THE ORTHODOX DOCTRINE OF MIRACLES.
[To TIIR EDITOR OF THE " Sriscurou."1 discussing the "logical necessity of miracle," is it not exceedingly important to remember that Christianity, in bearing witness to certain " miraculous " events, is not pledged to any theory of the miraculous P There is no "orthodox doctrine of miracles,"—i.e., no theory of the miraculous that is de fide to Catholics. And a defence of " miraculous " events, suited to an age of atomism in science and deism in religious thought, is obviously inapplicable to our present evolutionary and theistic ideas.
Every higher stage of life is miraculous and supernatural to every lower : the animate to the inanimate, the rational to the irrational. And our view of the "necessity of miracle" will depend on whether or not we find reasons for believing in the existence of any stage of invisible spiritual life higher than that of humanity.
A Catholic, to whom this higher invisible life is de fide, accepts past events like the resurrection of Christ, and pre- sent mysteries like the doctrine of the Mass, but in no way regards them as contra-natural. To the saints of all ages, the natural is supernatural, and the supernatural is natural ; and all modern thought tends to support this view. But, just as most modern attacks on the Atonement are attacks on partial explanations of that doctrine suitable to a past age of thought, so with the miraculons,—side by side with a con- tinual belief in the miraculous, the Catholic conception of what it involves will obviously differ from age to age.—I am, Sir, &ea
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