On being released frqm his first imprisonment, the young count, who had always intended to continue his military career, obtained leave to accompany as a volunteer the French expedition which was to effect the reduction of Corsica. The conquest was one of sheer numerical strength, for the whole population was on the side of Paoli, and Mirabeau, perceiving the value of public opinion, is said to have written a treatise on the oppression the Genoese had formerly exercised over the island, which the Government was ready to publish had not the Marquis de Mirabeau thought fit to destroy it because of its divergence from his own philosophical and economical views. For his services in Corsica Mirabeau was made a captain of dragoons, though not in any particular regiment, and on his return his father endeavoured to make use of the literary ability he had shown for the advancement of his own economical theories. He tried to keep on good terms with his father, though he could not advocate all his ideas, and even went so far in 1772 as to marry a rich heiress, a daughter of the Marquis de Marignane, whose alliance his father had procured for him. He did not live happily with her, and in 1774 was ordered into semi-exile in the country, at his father’s request, where he wrote his earliest extant work, the Essai sur le Despotisme. His violent disposition now led him to quarrel with a country gentleman who had insulted his sister, and his semi-exile was changed by lettre de cachet into imprisonment in the Chateau d’lf. In 1775 he was removed to the castle of Joux, to which, however, he was not very closely confined, having full leave to visit in the town of Pontarlier. Here he met Marie Thérèse de Monnier, his Sophie as he called her, a married woman, for whom he conceived a violent passion. Of his behaviour nothing too strong can be said: he was introduced into the house as a friend, and betrayed his trust by inducing Madame de Monnier to fall in love with him, and all his excuses about overwhelming passion only make his conduct more despicable. The affair ended by his escaping to Switzerland, where Sophie joined him; they then went to Holland, where he lived by hack-work for the booksellers; meanwhile Mirabeau had been condemned to death at Pontarlier for rapt et vol, of which he was certainly not guilty, as Sophie had followed him of her own accord, and in May 1777 he was seized by the French police, and imprisoned by a lettre de cachet in the castle of Vincennes. There he remained three years and a half, and with his release ends the first and most disgraceful period of his life. During his imprisonment he seems to have learnt to control his passions from their very exhaustion, for the early part of his confinement is marked by the indecent letters to Sophie (first published in 1793), and the obscene Erotica Biblion and Ma Conversion, while to the later months belongs his first political work of any value, the Lettres de Cachet. The Essai sur le Despotisme was an ordinary but at times eloquent declamation, showing in its illustrations a wide miscellaneous knowledge of history, but the Lettres de Cachet exhibits a more accurate knowledge of French constitutional history skilfully applied to an attempt to show that an existing actual grievance was not only philosophically unjust but constitutionally illegal. It shows, though still in rather a diffuse and declamatory form, that application of wide historical knowledge, keen philosophical perception, and genuine eloquence to a practical purpose which was the great characteristic of Mirabeau, both as a political thinker and as a statesman.

With his release from Vincennes begins the second period of Mirabeau’s life. He found that his Sophie was an idealized version of a rather common and ill-educated woman, and she speedily consoled herself with the affection of a young officer, after whose death she committed suicide. Mirabeau first set to work to get the sentence of death still hanging over him reversed, and by his eloquence not only succeeded but got Μ. de Monnier condemned in the costs of the whole law proceedings. From Pontarlier he went to Aix, where he claimed the court’s order that his wife should return to him. She naturally objected, but his eloquence would have won his case, even against Portalis, the leader of the Aix bar, had he not in his excitement accused his wife of infidelity, on which the court pronounced a decree of separation. He then with his usual impetuosity intervened in the suit pending between his father and mother before the parlement of Paris, and so violently attacked the ruling powers that he had to leave France and again go to Holland, and try to live by literary work. About this time began his connexion with Madame de Nehra, which sweetened the ensuing years of toil and brought out the better points of his character. She was the daughter of Zwier van Haren, a Dutch statesman and political writer, and was a woman of a far higher type than Sophie, more educated, more refined, and more capable of appreciating Mirabeau’s good points and helping him to control his passions. With her the lion became a lamb, and his life was strengthened by the love of his petite horde, Madame de Nehra, her baby son, afterwards Lucas de Montigny, and his little dog Chico. After a period of work in Holland he betook himself to England, where his treatise on Lettres de Cachet had been much admired, and where he was soon admitted into the best Whig literary and political society of London, through his old schoolfellow Gilbert Elliot, who had now inherited his father’s baronetcy and estates, and become a leading Whig member of parliament. Sir Gilbert introduced him freely, but of all his English friends none seem to have been so intimate with him as Lord Lansdowne, and Mr (afterwards Sir Samuel) Romilly. The latter became particularly attached to him, and really understood his character; and it is strange that his remarks upon Mirabeau in the fragment of autobiography which he left, and Mirabeau’s letters to him, should have been neglected by French writers. Romilly was introduced to Mirabeau by D’lvernois, and readily undertook to translate the Considerations on the Order of Cincinnatus. Romilly writes thus of him in his autobiography :—

“The count was difficult enough to please; he was sufficiently impressed with the beauties of the original. He went over every part of the translation with me, observed on every passage in which justice was not done to the thought or the force of the expression lost, and made many useful criticisms. During this occupation we had occasion to see one another often, and became very intimate; and, as he had read much, had seen a great deal of the world, was acquainted with all the most distinguished persons who at that time adorned either the royal court or the republic of letters in France, had a great knowledge of French and Italian literature, and possessed very good taste, his conversation was extremely interesting and not a little instructive. I had such frequent opportunities of seeing him at this time, and afterwards at a much more important period of his life, that I think his character was well known to me. I doubt whether it has been so well known to the world, and I am convinced that great injustice has been done him. This, indeed, is not surprising, when one considers that, from the first moment of his entering upon the career of an author, he had been altogether indifferent how numerous or how powerful might be the enemies he should provoke. His vanity was certainly excessive; but I have no doubt that, in his public conduct as well as in his writings, he was desirous of doing good, that his ambition was of the noblest kind, and that he proposed to himself the noblest ends. He was, however, like many of his countrymen, who were active in the calamitous Revolution which afterwards took place, not sufficiently scrupulous about the means by which those ends were to be accomplished. He indeed to some degree professed this; and more than once I have heard him say that there were occasions upon which ‘ la petite morale était ennemie de la grande. ’ It is not surprising that with such maxims as these in his mouth, unguarded in his expressions, and careless of his reputation, he should have afforded room for the circulation of many stories to his disadvantage. Violent, impetuous, conscious of the superiority of his talents, and the declared enemy and denouncer of every species of tyranny and oppression, he could not fail to shock the prejudices, to oppose the interests, to excite the jealousy, and to wound the pride of many descriptions of persons. A mode of refuting his works, open to the basest and vilest of mankind, was to represent him as a monster of vice and profligacy. A scandal once set on foot is strengthened and propagated by many, who have no malice against the object of it. They delight to talk of what is extraordinary; and what more extraordinary than a person so admirable for his talents and so contemptible for his conduct, professing in his writings principles so excellent and in all the offices of public and private life putting in practice those which are so detestable? I indeed possessed demonstrative evidence of the falsehood of some of the anecdotes which by men of high character were related to his prejudice.”— Life of Sir S. Romilly, vol. i. p. 58.

This luminous judgment, the best that is extant on the character of Mirabeau, deserved to be quoted at length; it must be noted that it was written by a man of acknowledged purity of life, who admired Mirabeau in early life, not when he was a statesman, but when he was only a struggling literary man. This close association with Romilly, and his friends Baynes, Trail, and Wilson, does credit to Mirabeau, and must have helped that moral revolution against his passions which was passing within him. He was a warm friend, and first made Romilly acquainted with Lord Lansdowne, and tried to get him a seat in parliament. Lord Lansdowne was himself an extraordinary man, and the first of the new Whigs might well feel sympathy with the statesman of the French Revolution. The Considérations sur Vordre de Cincinnatus which Romilly translated was the only important work Mirabeau wrote in the year 1785, and it is a good specimen of his method. He had read a pamphlet published in America attacking the proposed order, which was to form a bond of association between the officers who had fought in the American War of Independence against England; the arguments struck him as true and valuable, so he rearranged them in his own fashion, and rewrote them in his own oratorical style. He soon found such work not sufficiently remunerative to keep his “petite horde” in comfort, and then turned his thoughts to employment from the French foreign office either in writing or in diplomacy. He first sent Madame de Nehra to Paris to make his peace with the authorities, in which she was completely successful, and then returned himself, hoping to get employment through an old literary collaborateur of his, Durival, who was at this time director of the finances of the department of foreign affairs. One of the functions of this official was to subsidize political pamphleteers, and Mirabeau had hoped to be so employed, but he ruined his chances by a series of financial works. On his return to Paris he had bècome acquainted with Clavières, a Genevese exile, who was minister of finance during the Revolution, and who now introduced him to a banker named Panchaud. From them he heard plenty of abuse of stock-jobbing, and seizing their ideas he began to regard stock-jobbing, or agiotage, as the source of all evil, and to attack in his usual vehement style the Banque de St Charles and the Compagnie des Eaux. This was at least disinterested on his part, for, while his supporters were poor, the bankers he attacked were rich, and would gladly have bought his silence; but Mirabeau, though ever ready to take money for what he wrote, never sold his opinions, or wrote what he did not really believe. The very eloquence of his style rests upon the enthusiastic conviction that he himself was right, and those who differed from him were stupidly and wilfully wrong. This last pamphlet brought him into a controversy with Beaumarchais, who certainly did not get the best of it, but it lost him any chance of literary employment from Government. However, his ability was too great to be neglected by a great minister such as Μ. do Vergennes undoubtedly was, and after a preliminary tour in the early spring of 1786 he was despatched in Juno 1786 on a secret mission to the court of Prussia, from which he returned in January 1787, and of which he gavo a full account in his Histoire Secrète de la Cour de Berlin.

The months he spent at Berlin were important ones in the history of Prussia, for in them Frederick the Great died. The letters just mentioned show clearly what Mirabeau did and what he saw, and equally clearly how unfit he was to be a diplomatist; for, with all his knowledge of men and his influence over them, he thought (and showed he thought) too much of himself ever to be able to surprise their secret thoughts and intentions. He certainly failed to conciliate the new king Frederick William; and thus ended Mirabeau’s one attempt at diplomacy. During his journey he had made the acquaintance of a Major Mauvillon, whom he found possessed of a great number of facts and statistics with regard to Prussia; these he made use of in a great work on Prussia published in 1788, as Romilly says, to show that he could write more than a fugitive pamphlet. But, though his Monarchie Prussienne gave him a general reputation for historical learning, he had in this same year lost a chance of political employment. He had offered himself as a candidate for the office of secretary to the Assembly of Notables which the king had just convened, and to bring his name before the public published another financial work, the Dénonciation de ΓAgiotage, dedicated to the king and notables, which abounded in such violent diatribes that he not only lost his election, but was obliged to retire to Tongres; and he further injured his prospects by publishing the reports he had sent in during his secret mission at Berlin. But 1789 was at hand; the states-general was summoned; Mirabeau’s period of probation was over, and he was at last to have that opportunity of showing his great qualities both as statesman and orator on a worthy arena.

On hearing of the king’s determination to summon the states-general, Mirabeau started for Provence, and offered to assist at the preliminary conference of the noblesse of his district. They rejected him; he appealed to the tiers état, and was returned both for Aix and for Marseilles. He elected to sit for the former city, and was present at the opening of the states-general on May 4, 1789. From this time the record of Mirabeau’s life forms the best history of the first two years of the Constituent Assembly, for at every important crisis his voice is to be heard, though his advice was not always followed. It is impossible here to detail minutely the history of these two eventful years; it will be rather advisable to try and analyse the manner in which Mirabeau regarded passing events, and then show how his policy justifies our analysis.

Mirabeau possessed at the same time great logical acuteness and most passionate enthusiasm; he was therefore both a statesman and an orator, and the interest of the last two years of his life lies mainly in the gradual but decided victory of the statesmanlike and practical over the impulsive and oratorical qualities. From the beginning Mirabeau recognized that government exists in order that the bulk of the population may pursue their daily work in peace and quiet, and that for a Government to be successful it must be strong. In this practical view of the need of a strong executive lies one of Mirabeau’s greatest titles to the name of statesman. At the same time he thoroughly comprehended that for a Government to be strong it must be in harmony with the wishes of the majority of the people, and that the political system of Louis XIV. was now falling for lack of this. He had carefully studied the English constitution in England under...

If we be asked whether miracles are credible, we reply, that, abstractedly considered, they are not incredible; that they are capable of indirect proof from analogy, and of direct, from testimony; that in the common and daily course of worldly affairs, events, the improbability of which, antecedently to all testimony, was very great, are proved to have happened, by the authority of competent and honest witnesses; that the Christian miracles were objects of real and proper experience to those who saw them; and that whatsoever the senses of mankind can perceive, their report may substantiate. Should it be asked whether miracles were necessary, and whether the end proposed to be effected by them could warrant so immediate and extraordinary an interference of the Almighty, as such extraordinary operations suppose; to this we might answer, that, if the fact be established, all reasonings _à priori_ concerning their necessity must be frivolous, and may be false. We are not capable of deciding on a question which, however simple in appearance, is yet too complex in its parts, and too extensive in its object, to be fully comprehended by the human understanding. Whether God could or could not have effected all the ends designed to be promoted by the Gospel, without deviating from the common course of his providence, and interfering with its general laws, is a speculation that a modest inquirer would carefully avoid; for it carries on the very face of it a degree of presumption totally unbecoming the state of a mortal being. Infinitely safer is it for us to acquiesce in what the Almighty has done, than to embarrass our minds with speculations about what he might have done. Inquiries of this kind are generally inconclusive, and always useless. They rest on no solid principles, are conducted by no fixed rules, and lead to no clear conviction. They begin from curiosity or vanity, they are prosecuted amidst ignorance and error, and they frequently terminate in impious presumption or universal skepticism. God is the best and indeed the only judge how far miracles are proper to promote any particular design of his providence, and how far that design would have been left unaccomplished, if common and ordinary methods only had been pursued. So, from the absence of miracles, we may conclude, in any supposed case, that they were not necessary; from their existence, supported by fair testimony, in any given case, we may infer with confidence that they are proper. A view of the state of the world in general, and of the Jewish nation in particular, and an examination of the nature and tendency of the Christian religion, will point out very clearly the great expediency of a miraculous interposition; and when we reflect on the gracious and important ends that were to be effected by it, we shall be convinced that it was not an idle and useless display of divine power; but that while the means effected and confirmed the end, the end fully justified and illustrated the means. If we reflect on the almost irresistible force of prejudice, and the strong opposition it universally made to the establishment of a new religion on the demolition of rites and ceremonies, which authority had made sacred, and custom had familiarized; if we reflect on the extent and importance, as well as the singularity, of the Christian plan; what was its avowed purpose to effect, and what difficulties it was necessarily called to struggle with before that purpose could be effected; how much it was opposed by the opinions and the practice of the generality of mankind, by philosophy, by superstition, by corrupt passions and inveterate habits, by pride and sensuality, in short, by every engine of human influence, whether formed by craft, or aided by power;--if we seriously reflect on these things, and give them their due force, (and experience shows us that we can scarcely give them too much,) we shall be induced to admit even the necessity of a miraculous interposition, at a time when common means must inevitably, in our apprehensions, have failed of success. The revelation of the divine will by inspired persons is, as such, miraculous; and therefore, before the adversaries of the Gospel can employ with propriety their objections to the particular miracles on which its credibility is based, they should show the impossibility of any revelation. In whatever age the revelation is given, succeeding ages can know it only from testimony; and, if they admit, on the report of their fellow creatures, that God had inspired any being with the preternatural knowledge of his will, why should they deny that he had enabled the same being to heal the sick, or to cleanse the leprous? How, may it be asked, should the divine Teacher give a more direct and consistent proof of his preternatural commission, than by displaying those signs and wonders which mark the finger of God? That the Apostles could not be deceived, and that they had no temptation to deceive, has been repeatedly demonstrated. So powerful, indeed, is the proof adduced in support of their testimony, that the infidels of these later days have been obliged to abandon the ground on which their predecessors stood; to disclaim all moral evidences arising from the character and relation of eye-witnesses; and to maintain, upon metaphysical, rather than historical, principles, that miracles are utterly incapable, in their own nature, of existing in any circumstances, or of being supported by any evidence. Miracles may be classed under two heads: those which consist in a train or combination of events, which distinguish themselves from the ordinary arrangements of Providence; and those particular operations which are performed by instruments and agents incompetent to effect them without a preternatural power. In the conduct of Providence respecting the Jewish people, from the earliest periods of their existence, as a distinct class of society, to the present time, we behold a singularity of circumstance and procedure which we cannot account for on common principles. Comparing their condition and situation with that of other nations, we can meet with nothing similar to it in the history of mankind. So remarkable a difference, conspicuous in every revolution of their history, could not have subsisted through mere accident. There must have been a cause adequate to so extraordinary an effect. Now, what should this cause be, but an interposition of Providence in a manner different from the course of its general government? For the phenomenon cannot be explained by an application of those general causes and effects that operate in other cases. The original propagation of Christianity was likewise an event which clearly discovered a miraculous interposition. The circumstances which attended it were such as cannot rationally be accounted for on any other postulatum. (See the article _Christianity_.) It may now be observed, that the institutions of the law and the Gospel may not only appeal for their confirmation to a train of events which, taken in a general and combined view, point out an extraordinary designation, and vindicate their claim to a divine authority; but also to a number of particular operations which, considered distinctly, or in a separate and detached light, evidently display a supernatural power, immediately exerted on the occasion. Since Christ himself constantly appealed to these works as the evidences of his divine mission and character, we may briefly examine how far they justified and confirmed his pretensions. That our Lord laid the greatest stress on the evidence they afforded; nay, that he considered that evidence as sufficient to authenticate his claims to the office of the Messiah with all reasonable and well disposed inquirers, is manifest not only from his own words, John x, 25, but also from a great variety of other passages in the evangelists. Thus, when the disciples of John were sent to Christ, to receive from his own lips the most satisfactory proofs of his divine mission, he referred them to his miracles. Go,” said he, and show to John again those things which ye hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up,” Matt. xi, 4, 5. Again: If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not: but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works,” John x, 37. This appeal to miracles was founded on the following just and obvious grounds:-- First: That they are visible proofs of divine approbation, as well as of divine power: for it would have been quite inconclusive to rest an appeal on the testimony of the latter, if it had not at the same time included an evidence of the former; and it was, indeed a natural inference, that working of miracles, in defence of a particular cause, was the seal of Heaven to the truth of that cause. To suppose the contrary, would be to suppose that God not only permitted his creatures to be deceived, but that he deviated from the ordinary course of his providence, purposely with a view to deceive them. The conclusion which the man whom our Saviour restored to sight drew from this miracle was exceedingly just, and founded on the common sentiments and impressions of the human heart. We know,” says he, that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing,” John ix, 31–33. If the cause which our Saviour was engaged in had not been approved of by God, it would not have been honoured with the seal of miracles: for the divine power can never be supposed to counteract the divine will. This would be to set his nature at variance with itself; and, by destroying his simplicity, would destroy his happiness, and terminate in confusion and misery. Hence we may justly reject, as incredible, those miracles which have been ascribed to the interposition of wicked spirits. The possibility of their interference is a mere hypothesis, depending upon gratuitous assumption, and leading to very dangerous consequences; and the particular instances in which credulous superstition, or perverted philosophy, has supposed them to interfere, are, as facts, destitute of any clear and solid evidence; or, as effects, often resolvable into natural causes. Secondly: When our Lord appealed to his miracles, as proofs of his divine mission, it presupposed that those miracles were of such a nature as would bear the strictest examination; that they had all those criteria which could possibly distinguish them from the delusions of enthusiasm, and the artifices of imposture; else the appeal would have been fallacious and equivocal. He appealed to them with all the confidence of an upright mind, totally possessed with a consciousness of their truth and reality. This appeal was not drawn out into any laboured argument, nor adorned by any of the embellishments of language. It was short, simple, and decisive. He neither reasoned nor declaimed on their nature or their design: he barely pointed to them as plain and indubitable facts, such as spoke their own meaning, and carried with them their own authority. The miracles which our Lord performed were too public to be suspected of imposture; and, being objects of sense, they were secured against the charge of enthusiasm. An impostor would not have acted so absurdly as to have risked his credit on the performance of what, he must have known, it was not in his power to effect; and though an enthusiast, from the warmth of imagination, might have flattered himself with a full persuasion of his being able to perform some miraculous work; yet, when the trial was referred to an object of sense, the event must soon have exposed the delusion. The impostor would not have dared to say to the blind, Receive thy sight; to the deaf, Hear; to the dumb, Speak; to the dead, Arise; to the raging of the sea, Be still; lest he should injure the credit of his cause, by undertaking more than he could perform; and though the enthusiast, under the delusion of his passions, might have confidently commanded disease to fly, and the powers of nature to be subject to his control; yet their obedience would not have followed his command. The miracles of Christ then were such as an impostor would not have attempted, and such as an enthusiast could not have effected. They had no disguise; and were in a variety of instances of such a nature as to preclude the very possibility of collusion. They were performed in the midst of his bitterest enemies; and were so palpable and certain, as to extort the following acknowledgment even from persons who were most eager to oppose his doctrines, and to discredit his pretensions: This man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him,” John xi, 47, 48. The miracles Christ performed were indeed sufficient to alarm the fears of those whose downfall was involved in his success. And it was impossible for them to deny the facts, which so many thousands were ready to attest on evidence too certain to admit even the possibility of mistake, delusion, or imposture. But his enemies, who admitted their reality and yet resisted their design, by not acknowledging the person who wrought them to be the Messiah, had recourse to the most impious and most absurd suppositions, in order to evade their evidence. The Heathen imputed them to some occult power of magic: and thus applied what has no existence in nature, in order to account for a phenomenon that existed out of its common course. The stories of the Jews, who confessed the miracles, but denied what they were intended to establish, are too ridiculous to be mentioned. We must not, however, omit to take notice of the wicked and blasphemous cavil of the Pharisees, and the noble reply which our Lord made to it. They could not deny the fact, but they imputed it to the agency of an infernal spirit: This fellow,” said they, doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: and if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?” Matt. xii, 24–26. The purity of the doctrine which was taught by our blessed Lord was totally adverse to the kingdom of darkness. It tended to overthrow it, by the introduction of principles far different from those which Satan would inspire, and by prosecuting objects totally opposite to those which that wicked and malignant spirit would tempt us to pursue: so that in proportion to the prevalence of the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of Satan would of course be diminished. Now, supposing miracles to be in the power of an infernal spirit, can it be imagined that he would communicate an ability of performing them to persons who were counteracting his designs? Would he by them give credit to a cause that tended to bring his own into disgrace? Thus, as our Saviour appealed to miracles as proofs of his power; so he appealed to the inherent worth and purity of the doctrines they were intended to bear witness to, as a proof that the power was of God. In this manner do the external and internal evidences give and receive mutual confirmation and mutual lustre. The truth of the Christian religion does not, however, wholly depend on the miracles wrought by its divine Founder, though sufficient in themselves to establish his claims: but, in order to give the evidence of miracles the strongest force they could possibly acquire, that evidence was extended still farther; and the same power that our Lord possessed was communicated to his disciples, and their more immediate successors. While yet on earth he imparted to them this extraordinary gift, as the seal of their commission, when he sent them to preach the Gospel: and after his glorious resurrection and ascension into heaven, they were endowed with powers yet more stupendous. Sensible of the validity of this kind of evidence, the Apostles of our Lord, with the same artless simplicity, and the same boldness of conscious integrity, which distinguished their great Master, constantly insisted upon the miracles they wrought, as strong and undeniable proofs of the truth of their doctrines. Thus the miracles of our blessed Lord may be justly considered as the evidence of his divine mission and character. If we consider their nature, their greatness, and their number; and if to this consideration we add that which respects their end and design, we must acknowledge that no one could have performed them, unless God was with him. They were too public to be the artifices of imposture; too substantial and too numerous to afford the slightest suspicion of undesigned and fortuitous coincidence. In a word, supposing that the Most High should in any instance so far counteract the common laws of nature, as to produce a miracle; and should design that miracle as a monument to future times of the truth of any peculiar doctrine, we cannot conceive any mode of communicating it more effectual than that which he has chosen. Stronger proofs could not be afforded, consistently with the design of the Gospel, which is not to overpower our understandings by an irresistible and compulsory light, but to afford us such rational evidence as is sufficient to satisfy moral inquirers, who are endowed with faculties to perceive the truth; but at the same time who also have power totally to resist it, and finally to forfeit all its blessings. These miracles were of a nature too palpable to be mistaken. They were the objects of sense, and not the precarious speculations of reason concerning what God might do; or the chimerical suggestions of fancy concerning what he did. The facts were recorded by those who must have known whether they were true or false. The persons who recorded them were under no possible temptations to deceive the world. We can only account for their conduct on the supposition of their most perfect conviction and disinterested zeal. That they should assert what they knew to be false; that they should publish it with so much ardour; that they should risk every thing dear to humanity, in order to maintain it; and at last submit to death, in order to attest their persuasion of its truth in those moments when imposture usually drops its mask, and enthusiasm loses its confidence; that they should act thus in opposition to every dictate of common sense, and every principle of common honesty, every restraint of shame, and every impulse of selfishness, is a phenomenon not less irreconcilable to the moral state of things than miracles are to the natural constitution of the world. Falsehood naturally entangles men in contradiction, and confounds them with dismay: but the love of truth invigorates the mind; the consciousness of integrity anticipates the approbation of God; and conscience creates a fortitude, to which mere unsupported nature is often a stranger.

How long miracles were continued in the church, has been a matter of keen dispute, and has been investigated with as much anxiety as if the truth of the Gospel depended upon the manner in which it was decided. Assuming, as we are here warranted to do, that real miraculous power was conveyed in the way detailed by the inspired writers, it is plain, that it may have been exercised in different countries, and may have remained, without any new communication of it, throughout the first, and a considerable part of the second century. The Apostles, wherever they went to execute their commission, would avail themselves of the stupendous gift which had been imparted to them; and it is clear, not only that they were permitted and enabled to convey it to others, but that spiritual gifts, including the power of working miracles, were actually conferred on many of the primitive disciples. Allusions to this we find in the epistles of St. Paul; such allusions, too, as it is utterly inconceivable that any man of a sound judgment could have made, had he not known that he was referring to an obvious fact, about which there could be no hesitation. Of the time at which several of the Apostles died, we have no certain knowledge. St. Peter and St. Paul suffered at Rome about A. D. 66, or 67; and it is fully established, that the life of John was much longer protracted, he having died a natural death, A. D. 100, or 101. Supposing that the two former of these Apostles imparted spiritual gifts till the time of their suffering martyrdom, the persons to whom they were imparted might, in the course of nature, have lived through the earlier part of the second century; and if John did the same till the end of his life, such gifts as were derived from him might have remained till more than the half of that century had elapsed. That such was the fact, is asserted by ancient ecclesiastical writers. Whether, after the generation immediately succeeding the Apostles had passed away, the power of working miracles was anew communicated, is a question, the solution of which cannot be nearly so satisfactory. The probability is, that there was no such renewal; and this opinion rests upon the ground that natural causes were now sufficient to accomplish the end for which miracles were originally designed; and it does not appear to have been any part of the scheme of the blessed Author of our religion, that, solely for the purpose of hastening that conversion of the nations which might gradually be accomplished, miracles should be wrought, when these could be of no use in establishing after ages in the faith.

There are allusions to Miranda’s early life in nearly all memoirs of the time, but they are not generally very accurate. For his trial see Bûchez et Roux, Histoire Parlementaire, xxvii. 26-70. For his later life see Biggs, History of Miranda's Attempt in South America, London, 1809; and Veggasi, Revolucion de la Columbia.