t imperfectly understood.

To apply these principles in detail to the New Testament narratives
would involve critical discussions which are outside the purpose of
these lectures. I will only say that few critical scholars would deny
that some recorded miracles even in the New Testament are unhistorical.
When they find an incident like the healing of Malchus's ear omitted in
the earlier, and inserted in the later redaction of a common original,
they cannot but recognize the probability of traditional amplification.
At the same time few liberal theologians will be disposed to doubt the
general fact that our Lord did cure some diseases by spiritual
influence, or that an appearance of our Lord to the disciples--of
whatever nature--actually {160} did occur, and was the means of
assuring them of his continued life and power. At all events I do not
myself doubt these two facts. But at least when miracles are not
regarded as constituting real exceptions to natural law, it is obvious
that they will not prove the truth of any teaching which may have been
connected with them; while, even if we treat the Gospel miracles as
real exceptions to law, the difficulty of proving them in the face of
modern critical enquiry is so great that the evidence will hardly come
home to any one not previously convinced, on purely spiritual grounds,
of the exceptional character of our Lord's personality and mission.
This being so, I do not think that our answer to the problem of
miracles, whatever it be, can play any very important part in Christian
Apologetic. When we have become Christians on other grounds, the acts
of healing may still retain a certain value as illustrating the
character of the Master, and the Resurrection vision as proclaiming the
truth of Immortality in a way which will come home to minds not easily
accessible to abstract argument. The true foundation not merely for
belief in the teaching of Christ, but also for the Christian's
reverence for his Person, must, as it seems to me, be found in the
appeal which his words and his character still make to the Conscience
and Reason of mankind. This proposition would be {161} perhaps more
generally accepted if I were to say that the claim of Christ to
allegiance rests upon the way in which he satisfies the heart, the
aspirations, the religious needs of mankind. And I should be quite
willing to adopt such language, if you will only include respect for
historic fact and intellectual