An excuse has been suggested by Cuper, that these impious falsehoods and imprecations are not Alain's, but were writings after his death. interpolated in his Were this proved, kalendar. Repeating then that the said Alain had invented whole stories from beginning to end, had sworn that they were revealed to him, and had confirmed them by the feigned testimony of supposititious writers, he ingenuously confesses (in his own words) that he cannot reconcile so many plain and sworn falsehoods with the imputed holiness of the author. And the only excuse which he can imagine is a doubt whether these things were not interpolated in Alain's writings after his death, inasmuch as having been doctissimus theologus,..non videtur numerandum inter simplices illos viros, qui pietatis loco duxerint mendacia pro religione fingere, ut Ludovicus Vives et post ipsum Melchior Canus de nonnullis conqueruntur.-Acta SS. Aug. t. i, 365, 6. Thus rationally could a Jesuit investigate the pious frauds of a Dominican! And what better evidence would you desire than that of Cethegus against Cataline,.. than that of a fellow professor in the same craft? Had he been cross-examined concerning the legends of his own Order, his power of deglutition would have been restored, and his throat at once have recovered its elasticity, as if he had been miraculously cured of a quinsey. ... The practice which he has thus exposed in a single instance is that which has been carried on systematically by all the monastic families in all their branches, (a charge abundantly and irrefragably proved by the invaluable work wherein these very remarks are introduced!)... it is what the Romish Clergy practised even before those Orders were established; and it is what they are carrying on at this day,.. as witness the Life and Revelations of Sister Nativity. instead of being, as it is, merely a gratuitous supposition, to what would it amount? only to this,.. that one Dominican instead of another was the criminal: for the impiety and the falsehood, the motive and the intentional deceit, are the same. Whether they are affiliated upon John Doe or Richard Roe, John Nokes or Jack à Stiles, they belong to the craft which has adopted them... They are chargeable upon the Order which brought them forth and acknowledged them for its proper offspring: they are chargeable upon the Church which has received them and built upon them one of its most popular practices of superstition. Received them it has by setting its sanction upon the numerous books in which they are contained. Pius V. has even sanctioned one of the most mostrous of these fables, by alleging it in a Bull, and it is inserted in the Breviary which Benedict XIII. set forth.* And the popular "Ex his igitur concludimus, sacram Rituum Congregationem, et Benedictum XIII. à nobis in hac re non exigere majorem fidem historicam, quam mereatur auctoritas Alani Rupensis.” And Cuper, who says this, quotes Benedict himself as saying, before he was raised to the Papacy, that all things in the Breviary are not true: "Nec enim Ecclesia ipsa, quæ is utitur, inconcussæ infallibilisque veritatis judicat, quæcumque Breviaris suis sunt inserta, cum multoties pro variis temporibus varia ex occasione ea mutaverit, correxeritque... Quæ omnia argumento sunt. Bre books of devotion concerning the Rosary relate or refer to these revelations and favours which Alain pretended to have received from the Virgin, as arguments for its use. With such fables in his mouth, and with a collection of rosaries in his hand, Alain preached up the efficacy of his wares through the Low Countries; the brethren of his Order seconded him zealously, and this new and mechanical devotion presently made its fortune. The Emperor Frederic III. brought it into fashion, and was followed by Kings, Dukes, Princes, Lords, Prelates, Masters in Theology, Doctors, Religioners, Gentry, Citizens, Artisans and men of all descriptions, as well as by Queens, Duchesses, Princesses, Baronesses, Abbesses, Nuns, Sisters and Ladies of all sorts.* It was boldly affirmed that innumerable miracles approved the peculiar virtues of the practice which was viaria non illico putanda esse ab omni historicá aberratione libera, sed magna plerumque spongiá egere, licet illa in suum usum usurpet Ecclesia. (Acta SS. Aug. t. i. 428.) Benedict XIII. however, did not use the sponge when it was in his power to have used it: ... and what are we to think of a Church which compels its priests to read in their service, and deliver to the people as truths, legends which they themselves know, and cannot but know, to be fabulous? *Rosario, p. 12. thus introduced; that persons were delivered by it from dangers, diseases, sin and infamy, and that the dead were raised. It was not long before a means for extending its use more widely, and enhancing its benefits to all who used it, was devised by F. Jacob Spenger, Prior of the Dominican Convent at Cologne, and afterwards Provincial of that Province. This was by instituting an association, called the Society of the Rosary, the object of which may be made generally intelligible in these days by explaining that it was to be a Joint Stock Prayer Company. The Rosary itself was a device for making devotion easy by a manual operation; and this Society was one from which "neither the husbandman in the fields, nor the traveller on his journey, nor the labourer with his toiling, nor the simple by his unskilfulness, nor the woman by her sex, nor the married by their estate, nor the young by their ignorance, nor the aged by their impotency, nor the poor for want of ability, nor the blind for want of sight," should be excluded. The performance of its conditions being so easy that it required. no more knowledge than to say the Pater Noster and Ave Maria, * *Society of the Rosary, p. 3. nor more charge than the price of a pair of beads, nor any choice of place or situation of body, but as it shall like the party, either to stand, sit, lie, walk, or kneel: and "having no burden of conscience, or charge of sin, if it be omitted, who seeth not, says an English Romanist, how easy it is, and with what facility it may be observed? Yea who seeth not how great and careless a negligence, and how contemptuous a singularity it were to omit so general a profession?"* 66 *It was especially recommended to the English Romanists, as an ancient means, even from St. Dominic's time of rooting out heresy." (Societie of the Rosary. Preface to the Reader.) St. Dominic having devised it as an "antidote against that most pestiferous poison of the Albigean heresy,"... it "proved so prevalent and successful that soon after that infernal fire was quenched, that contagious current was stopt, that wicked heresy was utterly abolished. If we therefore lay hold of the same means, make use of the same remedy, and present the like humble and hearty petitions to the same Mother of Mercy and Fower, we may also hope to obtain the same happy effects; and to see these our blind adversaries enlightened, these strayed sheep reduced, these our obstinate countrymen converted. It is therefore convenient for all Christians, and proper for us in particular, to practise this sort of piety and devotion to God's glory, his Mother's honour, and the extirpation of heresies." -Jesus, Maria, Joseph, or the Devout Pilgrim of the ever-blessed Virgin Mary. Published for the benefit of the pious Rosarists, by A. C. and T. V. Religious Monks of the Holy Order of St. Bennet. Amsterdam, 1657.-p. 69. The Virgin, it should be remembered, is represented by the |