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and by the design of God, which were intended to operate merely or chiefly as evidences, arguments, having no more elevated purpose, then I feel and say that they lack analogy-they exhibit no correspondence with the other works and ways of God. They want the divine signature. I cannot perceive that anywhere—in any department of nature, the Almighty does anything, or brings anything to pass, merely to prove somewhat. He always has a purpose infinitely higher. He addresses something within me, deeper, holier than my reason.

Cherishing these views, my attention is powerfully arrested by the striking intimations given here and there, in the course of the Christian Records, of this fact: namely, that in working his miracles Jesus did not pay exclusive, nor chief regard to the understanding.

He recognized something else and something higher in man than the reasoning faculty. He did not work merely to convince others of his authority, for he explicitly demanded that his authority should be first recognized. According to the common notions on this subject, if all around him had believed in him, he would have wrought no miracles, whereas I believe that in this case, he would have wrought more and greater miracles. Nay, had he been alone in the universe, with no other than that poor leper, and he had been a perfect saint in faith, I feel that Jesus would have done what he actually did. He would have stretched forth his hand to the sufferer and said, "I will. Be thou clean." His miracles were performed for themselves intrinsically, because they were true, right, beautiful. They were not put forth merely

for the sake of the influence they might have upon the understandings of others, but, like the glorious creations of genius, they were the simple, natural, irrepressible manifestations of that mighty spiritual force which was the inmost, God-inspired life of Jesus.

I cannot believe that he ever spoke merely for effect, neither can I believe that he ever acted for effect, especially upon those occasions, when his inspiration was the deepest and the strongest. In fact, it is not until we take this view of his miracles, that we are able to appreciate a tithe of their weight, viewed merely as arguments.

The wonderful works of Jesus illustrate his personal dignity. As the purposes for which they were performed disclose to us his self-forgetting spirit, his perfect wisdom, so the manner in which they were wrought, exhibits a corresponding elevation. There is a direct and quiet simplicity in the way in which he is described as producing these astonishing effects, that may without extravagance be characterized as perfectly sublime. There is no parade, no flourish of preparation, no childish and fantastic expedient, to catch the vulgar eye and startle the vulgar mind, and awaken the suspicion of fraud in the more enlightened. The Mosaic account of the creation of light, "God said let there be light, and there was light," has always been regarded as one of the most striking instances of sublimity on record. The accounts of some of the extraordinary works of Jesus are scarcely less sublime in their simplicity. "Lord, if thou wilt," said the leper to him, "thou canst make me clean. And Jesus extended his hand and touched him, saying, I

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will. Be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.”

and enraged at They were seekAnd on this occa

On one occasion, as we read, there was in the synagogue, on the Sabbath, a man with a withered hand. There were also present certain of the Pharisees and priests, who were jealous of Jesus, the boldness with which he taught. ing an opportunity to destroy him. sion they watched to see whether he would perform a cure on the Sabbath and so expose himself to the charge of violating the day. He perceived their motives, and after bidding the man with a withered hand stand forth in the midst of the assembly, he turned to the individuals who were watching him and said, "Is it lawful to do well on the Sabbath day, or to do ill? to save life or to kill?" There is a point in this question not perhaps apparent at first sight. Those whom he addressed were actuated by the most malignant feelings. They were thirsting for his blood, and, unconscious that they themselves were violating the Sabbath most grossly, they were undertaking to watch and accuse him. He asks them in effect, 'Is it lawful to do good as I am about to do it, on the Sabbath day, or to do ill as you are now doing? to save life as I intend, or to kill as you are eager to do? They were silent." And when," continues the narrative, "he had looked round about on them with indignation, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he said to the man, Stretch forth thine hand; and he stretched it out and it was made whole like the other." Does not this passage give us a new and vivid impression of the searching power of the address of Jesus?

The account of the raising of Lazarus has the same effect. There is nothing puerile about it, nothing that jars with the elevated feeling which on other occasions his words and conduct have inspired. Can any one read this portion of his history without having created within him a new sentiment of sublimity? It is full of the inspiration of Nature. The notices it contains of the sisters Mary and Martha have already been remarked upon. If we are not, I had almost said, overwhelmed with the thrilling greatness of those words, "I am the Resurrection and the Life: he that believeth on me, though he were dead yet shall he live, and whoso liveth and believeth in me shall never die," it is because we contemplate him who uttered them, at that elevated point at which he is seen, when we look at him through the vast and magnificent results of his life, as the Head and Founder of a widely established religion. Consider what he was at the moment he spake thus loftily, before the mighty change he has wrought in the world was realized. Then he was an humble, unknown individual, without name or visible authority, and a greater contrast cannot be imagined, than that which existed between his condition and his language. Thus viewed, his words stand out in wonderful relief, and he was either uttering the divinest wisdom or the wildest fanaticism. Again, the mysterious melancholy of Jesus, his deep, repeated sighs and tears,, all give an indescribable interest to the scene presented at the grave of Lazarus; and make us feel the astonishing originality of his character, to say no more. The mental depression he evinced on this occasion shows

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that the idea of the mighty work he was about to do, did not produce in his bosom the slightest throb of vain glory. Through those heavenly tears there beamed not the faintest look of a weak self-complacency.

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In the performance of his extraordinary works, Jesus evinced no anxiety about his personal glory. His language continually is, "Thy faith hath cured thee," " According to thy faith, be it done unto thee." While he was far from disowning his own agency in the production of these astonishing effects, he still pointed into the souls of those whom he relieved. Thither he traced the wonder-working force. In thinking more of their faith than his own power, what power of self-forgetfulness did he evince! He took no particular care to make his personal agency prominent. When the centurion's servant was cured of palsy, he did not even go to the house. When he gave sight to the man born blind, he sent him to wash at the fountain of Siloam, and it would seem as if he thus sent him away, in order to make for himself an opportunity of retiring, and to leave the miracle to speak for itself. He relieved the suffering and the afflicted freely, but he did not insist upon publicity. Once and again he bade those, whom he had cured, to go home. He did not allow them to accompany him, to sound his praises and bear witness to his power. He forbade them to speak of him as the Christ. The reason is obvious, and it is worthy of him. He did not wish to increase but to allay the excitement his wonderful acts produced. The belief that he was the Messiah, getting abroad before he had made the pacific un