al causes, viz.
that our opponents will not in future be so ready as hitherto, to impute
fraud and falsehood to our priests and their witnesses, on the ground of
their pretending or reporting things that are incredible. Our opponents
have again and again accused us of false witness, on account of
statements which they now allow are either true, or may have been true.
They account indeed for the strange facts very differently from us; but
still they allow that facts they were. It is a great thing to have our
characters cleared; and we may reasonably hope that, the next time our
word is vouched for occurrences which appear to be miraculous, our facts
will be investigated, not our testimony impugned.

5. Even granting that certain occurrences, which we have hitherto
accounted miraculous, have not absolutely a claim to be so considered,
nevertheless they constitute an argument still in behalf of Revelation
and the Church. Providences, or what are called _grazie_, though they do
not rise to the order of miracles, yet, if they occur again and again in
connexion with the same persons, institutions, or doctrines, may supply
a cumulative evidence of the fact of a supernatural presence in the
quarter in which they are found. I have already alluded to this point in
my Essay on Ecclesiastical Miracles, and I have a particular reason, as
will presently be seen, for referring here to what I said in the course
of it.

* * * * *

In that Essay, after bringing its main argument to an end, I append to
it a review of "the evidence for particular alleged miracles." "It does
not strictly fall within the scope of the Essay," I observe, "to
pronounce upon the truth or falsehood of this or that miraculous
narrative, as it occurs in ecclesiastical history; but only to furnish
such general considerations, as may be useful in forming a decision in
particular cases," p. cv. However, I thought it right to go farther and
"to set down the evidence for and against certain miracles as we meet
with them," ibid. In discussing these miracles separately, I make the
following remarks, to which I have just been referring.

After discussing the alleged miracle of the Thundering Legion, I
observe:--"Nor does it concern us much to answer the objection, that
there is nothing strictly miraculous in such an occurrence, because
sudden thunderclouds after drought are not unfrequent; for, I would
answer, Grant me such miracles ordin