all contemporary history? This is the great difficulty.
A distinguished English writer, the elder D'Israeli, has endeavored to account for these strange tales in the lives of the saints by suggesting they were written as exercises and religious theses, when each student filled up his outline with all the wonders he could invent to invest his subject with greater glory. That is a theory accepted by many who are already prejudiced toward its acceptation; but it is a frivolous theory, to which we object the improbability of these great men, whose names are already mentioned, being set down, some of them in the maturity of their lives, to write religious exercises of that nature. Is it not rather possible that there may be something in all this history which we can neither understand nor explain?
Let us examine for a moment into what we may venture to call the natural history of miracles. We find the Bible itself is an immense repertoire of miracles from Moses down to the apostles, and it contains no distinct announcement of a withdrawal of that power from the church. It was confirmed by Christ, who endowed his apostles with the same power, and who said one or two things in his addresses to them which, we think, will throw some light upon this vexed question.
It is quite certain that there have never been any miracles wrought in the world by any who did not receive the power from God. We are not prepared to estimate what degree of change was produced in the relations between man and God by the fall; we are certain of this, that a gap was placed between the two, so wide that Christ was sent to bridge it over; that an apostasy ensued, and a disunion so complete that his death alone was able to provide the means of reunion and reconciliation. Then it follows that faith was the only possible mode to man of recovery of what was lost by man; faith before the promise and faith after its fulfilment, and in the proportion of the strength of that faith, and the consequent change of life in the heart and nature of him who possessed it, was the reunion with God promised. But how does this bear on miracles? In this way. Turn to the Bible, and it will be seen that of every man who is recorded to have performed miracles, it is also recorded that he had this immovable faith, and that his life was ordered accordingly. Faith, prayer, and fasting have ever been the elements of the life necessary to miracles, and we are not prepared, nor are we able to estimate what would be the result of such a course of severe discipline as some of the saints went through toward a recovery of that lost union with God. It is a singular fact that, in the life of Christ, we find it was only after his fasting and prayer in the wilderness that he began to perform miracles, as though during that severe trial of temptation, fasting, and prayer the perfect union between himself and his Father had been sealed by the final gift of miraculous power. And thus was it that, when in after times his disciples were unable to cast out the devils, and appealed to him for the reason of their inability, he replied, "This sort goeth not out but by fasting and prayer;" and we are told elsewhere that the disciples of Jesus did not fast. So that we find in the Bible there is a close connection between the active development of the spiritual, and the subjugation of the corporeal life, and the working of miracles.
All the prophets led that life, they were given to prayer, fasting, and solitude. It was the peculiar life of Jesus; retired to the mountains, the deserts, and by-places for prayer, and he attributed the miraculous power to the results of this life. [Footnote 152] Is it, then, possible for a man by strong faith, accompanied by fasting and prayer, in these later days to regain that close, mysterious communion with his Maker which should give him a supernatural power? We reply that we have not the means of answering the question, for the simple reason that we never have an opportunity of seeing it tried. Without wishing to insinuate anything invidious, have we any record in ecclesiastical or other history, of bishops, priests, or men of any class during the last 400 years spending whole nights in prayer, or consecutive days in fasting, such as we read, upon indisputable authority, was the practice in the olden times of the prophets, and the later times of men who devoted their lives to the imitation of Christ? [Footnote 153]
[Footnote 152: In the life of St. Francis we are told that "solitaria loca quaerebat," "una die dum sic sequestratus oraret," "cum die quadam egressus ad meditandum in agro," "dum per sylvam iter faciens.">[
[Footnote 153: Our Protestant fasts are a "lucus a non lucendo," consisting of fish of various descriptions, curiously prepared by the protean art of cookery, with very substantial adjuncts, and accompanied by good wine. No miracles were ever wrought upon that diet.]
There are plenty of hints scattered throughout the Bible and Testament that there is a mysterious connection yet to be recovered between man and God, if men will only fulfil the required condition, and we repeat that it is not in our power to estimate the results of such a life as we have mentioned—a life of spiritual discipline, of development of the soul, and subjugation of the body—because we have no examples around us; but we ask, if such life were pursued, what is there to prevent our believing that to some extent the words of our Divine Master, who led that life himself, would yet be verified, and "this sort" would still "go out through fasting and prayer"? Nay, further, we may add in illustration that the phenomena which are recorded as attending the careers of such men as Whitefield, Wesley, and Irving have never yet been explained away by any scientific theory or law; so that, in conclusion, as we find in the Bible an emphatic and reiterated record of miraculous power accorded to persons of a certain habit of life and thought, as our Lord, when on earth, attributed that power to the pursuing of that peculiar life—as in every instance where miracles are attributed to men, they are proved to have led such lives—it cannot be thought too much to suggest that, making great deductions and allowances for exaggeration, there may be some basis of truth underlying that fabric of historical and traditional record of the lives of the saints.
Many of those incidents described so mysteriously are capable of explanation. It is often recorded of these men that they saw visions and heard voices. For instance, it is said of St. Francis that, on one occasion, when he was long praying in a solitary place, the Lord appeared to him as if on the cross, and so visible was this [Greek text] to him that ever afterward, when any thought of Christ's sufferings came into his mind, he could not help bursting into tears; also, that one night the Lord appeared to him, and said, "Francisce, quis potest melius facere tibi dominus aut servus?" And again, on another occasion, "Francisce, vade et repara domum meam." Within the range of our own experience, who is there amongst us who has not had similar visions in the slumbers of the night, or heard similar voices in the day? Have we not had sweet converse with dear departed friends, and heard voices that have long been silent? What bereaved mother has not often heard the cry of her lost infant, or solitary widow seen the form of a lost husband in the phantasms of the night? If such things happen to ordinary men, we submit that we are unable to estimate the result of the mode of life and the severity of spiritual training which those men underwent, because it is foreign to our habits, and not within the range of our experience.