inted instrument of mans training since life and thought began.'

'_There_,' he said slowly, 'in the unbroken sequences of nature, in the
physical history of the world, in the long history of man, physical,
intellectual, moral--_there_ lies the revelation of God. There is no
other, my friends!'

Then, while the room hung on his words, he entered on a brief exposition
of the text, '_Miracles do not happen_,' restating Hume's old argument,
and adding to it some of the most cogent of those modern arguments drawn
from literature, from history, from the comparative study of religions
and religious evidence, which were not practically at Hume's disposal,
but which are now affecting the popular mind as Hume's reasoning could
never have affected it.

'We are now able to show how miracle, or the belief in it, which is the
same thing, comes into being. The study of miracle in all nations, and
under all conditions, yields everywhere the same results. Miracle may be
the child of imagination, of love, nay, of a passionate sincerity, but
invariably it lives with ignorance and is withered by knowledge!'

And then, with lightning unexpectedness, he turned upon his audience,
as though the ardent soul reacted at once against a strain of mere
negation.

'But do not let yourselves imagine for an instant that, because in
a rational view of history there is no place for a Resurrection and
Ascension, therefore you may profitably allow yourself a mean and
miserable mirth of _this_ sort over the past!'--and his outstretched
hand struck the newspapers beside him with passion--'Do not imagine for
an instant that what is binding, adorable, beautiful in that past is
done away with when miracle is given up! No, thank God! We still "live
by admiration, hope, and love." God only draws closer, great men become
greater, human life more wonderful as miracle disappears. Woe to you if
you cannot see it!--it is the testing truth of our day.'

'And besides--do you suppose that mere violence, mere invective, and
savage mockery ever accomplished anything--nay, what is more to the
point, ever _destroyed_ anything in human history? No--an idea cannot be
killed from without--it can only be supplanted, transformed, by another
idea, and that one of equal virtue and magic. Strange paradox! In
the moral world you cannot pull down except by gentleness--you cannot
revolutionize except by sympathy. Jesus only superseded Judaism
by absorbing and re-creating all tha