8
Diverse as these statements are at first sight, all agree in announcing
an experience of the class which
fifty years
ago
would have been
called supernatural, to-day may be called spiritual, and fifty years
hence will have a proper name based on an understanding of the
phenomenon which occurred.
Theorists have not been at a loss to explain; but they differ.
The Mohammedan insists that God is, and did really send Gabriel
with messages for Mohammed: but all others contradict him.
And
from the nature of the case proof is impossible.
The lack of proof has been so severely felt by Christianity (and in a
much less degree by Islam) that fresh miracles have been manufactured
almost daily to support the tottering structure.
Modern thought,
rejecting these miracles, has adopted theories involving epilepsy and
madness. As if organization could spring from disorganization! Even if
epilepsy were the cause of these great movements which have caused
civilization after civilization to arise from barbarism, it would merely
form an argument for cultivating epilepsy.
Of course great men will never conform with the standards. of little
men, and he whose mission it is to overturn the world can hardly
escape the title of revolutionary. The fads of a period always furnish
terms of abuse. The fad of Caiaphas was Judaism, and the Pharisees
told him that Christ“ blasphemed.” Pilate was a loyal Roman ; to him