Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/84

both alike depend on the divine will, but in the mode of their dependence, because in these two cases the divine will is simply effected and accomplished in different ways, and in virtue of distinct laws. One of these two modes is called, and is, natural; and the other is called, and is, supernatural. Men designate daily prodigies, natural, and those which occur at intervals, miraculous. Wherefore we see how great is the folly of those who deny the power of performing occasional prodigies to Him who works daily miracles. What is this but to deny to Him who does greater things, the power to do less things; or, what amounts to the same thing, to deny the occasional power of creation to Him who incessantly creates? You, who deny the resurrection of Lazarus, because it is a miraculous work, why do you not refuse to believe other and greater prodigies? Why not deny the existence of the sun, when it rises in the east, and of the beautiful and refulgent expanse of the heavens, with their eternal luminaries? Why not deny the existence of the turbulent and majestic oceans, and of their smooth and placid shores, where their stormy waves humbly die? Why not deny the existence of the sweet, breathing fields; of forests, the retreat of silence, majesty, and shade; the mighty fall of immense cataracts, and the dazzling crystal of clearest fountains? But if you do not deny these things, what madness and palpable inconsistency to reject as impossible, or even as difficult, the resurrection of a man! Whether we view what surrounds us, or examine into our interior life, all that we behold, within us as well as around us, is miraculous.

It follows from the above, that the distinction on the one side, between the natural and the supernatural,