when all vegetation has been ruthlessly swept away by the Bedouin. But
the differences are much greater than the resemblance. The natural
product is a drug, and not a food; it is gathered only during some weeks
of summer; it is not liable to speedy corruption, nor could there be any
reason for preserving a specimen of this common product in the ark; it
could not have sufficed, however aided by their herds and flocks, to
feed one in a hundred of the Hebrew multitudes, even during the season
of its production; nor could it have ceased on the same day when they
ate the first ripe corn of Canaan.

And yet the resemblance is suggestive. Unbelievers find, in the links
which connect most of our Scripture miracles with nature, in the
undefined and gradual transition from one to the other, as from a
temperate day to night, an excuse for denying that they are miraculous
at all. But the instructed believer finds a confirmation of his faith.
He reflects that when Fancy begins to toy with the supernatural, she
spurns nature from her: the trammels under which she has long chafed are
hateful to her, and she flies from them to the utmost extreme.

It could not be thus with Him by whom the system of the world was
framed. He will not wantonly interfere with His own plan. He will regard
nature as an elastic band to stretch, rather than as a chain to break.
If He will multiply food, in the New Testament, that is no reason why
His disciples should fare more delicately than Providence intended for
them: they shall still eat barley loaves and fish. And so the winds help
to overthrow Pharaoh and to bring the quails; and when a new thing has
to be created, it approaches in its general idea to one of the few
natural products of that inhospitable region.

Now let it be supposed for a moment that the supply of manna had never
ceased, so that until this day men could every morning gather a day's
ration off the ground. Such continuance of the provision would not make
it any the less a gift; but only a more lavish boon. And yet it would
clearly cease to be regarded as miraculous, an exception to the course
of nature, miscalled her "laws," since men do strive to subvert the
miracle by representing that such manna, however scantily, may still be
found. And this may expose the folly of a wish, probably sometimes felt
by all men, that some miracle had actually been perpetuated, so that we
could strengthen our faith at pleasure by looking upon an exhibi