of Rome, could empower them to open the gates of Heaven upon such terms as they hold out to the Society of the Rosary? Whether such privileges, attached to such a Joint Stock Prayer Company, are consistent with right reason, and reconcileable with the doctrines of the Gospel?? and whether it be calumnious to charge the Romish Church with superstition, when its people put their trust in such dead and worthless works as these, and are encouraged by their pastors to trust in them??? If, however, neither reason nor scripture afford the slightest ground for defending this practice, you have miracles to adduce in its favour. That most illustrious of all story-tellers Sultaness Scheherazade herself had not more wonderful tales in store to produce at Sister Dinarzade's morning call, in the hope of keeping her head upon her shoulders, than I could supply you with upon this subject. With what delight must that Cavallero have persevered in using the Rosary, who saw that every bead as he told it was taken by an Angel and carried to the Queen of Heaven, who forthwith magnified it to her purpose, and with the whole string constructed a gorgeous palace* upon one of the * Possadas, p. 284. Rosario, ff, 221. celestial mountains! With what zeal must that holy man have exhorted others to enroll themselves in this Association, who, being rapt in spirit, heard the whole host of Heaven recite the Rosary around the Throne, and, having concluded, return thanks to God for the souls which by virtue of the Rosary were saved, and join in prayers for all who said their beads upon earth, and especially for those who belonged to the Society!* Can we wonder that a whole band of robbers were converted, bought each a rosary, and all became Monks or Friars, because, going in their vocation upon the high way, they had fallen in with a religious man who was telling his beads, and behold a rose came out of his mouth with every Ave, and a gillyflower with every Pater, and an Angel gathered them from his lips, wreathed them,f and crowned with this mystic coronal the happy but unconscious devotee? Shall I tell you, Sir, of the Italian bandit who, having received a rosary from St. Dominic himself, while that prodigious Saint was living, said it regularly every day, and commended himself to the Virgin, while he continued to rob and murder as usual? He died, *Rosario, ff. 247. † Andrade, 592. unhouselled, in his sins, and was interred by his comrades in the fields without any rites of burial. Two years afterward, when the Saint, with some of his disciples, was passing by, a voice was heard from the ground, saying, Father St. Dominic, have mercy upon me! All apprehended that it issued from a grave, though they knew not that any grave was there; and digging, as the Saint commanded them, where the voice was heard, they uncovered the robber, who arose from the grave in a state which can neither properly be called dead nor alive; for, though dead, his soul was still in his body, and he was in full possession of all his faculties. Prostrating himself before St. Dominic, he told him that, for the sake of that rosary which he had received from his hands, Our Lady had kept him in this miraculous state of preservation till he should have an opportunity of confessing and being absolved; otherwise he must inevitably have gone straight to Hell; and that what he had endured during the two years of his interment would serve him for his Purgatory. Accordingly he was shriven in due form, and went direct to Heaven,*..to the comfortable encouragement of all Italian robbers who carry a beadstring. * Andrade, 614. Neither less great nor better deserved was the good fortune of Jacob the usurer, who in happy hour bought himself a rosary, though for show rather than for use, and recited it sometimes, more for form than in devotion. Repeatedly he was admonished by the Virgin, and more than once miraculously delivered by her from present death; but warnings and deliverances alike were lost upon him; he went on heaping up riches unrighteously as long as he lived, and when he died the Devils seized him as their due. The Devils were deceived, for on the way to Hell they were intercepted by the Virgin and the Archangel Michael. The latter had the fatal scales in his hand; trial was agreed to on both sides; all Jacob's deeds were weighed in the balance, and his good ones were like a feather against his many and ponderous sins, till the Virgin threw his rosary into the light scale;* immediately it preponderated, the other side kicked the beam, and the usurer was carried triumphantly to Heaven.† But what is this to the stupendous and dreadful adventure of the two Students at Louvain, which happened in that famous and most * Rosario, 227. Andrade, 614. Romish University, in the year 1600, and is related by Andrade on the authority of an eyewitness, who afterwards suffered martyrdom in Japan. The students were friends and chums, a word so nearly obsolete that it may be proper perhaps to explain it as meaning chamber-fellows. They were associated in profligacy also, and one night were engaged together in the worst company till a late hour, when one of them, tired with riotous debauchery, left the party in spite of his companion's raillery, and returned to his lodging. He was so weary that he had almost forgotten to say his rosary as usual, and, when he remembered it, was very much inclined to dispense that night with the trouble. Half rousing himself, however, and at the same time half asleep, he went through the string, in a perfunctory manner, without the slightest devotion, or hardly a thought of what he was about; and having finished, began to undress himself in all haste, when a loud knocking at the door startled him. Alarmed, as well as surprized, at so rude and unseasonable a visit, he asked who was there; but the only reply was, Open the door! He repeated his question, and the voice replied, Open! or, if it be not opened, I will enter. Why enter then! said he,..little expecting that the act would follow |