17 OCTOBER 1863, Page 3

Last Monday the Bishop of Oxford made a very able

speech on missions at Manchester, in which he discussed the relation of miracles to missionary power in the ancient Church. He said the miracles were necessary to a people of low civilization, to gain attention from Greeks and Romans, but had nothing to do with conversion-the Gospel did that. What, he asked, should cor- respond to the miraculous power in modern missions-except exactly that in which the Jewish Christians were deficient-a com- mand of high science and familiarity with high civilization ? We do not want miracles now in India or Africa, because we can gain attention by our scientific and artistic superiority, and for con- version we have just the same instrument as the Jewish Christians -the Divine power of the Gospel.