It was a miraculous gift.

The gift of working miracles was not bestowed upon His Church at large.

His original disciples, the twelve apostles, received this gift, as a necessity of the critical epoch of Christianity--the founding of the Church.

Traces of the power lingered on, in weakening activity, until they gradually ceased, and the normal condition of the Church was entered upon, in which miracles are no longer possible.
We accept this, unconsciously, as the true state of things in Christianity.

But it is a conception which will not bear a moment's examination.