d.

On proceeding further, we found every one complaining, in similar
perplexity, of the same loss; and before night it became evident that
a great and terrible "miracle" had been wrought in the world; that
in one night, silently, but effectually, that hand which had written
its terrible menace on the walls of Belshazzar's palace had reversed
the miracle; had sponged out of our Bibles every syllable they contained,
and thus reclaimed the most precious gift which Heaven had bestowed,
and ungrateful man had abused.

I was curious to watch the effects of this calamity on the varied
characters of mankind. There was universally, however, an interest in
the Bible now it was lost, such as had never attached to it while
it was possessed; and he who had been but happy enough to possess
fifty copies might have made his fortune. One keen speculator, as
soon as the first whispers of the miracle began to spread, hastened
to the depositories of the Bible Society and the great book-stocks
in Paternoster Row, and offered to buy up at a high premium any
copies of the Bible that might be on hand; but the worthy merchant
was informed that there was not a single copy remaining. Some, to whom
their Bible had been a "blank" book for twenty years, and who would
never have known whether it was full or empty had not the lamentations
of their neighbors impelled them to look into it, were not the least
loud in their expressions of sorrow at this calamity. One old gentleman,
who had never troubled the book in his life, said it was "confounded
hard to be deprived of his religion in his old age"; and another, who
seemed to have lived as though he had always been of Mandeville's
opinion, that "private vices were public benefits," was all at once
alarmed for the morals of mankind. He feared, he said, that the
loss of the Bible would have "a cursed bad effect on the public virtue
of the country."

As the fact was universal and palpable, it was impossible that, like
other miracles, it should leave the usual loopholes for scepticism.
Miracles in general, in order to be miracles at all, have been singular
or very rare violations of a general law, witnessed by a few, on
whose testimony they are received, and in the reception of whose
testimony consists the exercise of that faith to which they appeal. It
was evident, that, whatever the reason of this miracle, it was not
an exercise of docile and humble faith founded on evidence no more
than just suffici