destroy their ancient and venerable capital; and that, too,
when they were boasting of having just gained a great victory at
Borodino over an army which, therefore, they might hope to defeat
again, and to drive out of their city. And it was no less unlikely
that the French should burn down a city of which they had possession,
and which afforded shelter and refreshment to their troops. This would
have been one of the most improbable circumstances of that most
improbable (supposed) campaign. To add to the marvel, we are told that
the French army nevertheless waited for five weeks, without any
object, amid the ashes of this destroyed city, just at the approach,
of winter, and as if on purpose to be overtaken and destroyed by snows
and frost!

However, all the difficulties of the question whether any of these
things took place at all, were by most persons overlooked, because
the question itself never occurred to them, in their eagerness to
decide _who_ it was that burned the city. And at length it comes out
that the answer is, NOBODY!

THE END.

POSTSCRIPT.

With respect to the foregoing arguments, it has been asserted (though
without even any attempt at proof) that they go to prove that the
Bible-narratives contain nothing more miraculous than the received
accounts of Napoleon Buonaparte. And this is indeed true, if we use
the word "_miraculous_" in the very unusual sense in which Hume (as is
pointed out in the foregoing pages) has employed it; to signify simply
"_improbable_;" an abuse of language on which his argument mainly
depends.

It is indeed shown, that there are at least as many and as great
_improbabilities_ in the history of Buonaparte as in any of the
Scripture-narratives; and that as plausible objections,--if not more
so,--may be brought against the one history as the other.

But taking words in their ordinary, established sense, the assertion
is manifestly the opposite of the truth. For, any one who does,--in
spite of all the improbabilities,--_believe_ the truth of _both_
histories, is, evidently, a believer in miracles; since he believes
two narratives, one of which is _not_ miraculous, while the other is.
The history of Buonaparte contains--though much that is very
improbable--nothing that is to be called, according to the established
use of language, miraculous. And the Scriptures contain, as an
_essential_ part of their narrative, _Miracles_, properly so called.

To talk of believing