that of the "holy thorn" (narrated in the "History of the Port-Royalists"), which stood the test of the most rigid contemporary inquiry, carried on at the prompting of a hostile ecclesiastical party, seem to me fully explicable on the like principle of the action of strongly-excited "faith" in producing bodily change, whether beneficial or injurious; and nothing but the fact that this strong excitement was called forth by religious influences, which in all ages have been more potent in arousing it than influences of any other kind, gives the least color to the assumption of their supernatural character.
I might draw many other illustrations from the lives of the saints of various periods of the Roman Catholic Church, as chronicled by their contemporaries, many of whom speak of themselves as eye-witnesses of the marvels they relate; thus, the "levitation of the human body"—i. e., the rising from the ground, and the remaining unsupported in the air for a considerable length of time—is one of the miracles attributed to St. Francis d'Assisi. But it will be enough for me to refer to the fact that some of the ablest ecclesiastical historians in the English Church have confessed their inability to see on what grounds—so far as externœl evidence is concerned—we are to reject these, if the testimony of the Biblical narratives is to be accepted as valid evidence of the supernatural occurrences they relate.
But the most remarkable example I have met with in recent times of the "survival" in a whole community of ancient modes of thought on these subjects (the etymological meaning of the term "superstition") has been very recently made public by a German writer, who has given an account of the population of a corner of Eastern Austria, termed the Bukowina, a large proportion of which are Jews, mostly belonging to the sect of the Chassidim, who are ruled by "Saints" or "Just Ones." "These saints," says their delineator, "are sly impostors, who take advantage of the fanaticism, superstition, and blind ignorance of the Chassidim in the most barefaced manner. They heal the sick by pronouncing magic words, drive out devils, gain lawsuits, and their curse is supposed to kill whole families, or at least to reduce them to beggary. Between the 'saint' and 'God' there is no mediator, for he holds personal intercourse with the Father of all, and his words are oracles. Woe to those who should venture to dispute these miracles in the presence of these unreasonable fanatics! They are ready to die for their superstitions, and to kill those who dispute them."[1]
Now, I fail to see what stronger external evidence there is of any of the supernatural occurrences chronicled in the Old Testament than that which is afforded by the assured conviction of this Jewish community as to what is taking place at the present time under their own eyes. And, assuming, as I suppose most of us should be ready to do, that the testimony of these contemporary wonders would break down
- ↑ E. Kilian, in Fraser's Magazine for December, 1875.
