Morning Star

For the Morning Star.

MIRACLES.

A miracle perpetuated, soon ceases to appear a miracle. And when it begins to be regarded as a matter of course, it fails of its due impression, and God's hand or presence in it is liable to be overlooked. There is an eastern fable of a boy having challenged his teacher to prove to him the existence of God by working a miracle. The teacher, who was a priest, got a large vessel filled with earth, wherein he deposited a kernel in the boy's presence, and bade him pay attention. In the place where the kernel was put a green shoot suddenly appeared, the shoot became a stem, the stem put forth leaves and branches, which soon spread over the whole apartment. It then budded with blossoms, which, dropping off, left golden fruit in their place, and, in the short space of an hour, there stood a noble tree in the place of the little seed. The youth, overcome with amazement, exclaimed, "Now I know that there is a God, for I have seen his power!" The priest smiled at him and said, "simple child do you only now believe? Does not what you have just beheld take place in innumerable instances, year after year, only by a slower process? But is it the less marvelous on that account?"

Now we, my friends, are but too often like such simple children. Suppose, on rising in the morning, we found a loaf added to our provisions, which we could be certain that neither we, or any human being had put there, we should then have no difficulty in saying that the Lord had sent it. Yet we actually find such a loaf every morning added to our provisions, and it is equally true that God has sent it: but because he has sent it in a less direct and extraordinary manner, namely, by strengthening our own powers and blessing our labor to obtain it, and because this is an ordinary case, and what is taking place all the world over, therefore, however unreasonable such may be, we find it difficult to realize in it his goodness, his providence, and himself. And let me tell you, that supposing he were to manifest himself in any extraordinary manner, so as to compel us to exclaim, "This is a marvelous interposition of God;" yet let any such manifestation only become continued, and it will be no longer accounted marvelous; yea, it will be well if it do not cease to be regarded even as divine.

The manna falls once or twice in the wilderness, and it is wondrous in the eyes of all, and the Lord God is praised. But if it falls every day, its coming is a matter of course: and men learn to contemplate it as a natural event; they behold the manna but not the hand that sends it. Water is produced miraculously from the rock; and if it be succeeded by heat and drought, men learn in some measure to give God the glory. But the smitten rock in the wilderness virtually followed the Israelitish host; its streams attended them in their daily course; they had no lack of water; and what was the consequence? They were ungrateful: and so are we. God is daily working wonders for us also; but in order to learn this, it is good for us sometimes to undergo privations. We children of men are too apt to put the Divine long suffering to the test; and, as we account it a small thing to weary men, we are fain to weary our God also. As he knows how easily a blessing perpetuated ceases to be a blessing, how wisely does he provide, in his faithful love, that there shall be no lack of changes in our earthly course! Hence he leads us through incessant alterations, as it were, of summer and winter, day and night, rain and sunshine, trouble and help, anguish and deliverance. It is thus that he preserves us in spiritual health, and prevents us from wandering from himself. How precariously changeful does this life appear! how interwoven with various necessities! yet, on this very account, it abounds in real and lasting blessings.