Unitarian Thought

ought, and they do retain them, stripping away from them, so far as they can, the false and distorted notions that have become attached to them, and giving to them larger and truer meanings in harmony with their own principles of interpretation. Such words are, for example "revelation" and "inspiration," with which we deal in another chapter. These are words permitting various interpretations, but conveying, no matter under what distortion, always a similar idea. Unitarians insist, indeed, upon such definitions of these words as give to them, in their opinion, the deepest significance; but they recognize the value and the historical importance of the definitions opposed to their own. The word "miracle" is not such a word. It has,historically and actually, but one rational meaning. In that meaning it has always been used for the purposes of Christian argument, and the moment we depart from this usage by ever so slight a shade we are in another world of thought. Yet there is hardly a word in the vocabulary of Christian speculation with which such tricks of interpretation have been played as with this. In their desire to hold fast the something good that might be hidden under it, men have tried consciously to pack meanings into the word "miracle," that were never dreamed of by the authorities on whom they have imagined themselves to be resting. It is therefore especially important for the Unitarian to set himself right on this point at an early stage....