xpression; but
the Word of God, like all the works of the High and the Holy One, speaks
with equal power to every kindred and tongue and people. When correctly
rendered into another language, it is still full of grace and truth, of
majesty and beauty. In whatever dialect it may be clothed, it continues
to awaken the conscience and to convert the soul. Its dissemination at
this period either in the original or in translations, contributed
greatly to the extension of the Church; and the gospel, issuing from
this pure fountain, at once revealed its superiority to all the
miserable dilutions of superstition and absurdity presented in the
systems of heathenism.

When accounting for the rapid diffusion of the new faith in the second
and third centuries, many have laid much stress on the miraculous powers
of the disciples; but the aid derived from this quarter seems to have
been greatly over-estimated. The days of Christ and His apostles were
properly the times of "wonders and mighty deeds;" and though the lives
of some, on whom extraordinary endowments were conferred, probably
extended far into the second century, it is remarkable that the earliest
ecclesiastical writers are almost, if not altogether, silent upon the
subject of contemporary miracles. [278:1] Supernatural gifts perhaps
ceased with those on whom they were bestowed by the inspired founders of
the Church; [278:2] but many imagined that their continuance was
necessary to the credit of the Christian cause, and were, therefore,
slow to admit that these tokens of the divine recognition had completely
disappeared. It must be acknowledged that the prodigies attributed to
this period are very indifferently authenticated as compared with those
reported by the pen of inspiration. [278:3] In some cases they are
described in ambiguous or general terms, such as the narrators might
have been expected to employ when detailing vague and uncertain rumours;
and not a few of the cures now dignified with the title of miracles are
of a commonplace character, such as could have been accomplished without
any supernatural interference, and which Jewish and heathen quacks
frequently performed. [279:1] No writer of this period asserts that he
himself possessed the power either of speaking with tongues, [279:2] or
of healing the sick, or of raising the dead. [279:3] Legend now began to
supply food for popular credulity; and it is a suspicious circumstance
that the greater number of the mi