In the short story "The Man Who Could Work Miracles" by H. G. Wells, a man named George McWhirter Fotheringay suddenly discovers that he can perform miracles. He is arguing with some other patrons at the Long Dragon pub, and he decides to prove his point by attempting to turn a lamp in the bar upside down. Although he succeeds in this, his acquaintances think he has done it through trickery. As he experiments, though, he realizes he really does have miracle-working power.

After Fotheringay makes a policeman go first to hell and then to San Francisco, he consults a minister to find out what to do. He begins to try to perform good deeds. This works well until Fotheringay decides he needs more time and stops the motion of the Earth. Unfortunately, he does not compensate for the Earth's rotation, so everyone on Earth is killed except him. He then asks that everything goes back to the way it was before he had the power. It is not clear whether it will all happen again or if life will go back to normal.

At the beginning of the story, Wells states of Fotheringay that "until he was thirty he was a skeptic." A skeptic is a person who has an attitude of doubt, especially about religion or religious principles. In this context, it means that before Fotheringay found out he had this power, he doubted whether such power even existed.

Until he was thirty and he nearly brought the world to an end, Fotheringay was also a clerk at Gomshott's counting house.