and blushed; He trod upon the waves and stilled the winds and seas. Of animate objects, the fig-tree withered at His touch and the fishes filled the net; He cured the humanly incurable ills of flesh; He raised the dead to life; He drove the demons from their writhing victims and angels came and ministered to Him. Were Christ a mere impostor and God permitted Him to do the prodigies He did, the imposition and deception would be attributable primarily to God, which is absurd and blasphemous. True, many unworthy men have had the power of miracles, but the reason it was given them was that they exercised it not to glorify themselves, which would be to deceive, but for the glory of God. These are they who, as the Gospel says, will at the Last Judgment try to justify themselves, saying: " Lord, Lord, did we not do miracles in Thy name? " and whom He shall answer thus: "Amen, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye workers of iniquity." Their power proved God's holiness, not theirs. But miracles permitted or wrought by God to prove directly man's sanctity or God's divinity are necessarily infallible arguments. With reason, then, could Christ turn to the Jews and say: "If you believe not in My divinity on the testimony of My words, believe at least My works."
Brethren, here, naturally, recur to our minds those other words of Our Lord: "Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed." Blessed John the Baptist is, after the Blessed Virgin herself, the most illustrious example of perfect faith in Christ, and as
