"Why should the weight of its proof, I ask, be laid upon such
improbable things as miracles? That they are necessarily improbable,
I presume you will admit."
"Having premised that I believe every one recorded," said Polwarth,
"I heartily admit their improbability. But the WEIGHT of proof is
not, and never was laid upon them. Our Lord did not make much of
them, and did them far more for the individual concerned than for
the sake of the beholders. I will not however talk to you about them
now. I will merely say that it is not through the miracles you will
find the Lord, though, having found him, you will find him there
also. The question for you is not, Are the miracles true? but, Was
Jesus true? Again I say, you must find him--the man himself. When
you have found him, I may perhaps retort upon you the question--Can
you believe such improbable things as the miracles, Mr. Wingfold?"
The little man showed pretty plainly by the set of his lips that he
meant to say no more, and again Wingfold had, with considerable
dissatisfaction and no answer, to go back to his New Testament.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE CURATE MAKES A DISCOVERY.
At length, one day, as he was working with a harmony, comparing
certain passages between themselves, and as variedly given in the
gospels, he fell into a half-thinking, half-dreaming mood, in which
his eyes, for some time unconsciously, rested on the verse, "Ye will
not come unto me that ye might have life:" it mingled itself with
his brooding, and by and by, though yet he was brooding rather than
meditating, the form of Jesus had gathered, in the stillness of his
mental quiescence, so much of reality that at length he found
himself thinking of him as of a true-hearted man, mightily in
earnest to help his fellows, who could not get them to mind what he
told them.
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