MINSK-MINT. are timber, salt, and corn, which are brought by river-carriage to the Baltic and Black Sea ports. The principal manufactures are fine cloths, linen, and sugar. The soil is not fertile, and is covered to a large extent with woods and marshes, while in many other places it is a sandy waste, but in general the native products suffice for the wants of the inhabitants. The climate is very severe in winter. Cattle and sheep breeding are pursued with tolerable success. The inhabitants of the south or marshy portion of the province are subject to that dreadful disease, the Plica Polonica (q. v.). MINSK, the chief town of the government of the same name, is situated on the Svislocz, an affluent of the Beresina. It is mostly built of wood, but has many handsome stone edifices, among which are the Greek and Roman Catholic cathedrals and seminaries, the church of St Catharine, a number of educational and philanthropic establishments, a public library, and a theatre. The chief manufactures are woollen cloth and leather. Pop. (1867) 36,277, many of whom are Jews. MINSTER. See MONASTERY. MINT (Mentha), a genus of plants, of the natural order Labiata; with small, funnel-shaped, 4-fid, generally red corolla, and four straight stamens. The species are perennial herbaceous plants, varying considerably in appearance, but all with creeping root-stocks. The flowers are whorled, the whorls often grouped in spikes or heads. The species are widely distributed over the world. Some of them are very common in Britain, as WATER M. (M. aquatica), which grow in wet grounds and ditches, and CORN M. (M. arvensis), which abounds as a weed in cornfields and gardens. These and most of the other species have erect stems. All the species contain an aromatic essential oil, in virtue of which they are more or less medicinal. The most important species are SPEARMINT, PEPPERMINT, and PENNY-ROYAL-SPEARMINT or GREEN M. (M. viridis), is a native of almost all the temperate parts of the globe; it has erect smooth stems, from one foot to two feet high, with the whorls of flowers in loose cylindrical or oblong spikes at the top; the leaves lanceolate, acute, smooth, serrated, destitute of stalk, or nearly so. It has a very agreeable odour. PEPPERMINT (M. piperita), a plant of equally wide distribution in the temperate parts of the world, is very similar to spearmint, but has the leaves stalked, and the flowers in short spikes, the lower whorls somewhat distant from the rest. It is very readily recognised by the peculiar pungency of its odour and of its taste.-PENNY-ROYAL (M. pulegium), also very cosmopolitan, has a much-branched prostrate stem, which sends down new roots as it extends in length; the leaves ovate, stalked; the flowers in distant globose whorls. Its smell resembles that of the other mints.-All these species, in a wild state, grow in ditches or wet places. All of them are cultivated in gardens; and peppermint largely for medicinal use and for Havouring lozenges. Mint Sauce is generally made of spearmint; which is also used for flavouring soups, &c. A kind of M. with lemon-scented leaves, called BERGAMOT M. (M. citrata), is found in some parts of Europe, and is cultivated in gardens. Varieties of peppermint and horse-mint (M. sylvestris), with crisped or inflato-rugose leaves, are much cultivated in Germany under the name of CURLED M. (Krause-minze); the leaves being dried and used as a domestic medicine, and in poultices and baths. All kinds of M. are easily propagated by parting the roots or by cuttings. It is said that mice have a great aversion to M., and that a few leaves of it will keep them at a distance. | Peppermint, Penny-royal, and Spearmint, are used in medicine. The pharmacopoeias contain an aqua spiritus, and oleum of each of them; the officinal part being the herb, which should be collected when in flower. Peppermint is a powerful diffusible stimulant, and, as such, is antispasmodic and stomachic, and is much employed in the treatment of gastrodynia and flatulent colic. It is also extensively used in mixtures, for covering the taste of drugs. Penny-royal and spearmint are similar in their action, but inferior for all purposes to pepper. mint. The ordinary doses are from one to two ounces of the aqua, a drachm of the spiritus (in a wine-glassful of water), and from three to five drops of the oleum (on a lump of sugar). MINT (Lat. moneta), an establishment for making coins or metallic money (see MONEY). The early history of the art being traced under the head NUMISMATICS, the present article is mostly confined to a sketch of the constitution of the British mint, and of the modern processes of coining as there followed The earliest regulations regarding the English mint belong to Anglo-Saxon times. An officer called a reeve is referred to in the laws of Canuto as having some jurisdiction over it, and certain names which, in addition to that of the sovereign, appear on the Anglo-Saxon coins, seem to have been those of the moneyers, or principal officers of the mint, till recently, an important class of functionaries, who were responsible for the integrity of the coin. Besides the sovereign, barons, bishops, and the greater monasteries had their respective minta, where they exercised the right of coinage, a privilege enjoyed by the archbishops of Canterbury as late as the reign of Henry VIII., and by Wolsey as Bishop of Durham, and Archbishop of York. After the Norman Conquest, the officers of the royal mint became to a certain extent subject to the authority of the exchequer. Both in Saxon and Norman times, there existed, under control of the principal mint in London, a number of provincial mints in different towns of England; there were no fewer than 38 in the time of Ethelred, and the last of them were only done away with in the reign of William III. The officers of the mint were formed into a corporation by a charter of Edward II.; they consisted of the warden, master, comptroller, assay-master, workers, coiners, and subordinates. The seignorage for coining at one time formed no inconsiderable item in the revenues of the crown. It was a deduction made from the bullion coined, and comprehended both a charge for defraying the expense of coinage, and the sovereign's profit in virtue of his prerogative. In the reign of Henry VI, the seignorage amounted to 6d. in the pound; in the reign of Edward I., 18. 24d. By 18 Car. II. c. 5, the seignorage on gold was abolished, and has never since been exacted. The shere, or remedy, as it is now called, was an allowance for the unavoidable imperfection of the coin. The function of the mint is in theory to receive gold in ingots from individuals, and return an equal weight in sovereigns; but, in point of fact, gold is now exclusively coined for the Bank of England; for, though any one has still the right to coin gold at the mint, the merchant or dealer has ceased to obtain any profit for so doing, as the Bank is compelled to purchase all gold tendered to it at the fixed price of £3, 178. 9d. an ounce. The increment on the Assay (q. v.), or on the fineness of the metal, which augments the standard weight, and therefore the value of the gold, is a more considerable source of profit to the importer of gold. The ordinary trade assay, on which the importer purchases the bullion, does not by usage come closer than 4th of a carat grain or 74 grains per lb. troy. Before being coined the gold is subjected to a second and more delicate A new mint was erected on Towerhill in 1810. In 1815, some alterations were made in its constitution; and in 1851 a complete change was introduced in the whole system of administration. The control of the mint is now vested, subject to the instructions of the Treasury, in a master and a deputy-master, and comptroller. The mastership, which had, in the early part of the present century, become a political appointment, held by an adherent of the government, has been restored to the position of a permanent office, the master being the ostensible executive head of the establishment. The operative department is intrusted to the assayer, the melter, and the refiner. The moneyers, who from early times till a very recent period were in the enjoyment of extensive corporate privileges and exemptions, were contractors with the crown for the execution of the coinage. Their office was abolished with the recent change of system; and the contracts with the crown are now entered into by the master of the mint, who also makes subordinate contracts for the actual manufacture of the coin. Other contracts are taken by the medallists of Birmingham, where one firm especially, that of Ralph Heaton & Co., whose machinery is said to excel that of the Royal Mint in efficiency, not only manufactures coin for our own, but also takes large contracts from foreign governments both in copper and silver. Another firm assisted in making the bronze coinage of this country lately issued. These firms have no special privileges, but tender for the government contracts when offered in the usual way, and give the necessary securities. Processes of coining.-Down to the middle of the 16th c., little or no improvement seems to have been made in the art of coining from the time of its invention. The metal was simply hammered into slips, which were afterwards cut up into squares of one size, and then forged round. The required impression was given to these by placing them in turn between two dies, and striking them with a hammer. As it was not easy by this method to place the dies exactly above each other, or to apply proper force, coins so made were always faulty, and had the edges unfinished, which rendered them liable to be clipped. The first great step was the application of the зcrew, invented in 1553 by a French engraver of the name of Brucher. The plan was found expensive at first, and it was not till 1662 that it altogether superseded the hammer in the English mint. The chief steps in coining as now practised are as follows: The gold or silver to be coined is sent to the mint in the form of ingots (Ger. eingiessen, Du. ingieten, to pour in, to cast), or castings; those of gold weighing each about 180 oz., while the silver ingots are much larger. Before melting, each ingot is tested as to its purity by Assaying (q. v.), and then weighed, and the results carefully recorded. For melting the gold, pots or crucibles of plumbago are used, made to contain each about 1200 oz. The pots being heated white, in furnaces, the charge of gold is introduced along with the proper amount of copper (depending upon the state of purity of the gold as ascertained by the assay), to bring it to the standard, which is 22 parts of pure gold to 2 of copper (see ALLOY). The metal when melted is poured into iron moulds, which form it into bars 21 inches long, 1 inch broad, and 1 inch thick, if for sovereigns; and somewhat narrower, if for half-sovereigns. For melting silver (the alloy of which is adjusted to the standard of 222 parts of silver to 18 of copper), malleable iron pots are used, and the metal is cast into bars similar to those of gold. The new copper, or rather bronze coinage, issued in 1860, is an alloy consisting of 95 parts of copper, 4 of tin, and 1 of zinc. The coins are only about half the weight of their old copper representatives The processes of casting and coining the bronze are essentially the same as in the case of gold and silver. The operation of rolling follows that of casting. It consists in repeatedly passing the bars between pairs of rollers with hardened steel surfaces, driven by steam-power; the rollers being brought closer and closer as the thickness becomes reduced. At & certain stage, as the bars become longer, they are cut into several lengths; and to remove the hardness induced by the pressure, they are annealed. The finishing rollers are so exquisitely adjusted that the fillets (as the thinned bars are called) do not vary in thickness in any part more than the tenthousandth part of an inch. The slips are still further reduced in the British mint at what is called the draw-bench,' where they are drawn between steel dies, as in wire-drawing, and are then exactly of the necessary thickness for the coin intended. The fillets thus prepared are passed to the tryer, who, with a hand-punch, cuts a trial-blank from each, and weighs it in a balance; and if it vary more than th of a grain, the whole fillet is rejected. For cutting out the blanks of which the coins are to be made, there are in the British mint twelve presses arranged in a circle, so that one wheel with driving cams, placed in the centre, works the whole The punches descend by pneumatic pressure, and the fillets are fed into the presses by boys, each punch cutting out about 60 blanks a minute. The scrap left after the blanks are cut out, called scissel, is sent back to be remelted. Each blank is afterwards weighed by the automaton balance-a beautiful and most accurate instrument, which was added to the mint about ten years ago. It weighs 23 blanks per minute, and each to the 001 of a grain. The standard weight of a sovereign is 123274 grains, but the mint can issue them above or below this to the extent of 0-2568 of a grain, which is called the remedy. Blanks which come within this limit are dropped by the machine into a 'medium' box, and pass on to be coined. Those below the required weight are pushed into another box to be remelted, but those above it into another, and are reduced by filing. The correct blanks are afterwards rung on a sounding iron, and those which do not give a clear sound are rejected as dumb. To insure their being properly milled on the edge, the blanks are pressed edgeways in a machine between two circular steel-plates, which raises the edges, and at the same time secures their being perfectly round. After this they are annealed to soften them, before they can be struck with dies; they are also put into a boiling pot of dilute sulphuric acid, to remove any oxide of copper from the pressure being applied, the segments close round, and impress the letters on the edge of the coin. The screw of the press is put in motion by means of the piece A, which is worked by machinery driven by steam-power, and situated in an apart ment above the coining-room. The steam-engine exhausts an air-chamber, and from the vacuum produced, an air-engine works a series of air-pumps, which communicate a more exact and regular motion to the machinery of the stamping-presses than by the ordinary condensing engine. The loaded arms RR strike against blocks of wood, whereby they are prevented from moving too far, and run the risk of breaking the hard steel dies by bringing them in contact. The press brings down the die on the coin with a twisting motion, but if it were to rise up in the same way, it would abrade the coin; there is, in consequence, an arrangement which, by means of a wide notch in the ring 3, allows the die to be raised up a certain distance before it begins to turn round with the screw. On the left side of the figure, the arrangement for feeding the blanks and removing the coins as they are stamped, is shewn. A lever HIK, moving on a fulcrum I, is supported by a bar Q, fixed to the side of the press. The top of this lever is guided by & sector 7 fixed upon the screw D. In this sector there is a spiral groove, which, as the screw turns round, moves the end H of the lever to or from the screw, the other end K being moved at the same time either towards or away from the centre of the press. The lower end of the lever moves a slider L, which is directed exactly to the centre of the press, and on a level with the upper surface of the die. The slider is a thin steel-plate in two pieces united by a joint, and having a circular cavity at the end, which, when its limbs are shut, grasps a piece of coin by the edge. This piece drops out on the limbs separating. There is a tube at K which an attendant keeps filled with blank pieces; it is open at the bottom, so that the pieces rest on the slider. When the press is screwed down, the slider is drawn back to its furthest extent, and its circular end comes exactly beneath the tube. A blank piece of coin now drops in, and is carried, when the screw rises, to the collar which fits over the lower die. The slider then returns for another blank, while the upper die descends to give the impression to the coin. Each time the slider brings a new blank to the die, it at the same time pushes off the piece last struck. An arrangement of springs lifts the milled collar to enclose the coin while it is being struck. The perfect coins are next subjected to the process of pixing, or a final examination by weight and assay, before they are delivered to the public. United States Mint.-By Act of Congress, May 19. 1828, the National Mint was permanently established at Philadelphia. Its coining machinery, for the perfection of which we are mainly indebted to Franklin Peale, is much superior to that of London or Paris. Branch mints have been established at San Francisco, Cal., Denver, Col., Carson City, Nev., and Assay Offices for smelting, refining, and assaying at New York City, at Boise City, Idaho, and at Charlotte, N. C. Deposits of bullion are received at the Mint and its branches now in operation, to be separated or refined, or cast into bars, the charges for which are the actual cost of the operation, including labour, wastage, &c. These charges vary with the quality of the gold or silver to be operated upon. For smelting gold nearly fine and returning the same in stamped bars, six cents per hundred dollars, and for making standard bais of gold or silver, 50 cents per hundred dollars, were charged in 1867. The standard of both gold and silver coin is nine MIOCENE-MIRABEAU. hundred parts of pure metal and one hundred parts of alloy by weight, the alloy of, the silver coins to be copper, and of the gold, copper and silver, the silver not exceeding one-half the whole alloy. The five and three cent pieces are composed of copper and nickel, the nickel not exceeding 25 per cent. The two cent pieces and the cent are composed of 95 per cent. of copper and 5 per cent. of tin and zinc. The coinage of the U. States, in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1870, was, gold, $30,103,364; silver, $2,670,054; opper, $611,445; total, $33,384,864. During the 10 years, from 1841-1850, inclusive, $112,050,753; 1851-1860, $520,175,556; 1861-1870, $410,189,185. Total, from 1793-1870, 76 years, $1,126,$19,579. MIOCENE (Gr. less recent), a term introduced by Lyell to characterise the Middle Tertiary strata, which he supposes to contain from 10 to 40 per cent. of living species; but these proportions are not capable of genral application. cavalry regiment; but continued to prosecute various branches of study with great eagerness, whilst outrunning his companions in a career of vice. An intrigue with the youthful wife of an aged marquis brought him into danger, and he fled with her to Switzerland, and thence to Holland, where he subsisted by his pen, amongst other productions of which, his Essai sur le Despotisme attracted great attention. Meanwhile, sentence of death was pronounced against him; and the French minister, at his father's instigation, demanding that he should be delivered up to justice, he and his paramour were apprehended at Amsterdam, and he was brought to the dungeon at Vincennes, and there closely im prisoned for 42 months. During this time he was labours, writing an Essai sur les Lettres de Cacht et often in great want, but employed himself in literary les Prisons d'état, which was published at Hamburg (2 vols. 1782), and a number of obscene tales, by which he disgraced his genius, although their sale prison, he subsisted chiefly by literary labour, and supplied his necessities. After his liberation from still led a very profligate life. He wrote many effecfinancial administration of Calonne, receiving pecutive political pamphlets, particularly against the niary assistance, it was said, from some of the great bankers of Paris; and became one of the leaders of the Liberal party. When the States-general were convened, he sought to be elected as a representative of the nobles of Provence, but was rejected by them on the ground of his want of property; and left them with the threat that, like Marius, he would overshop, offered himself as a candidate to the Third throw the aristocracy. He purchased a draper's Aix and Marseille. He chose to represent Marseille, Estate, and was enthusiastically returned both at and by his talents and admirable oratorical powers and National Assembly. Barnave well characterised soon acquired great influence in the States-general him as the Shakspeare of eloquence. forth as the opponent of the court and of the aristocracy, but regarded the corntry as by no means ripe for the extreme changes proposed by political theorists, and laboured, not for the overthrow of The Miocene in America extends in a wide band and the establishment of a constitutional throne. the monarchy, but for the abolition of despotism, Long the Atlantic and Gulf region in marine beds and To suppress insurrection, he effected, on 8th July over a great area west of the Mississippi, deposited in 1789, the institution of the National Guard. fresh water. The former contain remains of some twenty species of Cetaceans, some of huge size, officed his popularity to maintain the throne. some of the contests which followed, he sacrithe genera Mesoteras Eschrichtius, etc.; one with a cylindric snout is the Rhabdosteus. The latter abound more that anarchy and revolutionary frenzy prein remains of land animals, mostly ungulates, as Orevailed, the more decided did he become in his sdon, Titanotherium, &c., with carnivora. Strata of this age occur in Britain-in the island of Mull, also at Bovey Tracey, where they exist in a flat area of ten miles long, by two miles broad, and consist of clay interstratified with beds of imperfect lignites. Here all the plants belong to the same species as those found in similar deposits, not only on the continent, but in Iceland, Greenland, and Arctic America. Their facies indicates a warmer climate than the present, and the geographical range of the species is unexampled in the existing flora. The Mull beds contain abundant remains of an equisetum, which grew in the marsh into which the leaves were blown. The leaves belong te dicotyledons and conifera, and are of species similar to those of Bovey Tracey. The Fahluns of France are of this age, as are also part of the Mollassi of Switzerland, and the Mayence and Vienna basins. Of the same period are the highly fossiliferous deposits in the Sewalik Hills, Incia, containing the remains of several elephants, a mammoth, hippopotamus, giraffe, and large ostrich, besides several carnivora, monkeys, and crocodiles, and a large tortoise, whose shell measured 20 feet across. The European beds contain the remains of the Dinotherium (q. v.). He stood In The resistance to their progress; but it was not easy to maintain the cause of constitutional liberty at once MIRABEAU, HONORÉ GABRIEL RIQUETTI, COMTE against the supporters of the ancient despasm OE, was born 9th March 1749, at Bignon, near and the extreme revolutionists. The king and mis Nemours. He was descended, by his own account, friends were long unwilling to enter into any rela from the ancient Florentine family of Arrighetti, tions with one so disreputable, but at last, under wao being expelled from their native city in 1268, the pressure of necessity, it was resolved that M. on account of Ghibelline politics, settled in Provence. should be invited to become minister. No sooner Jean de Riquetti or Arrighetti purchased the estate was this known, than a combination of the most of Mirabeau in 1562; his grandson, Thomas, hap- opposite parties, by a decree of 7th November 1789, pened to entertain here, in 1660, Louis XIV. and forbade the appointment of a deputy as min ster. Cardinal Mazarin, on which occasion he received From this time forth, M. strove in vain in favour of from the monarch the title of Marquis Victor the most indispensable prerogatives of the crown, Raquetti. Marquis de Mirabeau (born 1715, died and in so doing exposed himself to popular indigna1789), the father of Honoré, was a vain and foolish tion. He still continued the struggle, however, man, wasted his patrimony, wrote books of philan- with wonderful ability, and sought to reconcile the thropy and philosophy, as L'Ami des Hommes | court and the Revolution. In December 179 he (5 vols. Par. 1755), and was a cruel tyrant in his own was elected president of the Club of the Jacoons, house. He procured no fewer than fifty-four lettres de cuchet at different times against his wife and his children. Honoré, his eldest son, was endowed with an athletic frame and extraordinary mental abilities, but was of a fiery temper, and disposed to every kind of excess. He became a lieutenant in a and in February 1791, of the National Assembly. Both in the Club and in the Assembly, he displayed great boldness and energy; but soon after his appoint ment as president of the latter, he sank into a state of bodily and mental weakness, consequent upon his great exertions and his continued debaucheries, and MIRACLE-MIRACLE PLAYS. died 2d April 1791. He was interred with great pomp in the church of Saint Genevieve, the Pantheon;' but his body was afterwards removed, to make room for that of Marat. A complete edition of his works was published at Paris in 9 vols. in 1825-1827. His natural son, Lucas Montigny, published Mémoires Biographiques, Littéraires et Politiques de Mirabeau (24 edit. 8 vols. Par. 1841), the most complete account which we have of his life. See also Carlyle's sketch of Mirabeau in his Miscellaneous Essays, and his French Revolution. MIRACLE, a term commonly applied to certain marvellous works (healing the sick, raising the dead, changing of water into wine, &c.) ascribed in the Bible to some of the ancient prophets, and to Jesus Christ, and one or two of his followers. It signities simply that which is wonderful—a thing or a deed to be wondered at, being derived directly from the Latin miraculum, a thing unusual- an objet of wonder or surprise. The same meaning is the governing idea in the term applied in the New Testament to the Christian miracles, teras, a marvel, a portent; besides which, we also find them designated dunameis, powers, with a reference to the power residing in the miracle-worker; and semeia, signs, with a reference to the character or pretensions of which they were assumed to be the witnesses or guarantees. Under these different names, the one fact recognised is a deed done by a man, and acknowledged by the common judgment of men to exceed man's ordinary powers; in other words, a deed supernatural, above or beyond the common powers of nature, as these are understood by men. In the older speculations on the subject, a miracle was generally defined to be a violation or suspension of the order of nature. While, on the one hand, it was argued (as by Hume), that such a violation or suspension was absolutely impossible and incredible; it was maintained, on the other, that the Almighty, either by his own immediate agency, or by the agency of others, could interfere with the operation of the laws of nature, in order to secure certain ends, which, without that interference, could not have been secured, and that there was nothing incredible in the idea of a law being suspended by the Person by whom it had been made. The laws of nature and the will or providence of God were, in this view, thus placed in a certain aspect of opposition to each other, at points here and there clashing, and the stronger arbitrarily asserting its superiority. Such a view has, with the advance of philosophical opinion, appeared to many to be inadequate as a theory, and to give an unworthy conception of the Divine character. The great principle of Law, as the highest conception not only of nature, but of Divine Providence, in all its manifestations, has asserted itself more dominantly in the realm of thought, and led to the rejection of the apparently conflicting idea of interference,' implied in the old notion of miracle. Order in natur and a just and uncapricious will in God, were felt & be first and absolutely necessary principles. The idea of miracle, accordingly, which seems to be now most readily accepted by the advocates of the Christian religion, has its root in this recognised necessity. All law is regarded as the expression, not of a lifeless force, but of a perfectly wise and just will. All law must develop itself through natural phenomena; but it is not identified with or bound down to any necessary series of these. If we admit the mainspring of the universe to be a living will, then we may admit that the phenomena through which that will, acting in the form of law, expresses itself, may vary without the will varying or the law being broken. We know absolutely nothing of the mode 1 of operation in any recorded miracle; we only see certain results. To.atfirm that these results are either impossible in themselves, or necessarily violations of natural law, is to pronounce a judgment on imperfect data. We can only say that, under an impulse which we must believe proceeds from the Divine will, in which all law exists, the phenomena which we have been accustomed to expect have not followed on their ordinary conditions. But from our point of view we cannot affirm that the question as to how this happens is one of interference or violation; it is rather, probably, one of higher and lower action. The miracle may be but the expres sion of one Divine order and beneficent will in a new shape-the law of a greater freedom, to use the words of Trench, swallowing up the law of a lesser. Nature being but the plastic medium through which God's will is ever manifested to us, and the design of that will being, as it necessarily must be, the good of his creatures, that theory of miracle is certainly most rational which does not represent the ideas of laws and of the will of God as separate and opposing forces, but which represents the Divine will as working out its highest moral ends, not against, but through law and order, and evolving from these a new issue, when it has a special beneficent purpose to serve. And thus, too, we are enabled to see in miracle not only a wonder and a power, but a sign-a revelation of Divine character, never arbitrary, always generous and loving, the character of one who seeks through all the ordinary courses of nature and operation of law to further His creatures' good, and whose will, when that end is to be served, is not restricted to any one necessary mode or order of expression. Rightly inter preted, miracle is not the mere assertion of power, or a mere device to impress an impressible mind; it is the revelation of a will which, while leaving nature as a whole to its established course, can yet witness to itself as above nature, when, by doing so, it can help man's moral and spiritual being to grow into a higher perfection. The evidence for the Christian miracles is of a twofold kind-external and internal. As alleged facts, they are supposed to rest upon competent testimony, the testimony of eye-witnesses, who were neither deceived themselves, nor had any motive to deceive others. They occurred not in privacy, like the alleged supernatural visions of Mohammed, but for the most part in the open light of day, amidst the professed enemies of Christ. They were not isolated facts, nor wrought tentatively, or with difficulty; but the repeated, the overflowing expression, as it were, of an apparently supernatural life. It seems impossible to conceive, therefore, that the apostles could have been deceived as to their character. They had all the means of scrutinising and forming a judgment regarding them that they could well have possessed; and if not deceived themselves, they were certainly not deceivers. There is no historical criticism that would now maintain such a theory; even the most positive unbelief has rejected it. The career of the apostles forms throughout an irrefragable proof of the deep-hearted and incorruptible sincerity that animated them. The gospel miracles, moreover, are supposed in themselves to be of an obvi ously Divine character. They are, in the main, miracles of healing, of beneficence, in which the light equally of the Divine majesty and of the Divine love shines witnessing to the eternal life which underlies all the manifestations of decay, and all the traces of sorrow in the lower world, and lifting the mind directly to the contemplation of his life. MIRACLE PLAYS. See MYSTERIES. |