3. The further they are removed from the apostolic age the more numerous they are, and in the fourth century alone there are more miracles than in all the three preceding centuries. together, while the reason for them, as against the power of the heathen world, was less.

4. The Church Fathers, with all the worthiness of their character in other respects, confessedly lacked a very highly cultivated sense of truth, and allowed a certain justification of falsehood ad majorem, Dei gloriam, or fraus pia, under the misnomer of policy or accommodation; with the solitary exception of Augustine, who, in advance of his age, rightly condemned falsehood in every form.

5. Several Church Fathers, like Augustine, Martin of Tours, and Gregory I., themselves concede that in their time extensive frauds with the relics of saints were already practiced; and this is confirmed by the fact that there were not rarely numerous copies of the same relics, all of which claimed to be genuine.

6. The Nicene miracles met with doubt and contradiction even among contemporaries; and Sulpitius Severus makes the important admission that the miracles of St. Martin were better known and more firmly believed in foreign countries than in his own.t

7. Church Fathers like Chrysostom and Augustine, contradict themselves, in a measure, in sometimes paying homage to the prevailing faith in miracles, especially in their discourses on the festivals of the martyrs, and in soberer moments, and in the calm exposition of the Scriptures, maintaining that miracles, at least in the biblical sense, had long since ceased.

* So especially Jerome, Epist. ad Pammachium esse уvμvaoтiküç scribere, aliud doyμarıkar. In priori vagam esse disputationem; et adversario respondentem, nunc hæc nunc illa proponere, argumentari ut libet, aliud loqui, aliud agere, panem, ut dicitur, ostendere, lapidem tenere. In sequenti autem aperta frons et, ut ita dicam, ingenuitas necessaria est. Of interest, in this connection, is his controversy with Augustine on the conduct of Paul toward Peter, (Gal. ii, 11,) which Jerome would attribute to mere policy or accommodation. Even Chrysostom utters loose principles on the duty of veracity, (De Sacerdot. I. 5,) and his pupil Cassian still more, appealing to the example of Rahab. (Coll. XVII, 8, 17, etc.) Compare Gieseler, I, ii, p. 307, (§ cii, note 17.) The corrupt principle that "the end sanctifies the means is much older than Jesuitism, which is commonly made responsible for it. Christianity had at that time not yet wholly overcome the spirit of falsehood in ancient heathenism.

+ Dialog., I. 18.

This argument is prominently employed by James Craigie Robertson, moderate Anglican: History of the Christian Church to Gregory the Great. London, 1854, page 334. “On the subject of miracles," says he, "there is a remarkable inconsistency in the statements of writers belonging to the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth centuries. St. Chrysostom speaks of it as a notorious and long-settled fact that miracles had ceased." (v. Newman, in Fleury, vol. i, p. 39.) Yet at that very time, St. Martin, St. Ambrose, and the monks of Egypt and the East are said to have been in full thaumaturgical activity; and Sozomen (VIII. 5) tells a story of a change of the eucharistic bread into a stone as having happened at Constantinople while Chrysostom himself was bishop. So, again, St. Augustine says that miracles, such as those of Scripture, were no longer done, yet he immediately goes on to reckon up a number of miracles which had lately taken place, apparently without exciting much sensation, and among them seventy formally attested ones, wrought at Hippo alone, within two years, by the relics of St. Stephen. (De Civit. Dei, XXII, 8, 1, 20.) "On the whole, while I would not deny that miracles may have been wrought after the times of the apostles and their associates, I can find very little satisfaction in the particular instances which are given."

We must, moreover, remember that the rejection of the Nicene miracles by no means justifies the inference of intentional deception in every case, nor destroys the claim of the great Church teachers to our respect. On the contrary, between the proper miracle. and fraud there lie many intermediate steps of self-deception, clairvoyance, magnetic phenomena and cures, and unusual states of the human soul, which is full of deep mysteries, and stands nearer the invisible spirit-world than the every-day mind of the multitude suspects. Constantine's vision of the cross, for example, may be traced to a prophetic dream, and the frustration of the building of the Jewish temple under Julian, to a special providence, or an historical judgment of God. The mytho-poetic faculty, too, which freely and unceremoniously produces miracles among children, may have been at work among credulous monks in the dreary deserts, and magnified an ordinary event into a miracle. In judging of this obscure portion of the

history of the Church, we must in general guard ourselves as well against shallow naturalism and skepticism, as against superstitious mysticism, remembering that "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy."

ART. IV.-CHILDHOOD CONVERSION.

ON no subject do the Holy Scriptures more clearly indicate the duty of parents and the Church than in reference to the religious education and culture of little children. Never did our Lord and his apostles speak more explicitly nor more tenderly than in reference to them, their relation to the kingdom of heaven, the pleasure of God respecting their early training, and our duty to provide for and secure their religious and spiritual welfare. "Take heed," says our Lord, "that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven." "All thy children," says Isaiah, "shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children." "Parents," writes St. Paul," bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

These injunctions accord with the evident indications of the will of God wherever and whenever he has spoken on this subject. To the young, God says, "My son, give me thy heart." "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth." "Those that seek me early shall find me." To parents and guardians he says, "Train up a child in the way he should go"-catechise a child at the opening of the way he should go-" and when he is old he will not depart from it." This is the rule; to it there may be exceptions: "These words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children." The impartation of heart-truths will be in affection and in earnest.

The covenant relation of children to the kingdom of heaven; to the Church and her visible ordinances, is beautifully enunciated by the Saviour: "Of such is the kingdom of heaven;" and by St. Peter: "Be baptized every one of you in

the name of Jesus Christ; for the promise is unto you and to your children." In reference to "little ones" of such tender age as to be brought to him, our Lord openly and personally manifested such attentions and taught such lessons as gave his disciples to understand that even they themselves, mature, chosen, and daily subject to his instructions, must become, would they enter the kingdom of heaven, like the little child then placed in their midst. And then, encouraging all parents to bring their little ones to him, he took into his arms those brought to him, put his hands upon them, and blessed them. Referring to the tender care of a shepherd for each and all his flock, by going even to the mountains for one estrayed, he adds, "Even so, it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish."

You see, therefore, that our subject possesses the full share of importance that we attach to topics of more frequent discussion and more earnest efforts.

Our first thought is, Children are in danger of perishing. By this, however, is not meant that such as die in early and irresponsible childhood, before they reach the condition of actual sin, shall perish. No, no. I do not believe with a certain divine of my acquaintance that, as young rattlesnakes possess the deadly poison of their progenitors, and may therefore be innocently killed, even before they have done harm, so little and harmless children deserve damnation, and are saved if any and at all, only because of their special election in and through the lineal election of their believing parents. Not only are they among the redeemed, but they all both belong to and are of the kingdom of heaven. They possess the character requisite to enter the kingdom. Few truths are more clearly taught in the divine Scriptures than that little children, in virtue of the atonement, sustain a justified relation to God. "The free gift has come upon all men unto justification of life.” "For as by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall the many be made righteous."

Let it be noted also that if those in maturity become, on their conversion, as little children, and, through a personal faith in the atonement, sustain a similar relation to God and

his Church, then children themselves, dying in this relation and state, are saved without personal faith. They are in no danger of perishing.

Neither do I mean that, growing up to responsibility, children may pursue such a course of life and form such a character as will lead to spiritual ruin. This is abundantly evident and universally conceded. The Bible teaches it. The history of man confirms it.

I mean rather that little children, because of the neglect and evil example of parents and guardians, and the omissions of the Church, may be left to receive those impressions, take in those ideas, and form those habits that will lead them early to sin, will develop and strengthen a perverse character, and end in the perdition of ungodly men. Beginning in childhood, they may receive such influences and instructions, may embrace such principles, as will lead them to looseness of thought and habits, and then to vice and ruin. This is the probable result if we permit them, under the force of their keenly watchful, impulsive, and curiously inquisitive minds, to select for themselves, to take their own course; or, if careless of their early amusements, attachments, associations, and habits, because we judge that early impressions, new and forceful, are soon lost, or are modified for the better, we wrongly think they will soon outgrow the errors of childhood; or, again, that their early biases to evil will not greatly influence their future character or habits. It is a remark of Lord Brougham, that children learn more the first eighteen months than during the same length of time in any subsequent period of life, because they then receive the germs of thought and feeling. Then mind is more impressible, memory more tenacious, and the heart, like spring-flowers, is more fully open to surrounding influences. Evil habits then formed, or impressions then received, are not easily outgrown or corrected. The future of life, during which we may delusively hope for their reform, takes on the character of all the more prominent and forceful biases of neglected and badly-educated childhood. As a channel, opened in the surface sand by the stick of a sportive boy, directs the course of a rivulet, so the increasing stream and river run on.

"Just as the twig is bent the tree inclines."

FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XVIII.—34