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This book was prepared and edited by John MacPhilpin of Tuam and published in Dublin by M. H. Gill & Son in 1880. It reprints Tuam News reports on the apparition of the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist, which about twenty people saw on the south gable of Knock chapel, County Mayo, on 21 August 1879. It also gives the witnesses' official depositions, which a commission of priests appointed by the Archbishop of Tuam judged trustworthy. It lists cures recorded in Archdeacon Cavanagh's diary.
“St Paul's”1 page
65 and to wet the surface on which it is placed unless some other natural cause is in the way to prevent the effect ; in a heavy, sluggish body not to move quickly ; in a sickly body not to assume strength suddenly, and by means not propor tionate to the effect. Any effect contrary to these, or super seding these laws, is said, as far as relates to man, to be supernatural. An effect of this kind would not for a spirit be supernatural, because it is just suited to his nature; but, in regard to man, effects like these are supernatural. From all that has been said, it is plain that a cure brought about by a strong imagination is not a miracle, for it is only a natural effect ; neither is a cure arising from a sudden start or excitement, as, for instance, if a dumb person from fright, or from a sudden impulse, spoke—that is not a miracle, be cause it is the natural result of great physical excitement. If, too, owing to some cause, either the hearing, or the eye sight, or the voice, was partially lost by any nervous derange ment, as often happens, if that derangement be set right, and that the hearing is restored, the eye has obtained its usual power of seeing, and the tongue its speech from a strengthened glottis, that is not a miracle. If the effect has been produced by a natural cause, adequate in the circum stances to achieve the result, or if it is a work from the demon, it cannot be pronounced a miracle. But, if it is from God or his agents, and done in the name of God, and for a good purpose, even by a natural cause, but a natural cause inade quate of itself to the end, then it is a miracle, as, for instance, the case of the blind man who was desired by the Redeemer to go to the pool of Siloe and to wash ; and he went, he washed, and he saw ; or the miraculous effects of St. Peter's shadow, or St. Paul's handkerchief. Of course many people do not believe in spirit or angel, or in God's power, or in the power abiding in his Church ; 6
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