The church wishes us to believe. Let the church, or one of its
intellectual saints, perform a miracle, and we will believe. We are
told that nature has a superior. Let this superior, for one single
instant, control nature, and we will admit the truth of your assertion.

We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy,
idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your bible
and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your
solemn groans and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than
nothing. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact.
We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you
for just one fact. We know all about your moldy wonders and your stale
miracles. We want this year's fact. We ask only one. Give us one
fact of charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have
been dead for nearly two thousand years. Their reputations for "truth
and veracity" in the neighborhood where they resided is wholly unknown
to us. Give us a new miracle, and substantiate it by witnesses who
still have the cheerful habit of living in this world. Do not send us
to Jericho to hear the winding horns, nor put us in the fire with
Shadrach, Moshech, and Abednego. Do not compel us to navigate the sea
with Captain Jonah, nor dine with Mr. Ezekiel. There is no sort of use
in sending us fox-hunting with Samson. We have positively lost interest
in that little speech so eloquently delivered by Balaam's inspired
donkey. It is worse than useless to show us fishes with money in their
mouths, and call our attention to vast multitudes stuffing themselves
with five crackers and two sardines. We demand a new miracle and we
demand it now. Let the church furnish at least one, or forever after
hold her peace.

In the olden time, the church, by violating the order of nature, proved