Sayfadaki görseller
PDF
ePub

invention of Nossa Senhora do Buraco, near Lisbon, the image which was discovered by a country boy following his dog, which had followed a rabbit into a hole in a hill. The boy groped his way into a cavern or excavation, and there he found both rabbit and dog on their knees before the miraculous presence. The image disappeared and was re-discovered in a tree, about which the cattle first moved round and round, as in a dance of jubilee, and then knelt in adoration. Odours were emitted from the image, cures performed by it, offerings made to it; crowds assembled at the cave, a Friar preached every day there upon the miracles which it had already wrought; a book describing them was published by authority; the Queen went thither in state, and presented a silver lamp; and finally Our Lady was removed to Lisbon in solemn procession, by water, and received upon the quay by a train of clergy and friars, a guard of honour, and an innumerable multitude of believing spectators, to be placed upon an altar in one of the churches,* there" to be honoured, venerated, and adored, with due honour and worship," and one day to form the subject of a supple

* See Mrs. Baillie's Lisbon in the Years 1821-2-3. vol. ii. pp. 112. 128. 132.

mentary chapter to the Santuario Mariano, if that truly curious and edifying work should ever be reprinted. You might relate these, Sir, as historical and indubitable facts, and procure depositions to them upon oath, if you thought proper to present them in the most authentic and imposing form. But unless you could use some cogent arguments to show that the liquefaction of St. Januarius's blood at Naples is not a juggle, and that the invention of the new Nossa Senhora at Lisbon was not a concerted scheme to assist in bringing about the downfall of a party, not more scrupulous themselves in the means which they employed, these miracles would derive no additional credibility from your authority.

You might also assure your readers, that though you were not so fortunate as to be at Rome in the years 1796-7, when the Virgin moved her eyes in her pictures, and looked compassionately and benignly upon the crowds who were adoring her, you had perused the "Official Memoirs of the Juridical Examination" into those miraculous events, and the decree of approbation, and the account of similar prodigies which occurred about the same time at Ancona and other places in Italy, all translated and published together in this coun

try, with six and twenty plates, by Messrs. Keating, Brown, and Co. You could not upon your own knowledge depose to the wonderful cure of Winifred White, at her namesake's St.. Winifred's Well: but your learned friend the vicar-apostolic and titular bishop Dr. Milner, had inquired into the miracle upon the spot, seen and examined the patient, collected depositions concerning her character and her case, and laid them in the most authentic form, with his own signature and the sign of the cross, before the public. You might speak of Dr. Milner's abilities and erudition in fitting terms, as having been acknowledged by the numerous persons of his own Church as well as ours with whom he has engaged in controversy; you might praise him for the religious Roman Catholic spirit, the burning zeal which he manifests in all his writings; and it would not be necessary for you to dwell upon the fidelity of his references, nor to notice the urbanity of his manner, the meekness of his temper, and the enlarged and enlightened liberality of his sentiments. Then, Sir, much as you might regret that you had not yourself been so happy as to witness any of the miracles effected by Prince Hohenloe's intercession, you might assure posterity that they were matters of public notoriety in your days;

that accounts of them frequently appeared in the newspapers; that books had been published concerning them; that cases had occurred at Dublin; and that a mass having been celebrated at Celbridge in Ireland, in unison with the thaumaturgic Prince's prayers, which were to be offered at the same time for the benefit of those who should desire to take advantage of them, many were said to have been cured; and it was confidently affirmed that one person, a Munster man, Flanagan by name, who had been quite blind for many years, had recovered his sight instantaneously, at the elevation of the host.

I put this hypothetically:.. not to impeach your understanding by representing that you believe in all or any of these things; still less to insinuate that you would lend your authority to accredit them if you believed them not. But if you were persuaded of their truth, thus it is that you might in perfect good faith record them, and yet prove nothing more than that such mi

* See an account of this gross deception in the Observations on J. K. L.'s Vindication of the Religious and Civil Principles of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, 1824, a very able pamphlet, and well worthy of attention at this time. Two Protestant clergymen very properly took the trouble of inquiring into this juggle and exposing it..

racles were said to have been enacted in your days, and that you honestly supposed them to be miraculous. Now this is all (in one point of view) that can be inferred from Bede's testimony; unless it should be suspected that he himself entertained some doubts concerning the truth of such stories from the singularly careful manner in which he always adduces some authority for them, never in one instance resting a statement of this nature on his own. I notice this possible suspicion only for the purpose of declaring my full persuasion that there is no ground for it. Sorry should I be if there were; for the integrity of his character would then be tainted, and we should lose one of those objects of unmingled admiration which it is wholesome both for the understanding and the heart to contemplate. It is to me perfectly apparent from his writings that he lived in a state of happy, unhesitating belief, being in this respect altogether in sympathy with his contemporaries, far as he was advanced beyond them in other things. It will require a separate disquisition to show in what manner the general credulity which then prevailed arose, and by what natural causes and accidental circumstances it was fostered, and how it was abused. Such an inquiry is important in itself and pertinent to our imme

« ÖncekiDevam »