The Apparitions and Miracles at Knock; also, the Official Depositions of the Eye-witnesses

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to them miracles are shams, or they are put by them in the
category of spirit-rapping and of jugglery. But Christians
know that there is a spirit-world, happy souls and angels,
that there is a God who guides and directs everything, who
seeks the love and devotion, as well as the happiness of his
intelligent creatures—all mankind. We are the principal
object of the care and loving attention of God, and for our
sakes, and to excite our faith and love, He performs miracles.
His children regard them—miracles—as the seal and lan
guage of God speaking to the heart of man. Is there a
miracle there ? Then, if so, it is God's voice, at least to
those who believe in Him : it is a light from heaven, and the
pure-eyed soul sees that light and believes it as the expression
of God to him. But all do not believe in miracles with equal
readiness. Christ performed them, and the Pharisees attri
buted their performance to the power of the prince of devils.
Moses performed them, and Pharaoh resisted him the more
determinedly. It is so to-day. It does not follow that if
some people believe not in miracles that they have not really
been performed.
The question now is, Has any real miracle been performed
at Knock ?
We answer that in our opinion there have been many. A
great many cures will, or perhaps can be traced to nervous
excitement, and to the desire for improvement ; but making
all due allowances for physical agencies and natural causes,
still over one-third of those recorded will, it is likely, be
considered, in the opinion of honest men, miraculous.
The diary which is kept by Archdeacon Cavanagh contains
a record of nigh three hundred ; ten select miracles out of
this number would plainly prove the miraculous character of
the Apparitions witnessed on the several occasions recorded
in the pages of the Very Rev. Archdeacon Cavanagh's diary.