were impossible" (Ibid). Mr. Row
rejects the first alternative, and accepts the accuracy of the Evangelic
records. But he considers that if possession were simply mania, Jesus,
knowing the nature of the disease, might reasonably use language suited
to the delusion, as most likely to effect a cure; he could not argue
with a maniac that he was under a delusion, but would rightly use
whatever method was best fitted to ensure recovery. If this idea be
rejected, and the reality of demoniacal possession maintained as most
consonant with the behaviour of Jesus, then Mr. Row argues that there is
no reason to consider it impossible that either good or evil spirits
should be able to influence man, and that psychological science does not
warrant us in a denial of the possibility of such influence.

The utter uselessness of miracles--supposing them to be possible--is
worthy of remembrance. They must not be accepted as proofs of a divine
mission, for false prophets can work them as well as true (Deut. xiii.,
1-5; Matt. xxiv., 24; 2 Thess. ii., 9; Rev. xiii., 13-15, etc.) and it
may be that God himself works them to deceive (Deut. xiii., 3). Satan
can work miracles to authenticate the false doctrines of his
emissaries, and there is no test whereby to distinguish the miracle
worked by God from the miracle worked by Satan. Hence a miracle is
utterly useless, for the credibility of a teacher rests on the morality
that he teaches, and if this is good, it is accepted without a miracle
to attest its goodness, so that the attesting miracle is superfluous. If
it is bad, it is rejected in spite of a miracle to attest its authority,
so that the attesting miracle is deceptive. The only use of a miracle
might be to attest a revelation of otherwise unknowable facts, which had
nothing to do with any moral teaching; and seeing that such revelation
could not be investigated, as it dealt with the unknowable, it would be
highly dangerous--and, perhaps, blasphemous--to accept it on the faith
of the miracle, for it might quite as likely be a revelation made by
Satan to injure, as by God to benefit, mankind. Allowing that God and
Satan exist, it would seem likely--judging Christianity by its
fruits--that the Christian religion is such a malevolent revelation of
the evil one.

The objection we raise is, however, of far wider scope than the
assertion of the lack of evidence for the New Testament miracles; it is
against all, and not only against Christian