Observations Regarding the Word Miracle
Mr. Mathieu, mentioned in our October issue regarding the miracles,
addressed the following complaint to us, promptly attended:
“Dear Sir,
“If I am not in agreement with you in all points at least I
have the opportunity to comment, as you did in the latest issue of
your journal. Thus, I totally agree with you regarding the word
miracle.”
“Notice that if I used it in my brochure I also was careful to
say on page 4: “Convinced that the word miracle expresses a fact
produced outside the known laws of nature; a fact that escapes
every human explanation, every scientific interpretation”, I then
supposed to have given the word miracle a relative and conventional
value. It seems to me, since you took the burden of criticizing
me, that I was wrong.”
“In any case I count on your impartiality so that these lines,
which I am honored to address to you, are welcome in your next
issue. I am not upset as long as your readers know that I did
not want to give to the word in question the meaning that you criticize, and that there was inability on my side or misunderstanding
on yours, perhaps a bit of both.”
Yours sincerely, etc.
“Mathieu”
As we said in our article, we were perfectly convinced about the meaning
given by Mr. Mathieu to the word miracle. Thus, our criticism did not
address his opinion in any way but the use of the word, even in its most
rational use. There are so many people who don’t see but the surface of
things and who do not take the burden of investigating them, fact that
does not preclude them from judging the subject as if they knew it, and
that such a denomination given to a spiritist fact could have been taken
literally, in good faith by some, in ill-faith by the majority.
Our observation is as much founded as we remember having read
elsewhere, in a newspaper whose name escapes us, an article in which
those who enjoyed the faculty of provoking spiritist phenomena were classified,
out of derision, as miracle makers, and that with respect to a very
zealous adept who was convinced himself of producing them.
It is the case to recall that there is nothing more dangerous than an
imprudent enemy. Our adversaries hastily throw us into ridicule without
us giving them any reason for that.
