In other words, the existence of miracles is probable rather than otherwise. A miracle is an event in which the laws of nature are interrupted by the intervention of Divine agency, usually for the purpose of bringing the soul of man into a conscious contact with the inhabitants of the invisible world. With more or less exactness of similitude, a miracle establishes between God and man, or between other spiritual beings and man, that same kind of intercourse which exists between different living individuals of the human race. Such a conscious intercourse is indeed asserted by infidels as well as by atheists, to be, if not impossible, at least so utterly improbable, that it is scarcely within the power of proof to make it credible to the unbiased reason. Yet surely the balance of probability inclines to the very opposite side. If there _is_ a God, and our souls _are_ in communication (of some kind) with Him, surely, prior to experience, we should have expected to be habitually conscious of this communion. And now that we see that we are not at any rate habitually so, still the burden of proof rests with those who allege that such conscious intercourse _never_ takes place. Apart from all proof of the reality of any one professed miracle, the infidel is bound to show _why_ all miracles are improbable or impossible; in other words, why man should never be conscious of the presence and will of his ever-present God.
Protestants, however, and even weak Catholics, regard the record of one of those mysterious lives, in which the soul of a man or woman has been repeatedly brought into this species of communion with invisible beings, as a tale which, though it is just possible that it may be true, is yet, on the face of it, so flagrant a violation of the laws of nature, as to be undeserving of positive hearty belief. They confound the laws of physical nature with the laws of universal nature. They speak of the nature of this material earth, as if it was identical with the _nature of things_. And this confusion of thought it is to which I would especially call attention. Miracles are contrary to the ordinary laws of physical nature, and therefore are so far improbable, but they are in the strictest conformity with the nature of things, and therefore _in themselves_ are probable. If the laws of nature rule God as they control man, a miracle is almost an impossibility; but if God rules the laws of nature, then it is wonderful that something miraculous does not befall us every day of our lives.