Page:ASystematicStudyOfTheCatholicReligion.djvu/49



32. We have seen that God's evident interference with the laws of moral nature is called a moral miracle (n. 12). When masses of men are led to act in a manner nobler, more heroic, and more constant, in the midst of lasting opposition, than can be expected from unaided human nature, then we know that a supernatural power is assisting them, which can be no other than the power of God. When this effect is produced in behalf of a doctrine which claims to be Divine, it must then be such, else God would lend His aid to an imposture. Now such effects have accompanied the preaching of Christianity; therefore it is Divine.

33. For the change that marked the progress of Christianity is such as human nature by itself could never have produced, such as has never been produced by any other agency in the world. First, the Apostles themselves, on receiving the Holy Ghost, were suddenly transformed into new men, — from cowards into heroes, from dull and ignorant men into sages more enlightened than any philosophers. By their preaching, similar changes were effected in countless men and women and mere children, who abandoned idolatry and immorality to embrace a pure worship and lead lives of superhuman chastity and heroism, enduring loss of property, ignominy, torture, and death, rejoicing that they were found worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus. Pliny's letter (n. 23)