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GRANDEUR OF HEBREW HISTORY.

of Miriam and the Israelitish women,-I say the record of the whole series of transactions I have thus imperfectly rehearsed, form together the grandest pages in all human history.

God is the great actor in this grand history; and it is worthy of Him. His own signal display of His moral character, as the chastiser of oppression, is as sublime as the display of His power. It is a lesson which has strengthened the hearts of His people—often the victims of oppression—in every age and in every land. Such deeds of the Almighty must have been real, or they would not have been commemorated, with every successive year, by the descendants of the ancient Israelites, wherever they may have sojourned, and whatever may have been their condition. And the fact that such deeds could not fail to be so commemorated by men, if the deeds were real, seems just as evident.

SURVEY OF THE MIRACLES.

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IX.

REVIEW OF THE RECORD OF CHRIST'S MIRACLES:

I

HEALING OF THE BLIND.

WOULD now invite sceptical friends, who are

present, to join me in an employment which, I am sure, will be a pleasing one to the Christian part of my audience. We have scanned arguments against the possibility and probability of Miracles -we have glanced at what ancient unbelievers thought about Miracles, and at what modern sceptics have said and reasoned about them-and we have considered, earnestly, and, I trust, conclusively, the unfoundedness of the aspersion that the Bible ascribes Miracles to Satan as well as to God:-Let us, now, ponder the record of the "signs and wonders and mighty deeds" wrought by Christ, according to the Evangelists-the record of what Christians hold to be true Miracles performed by the Saviour, in verification of His mission.

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LESLIE'S FOUR CRITERIA.

Leslie, one of the earliest writers in the last century, establishes four criteria respecting "the truth of matters of fact," as he phrases it, contained in the Scripture record :-" 1. That the matter of fact be such, as that men's outward senses, their eyes and ears, may be judges of it. 2. That it be done publicly in the face of the world. 3. That not only public monuments be kept up in memory of it, but some outward actions be performed. 4. That such monuments and such actions or observances be instituted, and do commence, from the time that the matter of fact was done." Facts, real facts, may be related without these four marks being produced to prove them; but Leslie contends that a relation which has all these four marks cannot be false.

I do not propose that, while employing ourselves in a thoughtful review of our Saviour's Miracles, we confine ourselves to the dry, critical investigation marked out by Leslie. Let us spend a few moments, now and then, in such reflections as the nature of the record may kindle in our minds; in order that our understandings may not only be convinced of the verity of Christ's Miracles,

MANY BLIND, IN THE EAST.

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but our affections be raised, gratefully, to God, under the impression of their value.

The Saviour signalised His power over inanimate Nature, the Gospel record tells us, and performed other deeds of "wonder," in verification of His mission; but deeds of healing-deeds wrought for the relief of men's maladies and sufferings-form by far the greatest part of the catalogue of Miracles they have recorded for us: a fact which compels us to approach our investigation with mingled awe and gratitude.

Of Christ's deeds of healing, the giving of sight to the blind form the greatest in number: we will, therefore, consider them first. Blindness, be it remembered, is a disease much more common in the East than it is with us-owing to the prevalence of fine particles of sand in the air, and the practice of sleeping on the tops of houses and elsewhere, in the open air, at night :—so we need not wonder that of all Christ's cures these are most numerous. No cure performed by Him would attract more notice, since the blind were so many; and the cure could not be counterfeited—at least, not for long the counterfeit, if attempted, would soon be

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HEALING OF THE TWO BLIND

found out. For blindness is, most essentially, an organic disease. It is not like some complaint which depends on the weak or disordered state of the nerves. That might be affected by fright, or sudden surprise. But a man born blind, or who had been blind for many years, could not be frightened or surprised into true seeing.

God has put a limit to possibilities of deceit. There could be no deceit in these deeds of healing of the blind, if the relation be true, as it is reported. They are instances of the usual order of Nature being transcended by Divine power: not occurrences which fulfil the "conditions of science" it is God setting the "conditions of science" aside to establish the fact of Christ's Messiahship.

Matthew gives us several cases of healing of the blind. He seems to place the first at Capernaum (chap. ix.), as Jesus is leaving the house of Jairus, when two blind men follow Him, crying, "Son of David, have mercy on us!" He does not seem to heed them the more because they address Him by one of the titles common among His countrymen for the promised Messiah. He lets