GLIMPSES OF THE SUPERNATURAL.
The Other World;
OR, GLIMPSES OF THE SUPERNATURAL.
BEING FACTS, RECORDS, AND
TRADITIONS
RELATING TO DREAMS, OMENS, MIRACULOUS OCCURRENCES,
APPARITIONS, WRAITHS, WARNINGS, SECOND-SIGHT,
WITCHCRAFT, NECROMANCY, ETC.
EDITED BY
THE REV. FREDERICK GEORGE LEE, D.C.L.
Vicar of All Saints’, Lambeth.
IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I.
HENRY S. KING AND CO., LONDON.
1875.
(All rights reserved.)
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
AUGUSTA,
COUNTESS OF STRADBROKE,
OF HENHAM HALL, IN THE COUNTY OF SUFFOLK,
THESE VOLUMES
ARE,
BY HER LADYSHIP’S KIND PERMISSION,
VERY RESPECTFULLY
Dedicated.
“It is often asked—Do you believe in Prophecies and Miracles? Yes and no, one may answer; that depends. In general, yes; doubtless we believe in them, and are not of the number of those who ‘pique themselves,’ as Fénelon said, ‘on rejecting as fables, without examination, all the wonders that God works.’ But if you come to the particular, and say—Do you believe in such a revelation, such an apparition, such a cure?—here it is that it behoves us not to forget the rules of Christian prudence, nor the warnings of Holy Writ, nor the teaching of Theologians and Saints, nor, finally, the decrees of Councils, and the motives of those decrees. Has the proper Authority spoken? If it has spoken, let us bow with all the respect due to grave and mature ecclesiastical judgments, even where they are not clothed with infallible authority; if it has not spoken, let us not be of those who reject everything in a partizan spirit, and want to impose this unbelief upon everybody; nor of those who admit everything lightly, and want alike to impose their belief; let us be careful in discussing a particular fact, not to reject the very principle of the Supernatural, but neither let us shut our eyes to the evidence of testimony; let us be prudent, even to the most careful scrutiny—the subject-matter requires it, the Scriptures recommend it—but let us not be sceptics; let us be sincere, but not fanatical: that is the true mean. And let us not forget that most often the safest way in these matters is not to hurry one’s judgment, not to decide sharply and affirm absolutely—in a word, not to anticipate, in one sense or the other, the judgment of those whose place and mission it is to examine herein; but to await, in the simplicity of faith and of Christian wisdom, a decision which marks out a wise rule, although not always with absolute certainty.”—Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, “On Contemporary Prophecies.”
PREFACE.
hese volumes have been compiled from the standing-point of a hearty and reverent believer in Historical Christianity. No one can be more fully aware of their imperfections and incompleteness than the Editor; for the subjects under consideration occupy such a broad field, that their treatment at greater length would have largely increased the bulk of the volumes, and indefinitely postponed their publication.
The facts and records set forth (and throughout, the Editor has dealt with facts, rather than with theories) have been gathered from time to time during the past twenty years, as well from ordinary historical narrations as from the personal information of several friends and acquaintances interested in the subject-matter of the book. The materials thus brought together from so many quarters have been carefully sifted, and those only made use of as would best assist in the arranged method of the volume, and suffice for its suitable illustration.
The Editor regrets that, in the publication of so many recent examples of the Supernatural (about fifty), set forth for the first time in the following pages, the names of the persons to whom those examples occurred, and in some cases those likewise who supplied him with them, are withheld.
The truth is, there is such a sensitive dislike of publicity and of rude criticism consequent upon publicity, that very many persons shrink from the ordeal. However, it may be sufficient to state that the Editor holds himself personally responsible for all those here recorded, which are not either details of received History, or formally authenticated by the names and addresses of those who have supplied him with them.
Many examples of the Supernatural in modern times and in the present day are here published for the first time, in an authoritative and complete form.
By the kind courtesy of Lord Lyttelton, the family records of a remarkable apparition, which is said to have been seen by his noble ancestor, were placed at the Editor’s disposal, and, by his Lordship’s permission, are in the following pages now first set forth in detail and at length.
The Editor is also indebted to the following, either for obliging replies to his inquiries, or for information which has been embodied in the succeeding pages:—The late Lady Brougham, the late Rev. W. Hastings-Kelke, of Drayton Beauchamp; A. L. M. P. de Lisle, Esq., of Garendon Park; the Very Rev. A. Weld, S.J.; the Right Rev. Monsignor Patterson, D.D., of S. Edmund’s College, Ware; the Rev. J. Jefferson, M.A., of North Stainley Vicarage, near Ripon; the Very Rev. E. J. Purbrick, S.J., of Stonyhurst College; the Rev. John Richardson, B.A., of Warwick; Henry Cope Caulfeild, Esq., M.A., of Clone House, S. Leonard’s; the Rev. Theodore J. Morris; Mrs. George Lee; the Rev. H. N. Oxenham, M.A.; Miss S. F. Caulfeild; Dominick Browne, Esq. (Dytchley); Captain Lowrie, of York; Mr. C. J. Sneath, of Birmingham; and many others.
If there be anything set forth in this volume, in ignorance or misconception, contradictory to the general teaching of the Universal Church, the Editor puts on record here his regret for having penned it, and his desire altogether to withdraw such error.
F. G. L.
All Saints’ Vicarage,
York Road, Lambeth.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
| Page | |
| [Chapter I.] | |
 ntroductory.—Materialism of the present age | [1] |
| [Chapter II.] | |
| The Miraculous in Church History | [21] |
| [Chapter III.] | |
| Spiritual Powers and Properties of the Church.—Sacraments.—Sacramentals.—Exorcism | [51] |
| [Chapter IV.] | |
| Witchcraft and Necromancy | [149] |
| [Chapter V.] | |
| Dreams, Omens, Warnings, Presentiments, and Second Sight | [207] |
MATERIALISM OF THE PRESENT AGE.
“In some sense of the Supernatural, in some faith in the Unseen, in some feeling that man is not of this World, in some grasp on the Eternal God, and on an eternal supernatural and supersensuous life, lies the basis of all pity and mercy, all help, and comfort, and patience, and sympathy among men. Set these aside, commit us only to the Natural, to what our eyes see and our hands handle, and, while we may organize Society scientifically, and live according to ‘the laws of Nature,’ and be very philosophical and very liberal, we are standing on the ground on which every savage tribe stands, or indeed on which every pack of wolves gallops.”
GLIMPSES OF THE SUPERNATURAL.
INTRODUCTORY.—MATERIALISM OF THE PRESENT AGE.
o any sincere and hearty believer in Historical Christianity the advance of Materialism and the consequent denial of the Supernatural must be the cause both of alarm and sadness. The few lead, the many follow; and it is frequently the case that conclusions contrarient to the idea of the Supernatural are arrived at, after a course of reasoning, which conclusions appear to many wholly unjustified, either by the premisses adopted, or from the argument that has ensued.
It has been stated, in a serial of some ability,[1] that the final issue of the present conflict between so that things are necessarily different to what they would have been if he had not thus acted, and no disturbance nor dislocation of the system around him ensues as a consequence of such action, surely He Who contrived the system in question can subsequently interpose both in the natural and spiritual order of the world. For to deny this possibility is obviously to place God on a lower level than man; in other words, to make the Creator of all things weaker and less free than His own creatures.
Now, to go a step further, all human efforts to find out God have been the result of the combination of ideas gleaned from human experience. These ideas have often enough been grotesque, fanciful, and distorted—a judgment which will be admitted to be accurate by all Christian people; whether the gross conceptions of Pagan mythology or the nebulous speculations of modern “thinkers” are brought under consideration. That man, the created, cannot understand God the Creator—that the thing made cannot compass the Maker—is not only perfectly certain, but necessary. The being of God cannot be grasped by a finite intellect; nor can such an intellect conceive the mode of an existence absolutely and utterly removed from created conditions. Such knowledge is too wonderful and excellent: we cannot attain unto it.[2]
But though it may be, and is, utterly impossible to conceive Almighty God, it is anything but impossible to conceive the fact and reality of His being. For, as is well known, the general thought and conscience of mankind have believed in a God, semper et ubique, everywhere and at all times. Thus a thing may exist, and its existence may be perfectly patent to the understanding; and furthermore its existence may be worthy of implicit belief; while, at the same time, the thing itself may be found to transcend and overpass the limited powers of man’s intellect. Take, for example, the ideas conveyed by the terms “eternal”[3] and “infinite.” Who can comprehend them? Who can explain them? Ordinary popular conceptions make them mere indefinite extensions of duration and space; yet these conceptions need not and do not appear absurd, but, on the contrary, enable ideas, at once definite, distinct, and recognizable, to be conveyed from man to man.
Thus, by a simple process of thought, we may see for ourselves the place and propriety of a Revelation, and appreciate the truth of the Supernatural. Here, in the province of a Revelation, not man’s conception of God, but God Himself is set forth. Not so unlike ourselves is He that we find Him, with will, actions, and purposes, unintelligible; but, using analogies gathered and systematized by experience, we learn, at the same time, that our Creator is beyond the range both of thought and language—never to be fully known, until, with divinely-illuminated faculties in a higher state, we see Him face to face.
And when we have attained to this point in our course of thought, the first leading fact of God’s revelation meets us. Here it is: “There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker and Preserver of all things, both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”[4]
Now in this revelation, given in its fullness by the Eternal Word, and bequeathed to the Christian Church, to be preserved and handed down for future generations, all is Supernatural. That body of doctrine which Christians believe, divinely guarded by the Church, was announced beforehand, centuries ere it was actually delivered, by a wisdom above nature—the divine light of prophecy. When it was set forth by the Eternal Word, its truth was attested in the face of a hostile people by a power above nature, whose word Creation obeyed, as in regularity, so in marked and palpable change. This body of doctrine or gospel put forth a supernatural power in the strange rapidity and manifest success with which it subdued hearts to itself. Ancient Rome owned the Crucified as a Monarch conquering and to conquer. His Revelation, of the truth of which there shall be witnesses unto the end, is above nature, in that it alone provides adequate remedies for the manifold infirmities of the human race. The life it produces here is supernatural, as are also the means by which that life is created, and the efficient gifts by which it is being constantly renewed. Supernatural, too, is the work of the Holy Ghost, wrought out by human agents and human instrumentality; changing, sanctifying, illuminating; shadowing forth by its action the reunion of earth with heaven, of man with God, only to be completed and made perfect in the life to come.
Now the purport of this volume is to show by examples of supernatural intervention—examples many of which have been gathered from quite recent periods—that Almighty God, from time to time, in various ways and by different human instruments, still condescendingly reveals to man glimpses of the world unseen, and shows the existence of that life beyond the grave, in which the sceptic and materialist of the present restless age would have us disbelieve, and which they themselves scornfully reject.
From the sure and solid standing-point of Historical Christianity, believing Holy Scripture to be the Word of God, and the Christian Church to be the divinely-formed corporation for instructing, guiding, and illuminating mankind, remarkable examples of the Supernatural, miracles, spectral appearances of departed spirits, providential warnings by dreams and otherwise, the intervention and ministry of good angels, the assaults of bad, the certain power and efficacy of the gifts of Holy Church, the sanctity of consecrated places, and the persevering malignity of the devil and his legions, are gathered together, and set forth in the pages to follow. For it may reasonably be believed that, as Almighty God has graciously vouchsafed to intervene in the affairs of mankind in ages long past, so there has never been a period in which such merciful intervention has not from time to time taken place. Granted that in the days of Moses and Aaron, and of Elijah and Elisha, man owned miraculous powers, and wrought wonders by the gift of God; granted that in dreams and visions the will of the Most High was sometimes made known to favoured individuals of the Jewish Dispensation; remembering the miracles of our Lord’s apostles and disciples, and bearing in mind the divine and supernatural powers which were first entrusted to, and have been ever since exercised by, the Catholic Church, it is at once unreasonable and unphilosophical to deny the existence in the world of the supernatural and miraculous. As will be abundantly set forth, their presence and energy are in perfect accord and harmony with the universal experience of mankind. Sceptics may contemn and object, materialists may scoff; but numerous facts as well as a very general sentiment are against their conclusions and convictions.
Floating straws show the direction and force of a current. As an example of the lengths to which an adoption of the materialistic principle will lead some persons, who regard themselves as “philosophers,” and as a specimen of the dangers which threaten us, it may be well to refer briefly to the proposal which has recently been formally and publicly made, viz., that in certain cases of hopeless disease or imbecile old age, physicians should be legally authorized to put an end to such patients by poison.
Thus, when the head of a family becomes old or borders on childishness, the son, by going through the proposed legal formality, may stand by and witness the poisoning of his father, and so enter on the possession of his property. When a mother becomes old, the daughter may assist in a similar manner at her mother’s death. A crippled child, a weak-minded relation, an infirm member of the family, according to the “philosophers,” should have a poisonous drug efficiently administered; that so the weak, crippled, or imbecile might be murdered and put out of the way. Thus these philosopher-fanatics assure us that “the natural law of the preservation of the fittest,” propounded by them, will come into active and unchecked operation. Having warned us that the penalty we endure for ignoring this “law” is a population largely composed of weak, unhealthy, poor and suffering people, they now earnestly recommend a “scientific method,” by which the lame, the blind, the weak, and the imbecile should be cleared off from the stage of life.[5] “Natural selection,” would, unchecked and never opposed, have preserved alive only the best and noblest types; and as, they tell us in their infallible wisdom, this principle or law has developed us so far from the mollusk to the man, it might by this time, had it been carefully and faithfully applied, have developed us, if not into angels, at least into nineteenth-century savages of great muscular power. This is the odious message to mankind which naturalistic Materialism announces. And if we confine ourselves to what is sometimes called “science”—that is, exclusive knowledge of things material—such a conclusion as that arrived at, and such degrading principles as those propounded for acceptance and practice, may not be altogether unreasonable.[6] In this kind of “science” there is little else but coldness, cruelty, and savagery. Only the strong have a right to live. The weak were born to have their life trampled out, and, according to this newly-revived theory, the sooner it is done the better. The murder of the lame, the halt, and the blind, therefore, becomes thoroughly scientific, and follows as a matter of course. Its practice is based upon laws which the materialists have been for some time proclaiming to be “supreme.” If there be no supernatural basis of life, if the supernatural have no real existence, if man be of the earth earthy, if he be only an outgrowth of the dumb forces of matter (the first article of the creed of these “philosophers”), if he be governed solely and altogether, absolutely and completely by an inexorable material law (the highest and the only law, as they would have us believe), then, of course, their conclusion inevitably follows—that it is both merciful and wise to put a man out of his misery when he becomes a burden both to himself and his friends. There is no place in the lofty and elevating system of Naturalism for a being who cannot take care of himself.
Again: while Scepticism is rampant, and some are endeavouring to bring back the Pagan notions of ancient nations, to galvanize into new life the corrupt imbecilities of the past, men of science are making assertions and assumptions of the boldest, if not of the wildest nature. One such recently maintained the following proposition:—“Taking our earth, we know that millions of years have passed since she began to be peopled.” Now, the maintainer of this assertion notoriously holds some peculiar theories about the means by which the solar system (and consequently other systems) was made, or rather grew. These theories, in some of their details, are or may be founded upon certain more or less well-ascertained facts. But when he uses the term “know,” we are bold to point out that such an assertion rests on mere assumption.[7] We need facts,—facts which could stand the careful investigation of persons skilled in taking and measuring evidence; and secondly, we require to be reasonably convinced that no other possible explanation of a difficulty be forthcoming, except that on which his assumption is founded and his inevitable conclusion (as he regards it) deduced. But how often with scientific people the phrase “We know” stands for “This is our theory,” or rather “This is our present theory;” for scientific theories change very frequently; and points which have been most dogmatically laid down at one period have been with equal dogmatism condemned and repudiated at another, by those who apparently strain every nerve and exercise every gift bestowed upon them, to deny and cast out the Supernatural from amongst mankind.
From the introduction to a volume of great interest (“The Maxims and Examples of the Saints”), the following extract is taken, both because of its inherent truth, and also because the Christian instinct in defence of the Supernatural is so prominently and forcibly expressed in every line. Mr. de Lisle’s words stand thus:—
“In these days of shallowness and scepticism, men pride themselves on calling everything into question, as if they proved their claim to wisdom according to the measure of their unbelief. But those who dive a little deeper into things will not be so ready to admit the claims of modern insolent writers. They will find that our ancestors had heads as sound, judgments as cool and unprejudiced, at least, as any of these moderns; and the more they examine, the more reasons will they find for attaching weight to their testimony. In my intercourse abroad with divers holy priests and religious monks, I have seen and heard enough to convince me that many things take place in this world of a supernatural order. Nor do I believe there ever has been a period in the history of the Church, when our Lord has not borne testimony to her divine truth, and to the admirable sanctity of many of her children, by evident and glorious miracles. This is the faith of the Church; and who shall gainsay the teaching of that society that carries with it the experience of eighteen centuries, the immutable promises of God, the attestations of innumerable martyrs, and the consent of nations? To him who believes the words of the holy Gospel, ‘The works that I do shall they do also, and greater than these,’ &c. (speak not now to the unbeliever), the conclusion will be clear, and humble faith will bow with submission. Keeping this promise in view, the Christian will not find it difficult to believe even the most wonderful histories in the lives of the Saints; at all events, his spirit will not be that which loves to question everything, still less that which treats the testimony of devout writers with levity or scorn. To the humble observer of the ways of Divine Providence, enough occurs every day to prepare him for any manifestation of the Power of God: not to say that there is not a state in Christendom in which, even in our own times, many wonderful miracles have not taken place. Witness the glorious appearance of a vast cross of fire in the heavens at Migné, near Poictiers in France, in the year 1826, in the month of December, an event which was attested on oath before the bishop of the diocese by several thousand eye-witnesses.[8] Josephus relates the prodigies that appeared in the heavens before the downfall of Jerusalem: and who shall say that this sublime apparition in France did not portend the approaching calamities that have since fallen upon that kingdom and upon Europe? In the years 1830 and 1831, blood miraculously flowed from the arms of S. Nicholas, at Tolentino in Italy, and the circumstance was solemnly attested by the bishop, the clergy, and the magistrates of that city. History records similar prodigies to have taken place at Tolentino whenever any calamities were about to befall Christendom. S. Nicholas has been dead above 500 years. I myself had the consolation to visit his shrine; and I heard from several individuals, with tears in their eyes, the affecting recital of the miracle. Who does not call to mind the wonderful manifestations of God’s power at Rome and at Ancona during the period of the French Revolution, in the year 1792? Innumerable images of our Blessed Redeemer, and of his Virgin Mother, were seen to move their eyes, and some even to weep. Nor were these events seen only by a few, they were beheld and attested by thousands.[9] The miracles that God has performed by means of the holy Prince Hohenlohe are known to all, and some of them have been wrought even in England. These are facts so notorious, that no one can call them in question; nor is it in the power of profane ridicule to throw doubt over their authenticity. At the same time, it will always be true that the Catholic Church does not oblige her children to believe any miracles but those recorded in the sacred Scriptures; she leaves it to the discretion of each individual to ground his conviction on the evidence which has come before him; though it would not be an act of piety, or worthy of praise for anyone to speak lightly of such miracles as have been honoured by the approbation of the Holy See.”
As a mark of rapid theological decline, it may here be put on record, that a recent writer, the author of “Supernatural Religion: an Inquiry into the Reality of Divine Revelation” (Longman: 1874), sets forth his “views” (not his “opinion,” least of all his faith, but his “views”) as follows:—
“The importance which has been attached to theology by the Christian Church, almost from its foundation, has been subversive of Christian morality. In surrendering its miraculous element and its claims to supernatural origin, therefore, the religion of Jesus does not lose its virtue, or the qualities which have made it a blessing to humanity. It sacrifices none of that elevated character which has distinguished and raised it above all human systems: it merely relinquishes a claim which it has shared with all antecedent religions, and severs its connection with ignorant superstition. It is too divine in its morality to require the aid of miraculous attributes. No supernatural halo can heighten its spiritual beauty, and no mysticism deepen its holiness. In its perfect simplicity it is sublime, and in its profound wisdom it is eternal.
“We gain infinitely more than we lose in abandoning belief in the reality of Divine revelation. Whilst we retain pure and unimpaired the treasure of Christian morality, we relinquish nothing but the debasing elements added to it by human superstition. We are no longer bound to believe a theology which outrages reason and moral sense. We are freed from base anthropomorphic views of God and His government of the universe; and from Jewish theology we rise to higher conceptions of an infinitely wise and beneficent Being, hidden from our finite minds, it is true, in the impenetrable glory of Divinity, but whose laws of wondrous comprehensiveness and perfection we ever perceive in operation around us. We are no longer disturbed by visions of fitful interference with the order of Nature, but we recognize that the Being who regulates the universe is without variableness or shadow of turning. It is singular how little there is in the supposed revelation of alleged information, however incredible, regarding that which is beyond the limits of human thought; but that little is of a character which reason declares to be the ‘wildest delusion.’ Let no man, whose belief in the reality of Divine Revelation may be destroyed by such inquiry, complain that he has lost a precious possession, and that nothing is left but a blank. The revelation not being a reality, that which he has lost was but an illusion, and that which is left is the truth.”
In another volume recently written by Mr. Congreve, the Positivist, the author maintains in the plainest possible language, what is the immediate and practical object of the small sect to which he has allied himself:—“The professed servants of Humanity must lead in the struggle to eliminate God; and that this is the essential element in the whole existing perplexity is forcing itself upon all.” Again, man’s duty is said to be “openly and avowedly to take service in one or the other of the opposing camps; to bring face to face the two beliefs; the belief in the Past, the belief in God, and the belief in the Future, the belief in Humanity; and to choose deliberately between them.” Furthermore, he avers: “We contemplate the Trinity of our religion, Humanity, the World, and Space.” A Christian critic has made the following terse comments on Mr. Congreve’s book:—
“The chief feeling which possesses us in reading these Essays is one of sorrow for the writer. It is really sad that a man of education should lend himself to such a delusion. The ‘Religion’ itself is ridiculous; indeed it has not so much as a theory. Not even on paper can its doctrines be stated, for the simple reason that it has no doctrines whatever. But it is always melancholy to watch a naturally good intellect under the sway of a fantastic idea, or to see an educated gentleman writing 500 pages on the ‘Worship’ of what does not exist. The sensation of the reader, as he turns page after page, is expressed in such an inquiry as this: Since the writer himself believes in nothing whatever, how can he invite my conversion?”
THE MIRACULOUS IN CHURCH HISTORY.
“And He said unto them, Go ye into all the World, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
“And these signs shall follow them that believe: In My Name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.”—S. Mark xvi. 15-18.
THE MIRACULOUS IN CHURCH HISTORY.
he important subject of the Miraculous in Church History sufficiently well known to students of it, involves the existence of a religious principle of universal application. This will be apparent, in due course, from the following preliminary considerations:—“A miracle,” writes Hume, “is a violation of the laws of Nature; and, as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.”[10] Further on, he declares “that a miracle supported by any human testimony is more properly a subject of derision than of argument.”[11] On these statements, definite and precise as they appear, and yet not sufficiently definite, it may be remarked in the first place that no human experience is unalterable: it may to a certain person or certain persons have been hitherto unaltered. But this is all. Are there then no facts beyond our experience—no natural positions or states with which we are unacquainted? When a man writes of “unalterable experience,” he obviously means so much of that experience, as either mediately or immediately has come to his knowledge; in other words his own past experience.[12] And this Hume declares sufficient to enable him to determine what are the unvarying laws of Nature, and, by consequence, what are miracles. But surely here is something akin to arrogance. For what modest person would venture to maintain his own experience to be altogether and absolutely firm and unalterable? Who would declare of a witness, who testified, for example, what was contrary to that experience, that such a man was worthy only of disbelief and derision? And yet many, in the present day, adopt and put into practice this unstable and imperfect theory of Hume.
What has been set forth above in opposition to that theory is still more pointedly expressed in the following remarkable passage:
“The natural philosopher when he imagines a physical impossibility which is not an inconceiveability, merely states that his phenomenon is against all that has been hitherto known of the course of Nature. Before he can compass an impossibility, he has a huge postulate to ask of his reader or hearer, a postulate which Nature never taught: it is that the Future is always to agree with the Past. How do you know that this sequence of phenomena always will be? Answer, Because it must be. But how do you know that it must be? Answer, Because it always has been. But then, even granting that it always has been, how do you know that what always has been always will be? Answer, I see my mind compelled to that conclusion. And how do you know that the leanings of your mind are always towards truth? Because I am infallible, the answer ought to be; but this answer is never given.”[13]
Of course no Christian will deny the following elementary propositions here briefly stated, before the general subject is further discussed. First that man consists of body and soul, the nobler and more important part being the soul, which is spiritual, immortal, and eternal. God, the Creator of all things, is a Spirit; and, in this particular, man is made in the image of God. Destined to dwell on the earth for a while, during an appointed period of probation, man passes by death, which is a temporary separation of soul and body, to the life beyond the grave. Man’s duty here, therefore, ought to fit and prepare him for a future state, and teach him better the value of his soul and the reality of the Supernatural.
Now the Almighty, in calling man into being here, and making him “lord of the whole earth,” giving him, in fact, dominion over the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea, has established in connection with him a two-fold order, the natural, which relates to the visible world, and the Supernatural or miraculous, which concerns the spiritual and invisible. The natural order comprises the law of nature, by which the World created by God is governed, and concerns man in his dealings with nature. But the Supernatural concerns him in his relations with God and the world of spirits. Both orders are alike from God, and each has its appointed sphere. The Author of both is the controller of each. And, as if to indicate to man from time to time that God has something to say in His own creation, and will not be totally excluded from it by man’s forgetfulness, the Supernatural is wisely and mercifully interwoven with the natural, to remind man, by the Glimpses occasionally vouchsafed of the former, that, though the World has been made for his use and advantage, many things in it speak eloquently of a continued existence in the future, though now the same World’s fashion most surely passeth away. How prone man becomes, by constantly contemplating the natural, to thrust the Supernatural aside, is the experience of many. And this being so, how merciful is God to remind us of the next world, not only by the ordinary modes and channels appointed for so doing, by change, by revelation, by death; but occasionally by suddenly, strangely, and abruptly breaking in upon the usual order of events, and the ordinary course of nature, to let us see with our natural eyes, and hear with our ears, that He is. Thus the Supernatural indicates the tracing of the Finger of God. Freely, and for a lofty purpose, to set forth His glory, power, and mercy, He created the laws of nature; freely, and for a like lofty purpose, He sometimes suspends them. Such intervention on His part, such a suspension, is a miracle, which may be defined as “a record and evidence of the Supernatural manifesting itself in the midst of the natural order;” or, as S. Thomas Aquinas so clearly and ably defined it of old, “A miracle is an act performed by God out of the ordinary course of nature.” In accepting this, we do but maintain that God alone is the Author and Controller of all laws, whether natural or supernatural. Historical Christianity calls upon us to believe, firstly, the great principle that miracles are possible; and, secondly, that those recorded in Holy Scripture, ranging from the time of Moses to that of S. John the Divine, are true. Other miracles or miraculous interventions rest upon the value, purport, and character of the evidence and testimony forthcoming for their authenticity. They are all equally possible, because all are acts of the Almighty; but they are not all equally credible, because the evidence of their authenticity may be of a less precise, definite, and well-authenticated character.
To assert, as some do, that a miraculous intervention implies change or contradiction in God, is inaccurate; for in His works surely He may exercise that liberty which is one of His perfections. Were man’s range of vision wider than it is, the working of a miracle might be found to be, after all, only the realization and carrying out of God’s original design and primary purpose. Again, from the point of view of another objection, to maintain that we cannot know what a miracle is, or whether any miracle has been ever wrought, without being acquainted with all the laws of nature, is likewise inaccurate; for we know enough, both of the natural and supernatural, to be perfectly certain that it is out of the ordinary course of nature for a dead man to come to life again. While, then, such a miracle teaches us to acknowledge the power of God, it may, at the same time, serve to let the Materialist realize his own possible ignorance of the laws of nature. For after all there may be some hidden law, as yet unknown, which may contradict a known law, and so modify it—a probability which is at least deserving of the consideration of those who altogether deny the Supernatural.
As regards miracles, let the well-known argument of the great S. Augustine of Hippo be considered: “Christianity,” he writes, “was either founded by miracles, or it was not. If it was, then miracles exist. If it was not, then this is the greatest of all miracles, viz. that a religion so radically contrarient to all human prejudices, and so much resisted by all human influence, should, without the aid of miracles, have made its place and assured its progress in the world.” If, again, the only evidence that a person will admit is that of his own personal experience, that he must himself witness a miracle; that, like S. Thomas, he will maintain, “Except I shall see ... I will not believe,” has he not power of mind enough to appreciate the fact that he is in every way unreasonable, by demanding for himself that which he altogether refuses to admit in others?
But, in truth, the miracles of our Blessed Lord, and more particularly the miracle of His Resurrection, were so striking and convincing, being testified to, both as regards their act and consequences, by so many, that they produced both conviction and triumph. Not universally, but with a sufficient number of persons to ensure the steady increase of the infant Church—though the very miracles which wrought such a vast moral and religious change, were rejected by the unbelievers of the day.
In the Church of the primitive, as well as in later, ages, the Supernatural was being constantly manifested. The apostles proved the divinity of their mission by the power of their works. The miracles recorded in the “Acts of the Apostles” were followed by others equally marvellous and remarkable in succeeding periods—a feature that might have been most reasonably looked for in the history of Christianity, for the very life and spirit of the Church are supernatural.[14] Persecuted in every age, she has risen again. After being cast down, driven from this place in one century, she has made still greater progress elsewhere in another. For the first three hundred years of her existence, and in the very heart of the world’s civilization, Rome, every patriarchal primate of that Holy See died a witness to the truths of Christianity. The ordinary supernatural powers of our Lord’s first followers were duly inherited by those formally set apart to fill their place and office. Men freely testified to what they had seen and heard. As occasion seemed to need it, the divine power was duly manifested in outward, notable, and noted acts,—to the truth and reality of which even Profane History has abundantly witnessed.
While in the records of the Christian Church there is an almost constant tradition of miraculous facts. The tale of every century is rife with them. They were to have been anticipated, because He had spoken Whose Word shall never fail, and His promise seems to have been always remembered: “Verily, verily I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do he shall do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto My Father.”[15] Consequently it is found that many of the later miracles, those termed “ecclesiastical,” in distinction to scriptural, are even more remarkable than those wrought by our Blessed Lord Himself—a fact which, instead of deserving ridicule and contempt, merits, from persons of a Christian habit of mind, patient consideration, and a careful, if not a ready, acceptance. For in such the faithful will only perceive a perfect realization of their Master’s divine pledge.
To take a notable example of the miraculous occurring towards the close of the second century (A.D. 174), testified to, as far as the fact of the miracle is concerned, by at least four independent Pagan writers, Dionysius Cassius, Julius Capitolinus, Ælius Lampridius, and Claudian.
Eusebius, in his “Ecclesiastical History,”[16] puts on record the following account of a most remarkable event:[17]—“It is said that when Marcus Aurelius Cæsar was forming his troops in order of battle against the Germans and Sarmatians, he was reduced to extremities by a failure of water. Meanwhile the soldiers in the so-called ‘Melitene legion,’ which for its faith remains to this day, knelt down upon the ground, as we are accustomed to do, in prayer, and betook themselves to supplication. And whereas this sight was strange to the enemy, another still more strange happened immediately—thunderbolts which caused the enemy’s flight and overthrow; and upon the army to which the men were attached, who had called upon God, a rain, which restored it entirely when it was all but perishing by thirst.” This fact had been previously put on record by Claudius Apollinaris,[18] Bishop of Hierapolis, in his “Apology for Christianity,” addressed about the year 176 to the Emperor Marcus. Tertullian, about fifteen years later, affirms the truth of the same fact when addressing the Proconsul of Africa. Each of these writers gives point to the narrative, the first by recording that henceforth the term “Thundering Legion” was applied to that in which the Christian soldiers had prayed: the second by his statement that the Emperor had, in consequence, promulgated an edict in favour of the Christians. It is clear from Eusebius, likewise, that the Pagans acknowledged the miracle, as they could not fail to do, wrought as it was in the presence of so many; but, of course, they denied that it was to be attributed to the prayers of the Christians. Julius Capitolinus attributed it to the prayers of the Emperor;[19] Dionysius Cassius to the operations of Arnuphis, an Egyptian magician.[20] A record of the unquestioned fact, however, is sculptured on the Antonine column at Rome;[21] a medal, struck the very year of the occurrence, likewise commemorates the event. Here, then, we find on record an occurrence which ordinary people will call a miracle; here we obtain a distinct example of the Supernatural. In answer to the prayers of certain Roman soldiers, sons and servants of the Crucified, palpable benefits are vouchsafed, and marvellous deliverances effected. The foe is destroyed, and they are rescued. And this fact is testified to by Pagans worthy of credit as well as by Christians, and is put on record in the modes already set forth.
Another example, the appearance of a luminous Cross to Constantine (A.D. 312), must here be given, because of its inherent importance; because the testimony to its having occurred before so many is very general; and because the moral and religious changes consequent upon it, results that both immediately and eventually followed, have been at once great and notorious:—
The conversion of the Roman empire, in the person of its head, was the most remarkable event in the early pages of Christian history. “Constantine’s submission of his power to the Church,” writes Dr. Newman, “has been a pattern for all Christian monarchs since, and the commencement of our state establishment to this day; and, on the other hand, the fortunes of the Roman Empire are in prophecy apparently connected with her in a very intimate manner, which we are not yet able fully to comprehend. If any event might be said to call for a miracle it was this; whether to signalize it, or to bring it about. Thus it was that the fate of Babylon was written on the wall of the banqueting-hall; also portents in the sky preceded the final destruction of Jerusalem, and are predicted in Scripture as forerunners of the last great day. Moreover our Lord’s prophecy of ‘the Sign of the Son of Man in Heaven’ was anciently understood of the Cross. And further, the sign of the Cross was at the time, and had been from the beginning, a received symbol and instrument of Christian devotion, and cannot be ascribed to a then rising superstition. Tertullian speaks of it as an ordinary rite for sanctifying all the ordinary events of the day; it was used in exorcisms; and, what is still more to the point, it is regarded by S. Justin, Tertullian, and Minucius as impressed with a providential meaning upon natural forms and human works, as well as introduced by divine authority into the types of the Old Testament.”[22]
The supernatural manner in which the Emperor’s conversion was accomplished may be thus recorded. Marching from the border of the Rhine, through Gaul and part of Italy by Verona to Rome, against the tyrant Maxentius, who had declared war against him, and was already near Rome with a largely superior force, Constantine solemnly and earnestly invoked the One True God, the God of the Christians, for assistance and victory. At that period he was not a Christian himself, though he had no doubt accurately enough measured the true character of Roman paganism. A short time after midday, upon his march, there appeared in the heavens[23] a large luminous Cross in sight of himself and the whole of his army, with the inscription surrounding it, “In this conquer.” On the following night it is recorded that our Blessed Lord appeared to him in a dream, or, as some say, a vision, and commanded him to have a representation of the sign made, and to use it henceforth as his chief standard in battle. The Emperor, rising early the next morning, announced this vision and message to his confidential friends, and at once gave orders for the making of the imperial standard.[24] This being done, fifty men of the stoutest and most religious of his guards were chosen to carry it. And, surrounded by these, it was borne immediately before the Emperor himself. The Christian soldiers were full of faith and hope. They saw the Finger of God, and looked for victory.
On the other hand the army of Maxentius, consisting of three divisions of veteran soldiers, esteemed the most efficient in the empire, engaged Constantine in the Quintian fields near the bridge Milvius. The attack was fast and furious. But the aggressors were at all points met with vigour and bravery, and soon succumbed and were in retreat. Constantine, with far fewer numbers than those opposed to him, was completely victorious; the legions of Maxentius were scattered or slain, and on the same day, with the sacred Labarum (as the imperial standard in question was termed) borne before him, he entered Rome in triumph. His conversion to Christianity soon followed upon his victory. In his triumph he dropped the old customs of his Pagan predecessors. He neither mounted the Capitol, nor offered sacrifices to the deities of Rome, but by suitable inscriptions recorded his belief in the power of Christ’s saving Cross. In his palace at Constantinople, as well as in the chief square of that city, the sacred sign was at once set up; and medals were struck, with representations of the symbol in question upon them, to commemorate both the victory and his own religious change. This occurred about A.D. 312.
Here then we find the record of a distinctively supernatural intervention. No known physical cause could have formed a sentence of Greek or Latin in the air. Nor could a whole army have mistaken a Cross, with its corresponding and appropriate inscription, for a halo of light, or a mere natural phenomenon. Moreover: three years after the event, Constantine erected his triumphal arch at Rome, with an inscription, which still remains, testifying that he had gained the victory “instinctu divinitatis, mentis magnitudine.” Lactantius, likewise, in his treatise “De mortibus Persecutorum” (if it be his book, though some attribute it to Cæcilius), asserts the main facts of the case as regards the dream, describing the “heavenly sign of God;” and this in a treatise certainly written within two years of its occurrence. Seven years later, Nazarius, a Pagan orator, in a panegyric on the Emperor, also puts upon record his solemn conviction that celestial aid was miraculously rendered to Constantine in his defeat of Maxentius. Thus far those who were not Christians testify to the fact under consideration. On the other hand, Eusebius, who received the account from Constantine himself (who is known to have confirmed it with an oath), gives that record of the occurrence which has been already set forth—and he was notoriously an historian who had small leaning towards over-belief. While the reasonable conclusion, therefore, is that so many independent writers and records of the fact could not have been made to conspire in disseminating a falsehood; the action of the Emperor which followed the event was in perfect harmony with that which might have been looked for under the circumstances narrated—the supernatural appearance of a luminous Cross, heralding a change, even the triumph of the Religion of Christ over the effete systems of a decaying and decayed idolatry.
The principle which was manifested in these cases is, through the study of history, likewise seen to have existed and energized in every part of the Church. Everywhere, from time to time, the proximity of the unseen world and the existence of the Supernatural were made manifest: while, here and there, examples of special miraculous interventions evidently stood forth to show that neither the Arm of the Most High was shortened nor the faith of the followers of our Blessed Lord stunted in its growth. In fact miracles of the most remarkable character have been performed from the age of the apostles to the present time: while Glimpses of the Supernatural have been granted to many as partially unfolding the mysteries of the Unseen World to those who longed and prayed for the same; by which glimpses or visions their faith has been deepened and their conviction of the truths of Christianity most surely strengthened. Just as our Blessed Saviour, following Moses, constantly appealed to the prodigies He wrought in attestation of His divine mission and in support of His doctrine; so was it with His followers who came after Him. For to them He had promised as much. So far therefore from confining the power of working miracles to His own person and time, He expressly pledged himself and promised that His servants and ambassadors should receive power to work still greater works.[25] Just as under the laws of Nature and the written law given by Moses, the Almighty was pleased to illustrate the society of His chosen servants with frequent miracles, so we are led to expect that the One Family of God should be for ever distinguished by occasional miracles wrought in and through her, as a standing proof of her divine origin and as a guide to the wanderers beyond the confines of her fold. And thus it comes to pass that the Fathers and Teachers of the Church, amongst other proofs of her favour, have constantly appealed to the miracles by which she is illustrated as a proof of her heavenly mission, and as marking her off, at the same time, from the various hereticks and schismaticks who, going out from her, were not of her. For example S. Irenæus, a disciple of S. Polycarp, himself a disciple of S. John the Evangelist, reproaches the Hereticks against whom he writes in his well-known treatise,[26] that they could neither give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, cast out devils, nor raise the dead to life again, as he maintains was frequently done in the Church. Tertullian, a contemporary of his, writing of the hereticks, asks, “I wish to see the miracles which they have worked.” S. Pacian, in the fourth century, opposing Novatus, and considering his claims, scornfully inquires, “Has he the gift of tongues, or of prophecy? Has he restored to life the dead?” S. Augustine of Hippo, in numerous passages of his works, refers to the miracles wrought by and through and in the Church as most important if not conclusive evidence of her heavenly character and veracity.
Again: In the middle of the fourth century occurred that most wonderful miracle, when the Emperor Julian deliberately attempted to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem, with the express intention of disproving the prophet Daniel’s[27] utterance concerning it. Then tempests, whirlwinds, earthquakes, and fiery eruptions convulsed the scene of the undertaking, maiming and alarming the persistent workmen, throwing down buildings in the neighbourhood, as Rufinus testifies, and rendering the carrying on of the work a sheer physical impossibility. A luminous Cross surrounded by a circle, indicating that to the Crucified was given all power in heaven and earth, and showing that the Word of God could never fail, nor be brought to nought by the vain determinations of men, appeared in the sky,—a portent witnessed by thousands, and testified to both by Pagan and Arian, as well as by Christian writers.[28]
Furthermore, in the following century, another miracle took place at Typassus or Typasa in Africa, where a large congregation of Christians, being assembled in divine worship, in opposition to the decree of the Arian tyrant Hunneric, they were collected in the Forum, in the presence of the whole province, their right hands were chopped off, and their tongues cut out to the roots by his command; yet, nevertheless they continued to speak as plainly and perfectly as they had done before the barbarous mutilation in question.
This is vouched for by Victor, Bishop of Vite, in the following words:—“The king in wrath sent a certain count with directions to hold a meeting in the Forum, of the whole province, and there to cut out their tongues by the root, and to cut off their right hands. When this was done, they so spoke and speak, by the gift of the Holy Ghost, as they used to speak before. If, however, anyone will be incredulous, let him now go to Constantinople, and there he will find one of them, Reparatus a subdeacon, speaking like an educated man without any impediment whatsoever. On which account he is regarded with exceeding great veneration in the court of the Emperor Zeno, and specially by the Empress.”[29]
Now, this miracle is remarkable for various reasons. The witnesses to its authenticity are varied, both as to their persons and the details of their testimony, which testimony is both consistent and at one on all important and material points. Moreover, the evidence on behalf of the miracle is very complete: the number of persons upon whom it was wrought was more than considerable; thus, at the same time, increasing the occasion of valid testimony in its favour, and preventing the interposition of what some persons term “chance.” Furthermore, the miracle is entire; for, as Dr. Newman remarks, “it carried its whole case with it to every beholder:” it is also permanent, that is, it continued to indicate its effects before thousands, whose inquiries, public investigations, and conclusions must have exercised considerable weight with those who were prepared to accept it.[30]
In this brief survey of the miraculous, it is impossible even to touch on the more remarkable evidences of the Supernatural as set forth in the History of the Christian Church. Numerous miracles are recorded by S. Basil, S. Gregory Thaumaturgus, S. Athanasius, S. Jerome, S. Chrysostom, S. Ambrose, and S. Augustine, as well as by other illustrious Fathers and Church Historians who adorned the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries of the Christian era. One, however, related by both the last-named, by S. Ambrose and S. Augustine, deserves notice, because both those holy bishops were eye-witnesses of it. A cloth in which the relics of SS. Gervasius and Protasius had been wrapped was applied to the eyes of a blind man, who thereupon received his sight.[31] S. Augustine likewise gives an account of numerous miracles wrought in his own diocese of Hippo,—some through the instrumentality of the sacred remains of S. Stephen, others in answer to earnest prayer: while three of the miracles so recorded by him are the raising of three dead bodies to life.
The miracles recorded to have been wrought by S. Basil, S. Athanasius, S. Jerome, S. John Chrysostom, S. Ambrose, and S. Augustine (and, in this particular, he who runs may read) testify clearly and sufficiently to the Divine power which existed in the Church Universal in the times of those holy saints, and the rich fruits of which were both seen and tested by the faithful. One of the most remarkable was the verification of the Wood of the Cross, after its discovery by S. Helena, A.D. 326, through the convincing miracle wrought upon a dead man, who, on being touched by it, was immediately restored to life.
And so soon as the Religion of Christ was brought to Britain by our great Apostle and Archbishop S. Augustine, “greater works than these” followed, as a matter of course, when the banner of the cross was unfurled upon the coasts of Kent. That this was so, that many miracles were wrought, we learn from a Letter written by S. Gregory the Great to S. Augustine, embodied in the well-known “History” of the Venerable Bede, and preserved amongst S. Gregory’s “Works,” in which the Archbishop is duly and lovingly cautioned against becoming too much elated with vain glory, because of these marked manifestations of Divine power and favour; and is reminded that God Almighty had, no doubt, bestowed the gift of working them, not on the Archbishop’s own account, or for his own merit, but for the conversion of the English nation.[32]
So, through every succeeding age, were Glimpses afforded of the Supernatural. For example, S. Bernard, perhaps the most illustrious saint of the twelfth century, in the “Life of S. Malachi of Armagh,” records the miraculous cure of the withered hand of a youth, by the dead hand of his holy friend S. Malachi. But nothing can exceed the splendour and publicity of the miracles of S. Bernard himself,—to the reality of which the faithful of France and Switzerland, as well as those of Germany and Italy, bore abundant testimony. Princes and prelates, kings and priests were witnesses of his supernatural power; for, like his Lord and Master, he wrought instantaneous cures on the lame, the halt, and the blind, in the presence of multitudes, and to the great spread and triumph of the Faith. Of those worked at Cologne, Philip, Archdeacon of Liége, who was formally commissioned to inquire and report upon them by Lampeon, Archbishop of Rheims, declared as follows: that “they were not performed in a corner, but the whole city was witness to them. If anyone,” he adds, “doubts or is curious, he may easily satisfy himself on the spot, more especially as some of the miracles were wrought upon persons of no inconsiderable rank and reputation.”[33] Moreover, S. Bernard himself distinctly refers to them in one of his most celebrated treatises, “De Consideratione,” addressed to Pope Eugenius III., and maintains that the evidence of God’s special graces and exceptional blessings thus resting upon him, enabled him to feel sufficient confidence of the Divine aid and benediction to enter upon the grave and laborious task of preaching the Second Crusade.
And if we proceed onward to the sixteenth century, where in some places, and especially amongst the northern nations of Europe, Faith began to wax cold, and Charity was not, we find, from History, that the miracles of Francis Xavier, the saintly apostle of India, may almost vie with those of the great S. Bernard, for they were as numerous and as inherently remarkable; while the testimony as to their truth, reality, and influence[34] was generally acknowledged by the faithful, as well as by Protestants.
In truth, wherever the Catholic religion has been taught and accepted, wherever the Name of Jesus has been loved and venerated, wherever faith in the Unseen has been active and daring, there the Finger of God has sometimes been manifested. And this, of course, was to have been expected. Our Blessed Saviour’s glorious and unfailing promise, that His disciples, with whom He pledged Himself to remain unto the end of the world, should do even “greater works” than He Himself had wrought, was thus, from time to time, as man’s faith merited God Almighty’s intervention, literally and strictly fulfilled.
SPIRITUAL POWERS AND PROPERTIES
OF THE CHURCH.
“When a man holds up to my conscious eye the page of futurity; or when, at the mandate of a mortal, I clearly perceive Nature to listen and to suspend her laws, I rationally conclude that such a man is indeed employed by God. These miraculous and prophetical tests, produced by the ancient seer to the Israelites, appealed to by Christ in His own sacred cause, and made over by Him to His ministers for ever in the work of conversion, have been a means to guide the enquiring soul to that Authority divinely-commissioned to teach the World. This power to deliver the dictates of the Holy Spirit, this society of continued apostles, or in other words, the Holy Catholic Church in every age, has proved by the evidence of actual miracles her possession of this gift presented to her by her Divine Founder.”
SPIRITUAL POWERS AND PROPERTIES OF THE CHURCH.
t is allowed on all hands by Catholic Christians that liberty has been sometimes permitted to the devil or his angels to enter into the bodies of men (just as of old Satan was allowed to try the patriarch Job), and to obtain such an absolute command over their powers and faculties as to incapacitate them, more or less, for any of the common duties of life. On this point, those who accept the Written Word of God as a portion, and a very important portion, of His Divine Revelation to mankind, through Christ, can have no doubt. In the New Testament, numerous instances of possession by evil spirits are recorded.
The case of the daughter of the woman of Canaan, who cried out to our Blessed Saviour, “Have mercy upon me, O Lord, Thou Son of David, my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil,”[35] and obtained from Him the gracious and merciful reply, “Be it unto thee even as thou wilt,” is familiar to all.
So likewise is that of the man with an unclean spirit, recorded in the first chapter of the Gospel according to S. Mark. Here the spirit acknowledging that Christ was the “Holy One of God,” received the rebuke of Jesus Christ. “And when the unclean spirit had torn” the man suffering, “and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him. And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? What new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth He even the unclean spirits, and they do obey Him.”
Again we read, “Unclean spirits, when they saw Him, fell down before Him, and cried saying, Thou art the Son of God.”[36] And when His apostles were called and formally ordained, it is written that they were “to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils,” power which in due course both the Gospels and the recorded History of the Church assure us was duly exercised.
Another miraculous intervention, by which our Blessed Saviour manifested His divine power over evil spirits, and freed suffering men from their frightful influence, is here given from S. Mark’s Gospel at length: “When He was come out of the ship, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no not with chains: because that he had often been bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And always, day and night, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped Him, and cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of the Most High God? I adjure Thee by God that Thou torment me not. For He said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And He asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion, for we are many. And he besought Him much that He would not send him away out of the country. Now there was nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought Him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter unto them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine; and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea (they were about two thousand), and were choked in the sea. And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. And they came to Jesus, and see him that was possessed of the devil, and had the legion, sitting and clothed and in his right mind.”[37]
With these solemn and awful facts before us, it is impossible to doubt either of the power or influence of the devil and his angels. That such power had been known amongst the ancient nations, and that certain persons had entered into compacts or alliances with evil spirits, seems to be generally admitted. And although the fact of the Incarnation had sorely crippled the influence of the enemy of souls, it is clear from the last promise given by our Lord to His apostles, “In My Name they shall cast out devils,” that such authority and action would still be needed. For possessions were not to cease, as a reference to the Acts of the Apostles shows: where it is recorded that the very authority bestowed by our Blessed Saviour was actually and efficiently exercised; and there is no reasonable evidence to show that such divinely-bestowed powers have ever ceased. All through the History of the Church, here and there, from time to time, as man needed and as God willed, such direct supernatural powers as those referred to, appear to have been put into operation. For the Church can bless and the Church can curse. The Church can bind and can loose. She can commend to the protection of God Almighty and His holy angels, and she can deliver over to Satan. She can bestow light and peace on her true and faithful children, and send out the disobedient and impenitent beyond the consecrated confines of her spiritual powers and graces. As effects of Christ’s most gracious promise, such ordinary and extraordinary works were wrought; for the glory of His great Name, and as a testimony of the truth of the Church Universal.
For generations, up to the very earliest age of Christianity, there have been officers of the Church duly set apart and ordained for the particular work of exorcism. Amongst the minor orders of Western Christendom the exorcist has always found a place; and although, in later years, this special work, when undertaken, has been more frequently done by persons in the higher or sacred orders, yet the very office itself, and its title, as well as the existing forms for casting out evil spirits, abundantly attest the Church’s divine and spiritual powers.
In countries which are specially and eminently Christian, where churches, sanctuaries, and religious houses are numerous; where, by the road-side and on the hill-top, stand the signs and symbols of the Faith of Christendom; where the Sacrament of Baptism is shed upon so many; where post-baptismal sin is remitted by those who have authority and jurisdiction to bind and loose in the Name of their Master; and where the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, God manifest in the Flesh, reposing in the tabernacle, or borne in triumph through aisle and street and garden, hallows and feeds the faithful—there the power and influence of the Evil One is circumscribed and weakened. Sacred oil for unction, and holy water and the life-giving power of the Cross, and the relics of the beatified as well as of the favoured and crowned servants of the Crucified, make the devils flee away, and efficiently curb their power. Hence it is found that in countries where the Catholic Faith has been halved or rejected, Superstition has taken the place of the first theological virtue, Faith; and the Prince of the Powers of the air comes back again with his evil and malignant spirits to vex mankind anew,[38] and mar and stay the final triumph of Him to Whom all power is given in heaven and in earth.
A remarkable case of the Supernatural will here be put on record, which occurred in the diocese of Exeter during the seventeenth century. Preliminary inquiries and comments concerning the various incidents would be obviously out of place; for the well-authenticated story itself is unfolded with a simplicity and yet with a power which efficiently serve to stamp it as true.
“About 152 years since,” writes Mr. Fortescue Hitchins, in his “History of Cornwall,” “a ghost is said to have made its appearance in this parish[39] (Little Petherick[40]), in a field about half a mile from Botaden or Botathen (in that county). In the narrative which is given of this occurrence, it is said to have been seen by a son of Mr. Bligh, aged about sixteen, by his father and mother, and by the Rev. John Ruddle, master of the grammar school of Launceston, and one of the prebendaries of Exeter, and vicar of Alternon. The relation given by Mr. Ruddle is in substance as follows:—
“Young Mr. Bligh, a lad of bright parts and of no common attainments, became on a sudden pensive, dejected, and melancholy. His friends observing the change, without being able to discover the cause, attributed his behaviour to laziness—an aversion to school—or to some other motive which they suspected he was ashamed to discover. He was, however, induced after some time to inform his brother that in a field through which he passed to and from school he was invariably met by the apparition of a woman whom he personally knew while living, and who had been dead about eight years. Ridicule, threats, and persuasions were alike used in vain by the family to induce him to dismiss these absurd ideas. Mr. Ruddle was however sent for, to whom the lad ingenuously communicated the time, manner, and frequency of this appearance. It was in a field called ‘Higher Bloomfield.’ The apparition, he said, appeared dressed in female attire, met him two or three times while he passed through the field, glided hastily by him, but never spoke. He had thus been occasionally met about two months before he took any particular notice of it: at length the appearance became more frequent, meeting him both morning and evening, but always in the same field, yet invariably moving out of the path when it came close by him. He often spoke, but could never get any reply. To avoid this unwelcome visitor he forsook the field, and went to school and returned from it through a lane, in which place between the quarry-park and nursery it always met him.
“Unable to disbelieve the evidence of his senses, or to obtain credit with any of his family, he prevailed upon Mr. Ruddle to accompany him to the place. ‘I arose,’ says this clergyman, ‘the next morning, and went with him. The field to which he led me I guessed to be about twenty acres, in an open country, and about three furlongs from any house. We went into the field, and had not gone a third part before the spectrum, in the shape of a woman, with all the circumstances that he had described the day before, so far as the suddenness of its appearance and transition would permit me to discover, passed by.
“‘I was a little impressed at it, and, though I had taken up a firm resolution to speak to it, I had not the power, nor durst I look back; yet I took care not to show any fear to my pupil and guide; and therefore, telling him that I was satisfied in the truth of his statement, we walked to the end of the field, and returned: nor did the ghost meet us that time but once.
“‘On the 27th July, I went to the haunted field by myself, and walked the breadth of it without any encounter. I then returned, and took the other walk, and then the spectre appeared to me, when about the same place in which I saw it when the young gentleman was with me. It appeared to move swifter than before, and seemed to me about ten feet from me on my right hand, insomuch that I had not time to speak to it as I had determined with myself beforehand. The evening of this day the parents, the son, and myself being in the chamber where I lay, I proposed to them our going to the place next morning; we accordingly met at the stile we had appointed; thence we all four walked into the field together. We had not gone more than half the field before the ghost made its appearance. It then came over the stile just before us, and moved with such rapidity, that by the time it had gone six or seven steps, it passed by. I immediately turned my head and ran after it, with the young man by my side. We saw it pass over the stile at which we entered, and no farther. I stepped upon the hedge at one place, and the young man at another, but we could discern nothing; whereas I do aver that the swiftest horse in England could not have conveyed himself out of sight in that short space of time. Two things I observed in this day’s appearance; first a spaniel dog, which had followed the company unregarded, barked and ran away as the spectrum passed by: whence it is easy to conclude that it was not our fear and fancy which made the apparition; secondly the motion of the spectrum was not gradatim or by steps, or moving of the feet, but by a kind of gliding, as children upon ice, or as a boat down a river, which practically answers the description the ancients give of the motion of these lemures. This ocular evidence clearly convinced, but withal strangely affrighted, the old gentleman and his wife. They all knew this woman, Dorothy Durant, in her lifetime; were at her burial: and now plainly saw her features in this apparition.
“‘The next morning being Thursday, I went very early by myself, and walked for about one hour’s space in meditation and prayer, in the field next adjoining. Soon after five I stepped over the stile into the haunted field, and had not gone above thirty or forty paces before the ghost appeared at the further stile. I spoke to it in some short sentences, with a loud voice, whereupon it approached me but slowly, and, when I came near, it moved not. I spoke again, and it answered in a voice neither audible nor very intelligible. I was not in the least terrified, and thereupon persisted until it spoke again, and gave me satisfaction; but the work could not be finished at this time. Whereupon the same evening, an hour after sunset, it met me again near the same place, and after a few words on each side it quietly vanished, and neither doth appear now, nor hath appeared since, nor ever will move to any man’s disturbance. The discourse in the morning lasted about a quarter of an hour.
“‘These things are true, and I know them to be so, with as much certainty as eyes and ears can give me; and until I can be persuaded that my senses all deceive me about their proper objects, and by that persuasion deprive myself of the strongest inducement to believe in Christian Religion, I must and will assert that the things contained in this paper are true. As for the manner of my proceeding, I have no reason to be ashamed of it. I can justify it to men of good principles, discretion, and recondite learning, though in this case I chose to content myself in the assurance of the thing, rather than be at the unprofitable trouble to persuade others to believe it, for I know full well with what difficulty relations of so uncommon a nature and practice obtain belief.’”
So much as regards the record of the appearance found in the volume already referred to.
The following extract from Mr. Ruddle’s MS. Diary, was taken by the Rev. R. S. Hawker, M.A., vicar of Morwenstow, the accomplished and well-known Christian poet, and appears in his interesting “Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall” (London, 1870), and still further amplifies and illustrates this story, the practical and eventual issue of which is now to be recorded:—
“January 7, 1665. At my own house I find by my books what is expedient to be done; and then Apage Sathanas!
“January 9, 1665. This day I took leave of my wife and family, under pretext of engagements elsewhere, and made my secret journey to our diocesan city, wherein the good and venerable bishop then abode.[41]
“January 10. ‘Deo gratias,’ in safe arrival at Exeter: craved and obtained immediate audience of his lordship; pleading it was for counsel and admonition on a weighty and pressing cause. Called to the presence; made obeisance; and then, by command, stated my case, the Botathen perplexity—which I moved with strong and earnest instances and solemn asseverations of that which I had myself seen and heard. Demanded by his lordship, what was the succour that I had come to entreat at his hands? Replied, license for my exorcism, that so I might, ministerially, allay this spiritual visitant, and thus render to the living and the dead release from this surprise.
“‘But,’ said our bishop, ‘on what authority do you allege that I am entrusted with faculty so to do? Our Church, as is well known, hath abjured certain branches of her ancient power, on grounds of perversion and abuse.’
“‘Nay, my Lord,’ I humbly answered, ‘under favour, the seventy-second of the Canons[42] ratified and enjoined on us, the clergy, Anno Domini 1604, doth expressly provide that No minister, unless he hath the license of his diocesan bishop, shall essay to exorcise a spirit, evil or good. Therefore it was,’ I did here mildly allege, ‘that I did not presume to enter on such a work without lawful privilege under your lordship’s hand and seal.’
“Hereupon did our wise and learned bishop, sitting in his chair, condescend upon the theme at some length, with many gracious interpretations from ancient writers and from Holy Scripture, and did humbly rejoin and reply; till the upshot was that he did call in his secretary and command him to draw the aforesaid faculty forthwith and without further delay, assigning him a form, insomuch that the matter was incontinently done, and after I had disbursed into the secretary’s hands certain moneys, for signitary purposes, as the manner of such officers hath always been, the Bishop did himself affix his signature under the sigillum of his see, and deliver the document into my hands.
“When I knelt down to receive his benediction, he softly said, ‘Let it be secret, Mr. Rudall,—weak brethren! weak brethren!’”
Some details from the same Diary as to the exact manner in which the ghost was laid give an additional interest to the narrative.
“January 12th, 1665. Rode into the gateway of Botathen, armed at all points, but not with Saul’s armour, and ready. There is danger from the demons, but so there is in the surrounding air every day. At early morning then and alone, for so the usage ordains, I betook me towards the field. It was void, and I had thereby due time to prepare. First I paced and measured out my circle on the grass. Then did I mark my pentacle in the very midst, and at the intersection of the five angles I did set up and fix my crutch of raun [rowan]. Lastly I took my station south, at the true line of the meridian, and stood facing due north. I waited and watched for a long time. At last there was a kind of trouble in the air, a soft and rippling sound, and all at once the shape appeared, and came on towards me gradually. I opened my parchment scroll, and read aloud the command. She paused and seemed to waver and doubt; stood still: and then I rehearsed the sentence again, sounding out every syllable like a chant. She drew near my ring, but halted at first outside, on the brink. I sounded again, and now at the third time I gave the signal in Syriac—the speech which is used, they say, where such ones dwell and converse in thoughts that glide.
“She was at last obedient and swam into the midst of the circle: and there stood still suddenly. I saw, moreover, that she drew back her pointing hand. All this while I do confess that my knees shook under me, and the drops of sweat ran down my flesh like rain. But now, although face to face with the spirit, my heart grew calm and my mind composed, to know that the pentacle would govern her, and the ring must bind until I gave the word. Then I called to mind the rule laid down of old that no angel or fiend, no spirit, good or evil, will ever speak until they be spoken to. N.B.—This is the great law of prayer. God Himself will not yield reply until man hath made vocal entreaty once and again. So I went on to demand, as the books advise; and the phantom made answer willingly. Questioned, wherefore not at rest? Unquiet because of a certain sin. Asked what and by whom? Revealed it; but it is sub sigillo, and therefore nefas dictu; more anon. Inquired, what sign she could give me that she was a true spirit and not a false fiend? Stated [that] before next Yule-tide a fearful pestilence would lay waste the land;[43] and myriads of souls would be loosened from their flesh, until, as she piteously said, ‘Our valleys will be full.’ Asked again, why she so terrified the lad? Replied, ‘It is the law; we must seek a youth or a maiden of clean life, and under age, to receive messages and admonitions.’ We conversed with many more words; but it is not lawful for me to set them down. Pen and ink would degrade and defile the thoughts she uttered, and which my mind received that day. I broke the ring and she passed, but to return once more next day. At evensong a long discourse with that ancient transgressor, Mr. B——. Great horror and remorse; entire atonement and penance; whatsoever I enjoin; full acknowledgment before pardon.
“January 13, 1665. At sunrise I was again in the field. She came in at once, and, as it seemed, with freedom. Inquired if she knew my thoughts, and what I was going to relate? Answered, ‘Nay, we only know what we perceive and hear: we cannot see the heart.’ Then I rehearsed the penitent words of the man she had come up to denounce, and the satisfaction he would perform. Then said she, ‘Peace in our midst.’ I went through the proper forms of dismissal, and fulfilled all, as it was set down and written in my memoranda; and then with certain fixed rites, I did dismiss that troubled ghost, until she peacefully withdrew, gliding towards the west. Neither did she ever afterwards appear; but was allayed, until she shall come in her second flesh, to the Valley of Armageddon on the Last Day.”
Another example, giving with singular power and effect a very striking Glimpse of the Supernatural, from the experiences of a venerated and exemplary Roman Catholic clergyman, the late Rev. Edward Peach, of S. Chad’s, Birmingham, is here given at length. The events narrated occurred in the year 1815, and Mr. Peach deliberately affirmed of the following account that it “may be relied on in every particular as being strictly true.” “I,” he continues, in a formal record of the successful exorcism, “was the minister of God employed on the occasion; and truth is more to me than all the boastings of pride and vain glory.”
The authentic record stands as follows:—
“Some time after Easter, in the year 1815, I was informed that a young married woman of the name of White, in the parish of King’s Norton, Worcestershire, a Protestant, was afflicted with an extraordinary kind of illness, and that her relations, who occupied a small farm, were convinced that her illness arose solely from the malice of a rejected admirer, who, they said, had employed the assistance of a reputed wizard at Dudley to do her a mischief. These were their terms. I paid but little attention to this story. Afterwards I was informed by a sister who frequents our markets, and supplies with butter a respectable family of my congregation, Mr. Powell, Suffolk Street, that the young woman was married in the beginning of the preceding Lent; that her former admirer repeatedly declared that, if she did marry any other, she should never have another happy day; that the day after her marriage she was seized with an extraordinary kind of mental complaint; that she became suddenly delirious; that she raved, and declared that a multitude of infernal spirits surrounded her; that they threatened to carry her away; that she must go with them. The poor sister informed my friend, with tears streaming down her cheeks, that she continued in that state, day and night, for nearly two months, and that the whole family were almost exhausted with the fatigue of constantly attending her, for, she said, they could not leave her alone, lest she should put her threats of destroying herself into execution.
“At the end of about two months, according to the relation of the same sister, the poor creature was so spent that her medical attendant (who, during the whole time of his attendance, declared that her illness arose more from a mental than corporeal cause,) declared that, in all probability, she could not survive four-and-twenty hours. The clergyman of the parish was called in to assist her in her last moments; but he found her in a state not to be benefited by his assistance, and he departed.
“Amongst the neighbours who came to make a tender of their good offices for the relief of the afflicted family was a Catholic woman. Her offers were accepted, and she was frequently with her. Finding her reduced almost to a state of inanition, and hearing her speak of these infernal spirits every time she opened her lips, the thought came into her mind of applying to her some holy water. She accordingly procured some, dipped her finger into it, and made the sign of the cross upon her forehead. Instantly the poor sufferer started, and, in a faint voice, exclaimed, ‘You have scalded me.’ However, she leaned upon the bosom of her attendant, and, what she had not done for a considerable time before, she fell into a gentle sleep. On awaking, she continued to hold the same language as before. The Catholic put a little holy water into her mouth. But the very instant it entered her mouth she seemed to be in a state of suffocation. She and the others who were with her were alarmed, and expected that every instant would be her last. In a short time, however, she swallowed it, and after many convulsive struggles she regained her breath, and exclaimed with violence, ‘You have scalded my throat, you have scalded my throat.’ In a few minutes she fell again into a comfortable sleep, and continued so for some hours. The next morning she appeared refreshed, and spoke reasonably for a short time. Being informed of what had been applied to her, she seemed to wish for more. The swallowing was attended with the same sensation of scalding, and the same convulsive struggles as before; but it seemed to give her ease. From that time the danger of death seemed to decrease by degrees. She enjoyed lucid intervals from time to time; and invariably after the application of holy water, although attended with the same sensations as before, she fell into a slumber.
“One remarkable circumstance deserves notice. In one of her paroxysms, she insisted on getting up, and going out of doors. She said that there was a large snake in front of the house, that she would go and kill it, and then one of her enemies would be removed. Nothing would satisfy her, till this same sister, who gave the account, assured her that she would go down and kill it. She went down, and, to her great astonishment, found a large snake, and succeeded in destroying it.
“This in substance is the account which the sister gave of Mrs. White’s extraordinary illness. At the same time it was asked whether I could be of any assistance to her, or whether it was probable that I could be prevailed on to go and see her? My friend who related to me the whole of the above account, asked me to go. I replied that I knew nothing of them, nor they of me; but that if she would walk over, and examine into the state of the poor woman, I would go, if there appeared to her to be any probability of my being of service. She went, and, on her return, she informed me that all she had heard seemed to be true, and assured me that all the family were desirous of seeing me, and particularly the young woman herself.
“However, I still delayed, till at length, on Tuesday in Rogation Week, May 2nd, 1815, a special messenger came over to inform me that Mrs. White was in a worse state than ever, and to request me to go and see her without delay.
“I obeyed the call, and I may say with truth that it was the most awful visit I ever made during the whole course of my ministry. The distance was about six miles. No sooner had I cleared the skirts of the town than I heard the distant thunder before me. Before I had proceeded two miles, the storm was nearly over my head; and I may say the remainder of my walk, and during the time I was with her, there was hardly cessation of one minute between the claps of thunder. I do not say that in this there was anything supernatural, but, knowing the business I was upon, it was truly awful.
“When I arrived at the house, I was informed that she was in a dreadful state, and that the strength of two persons was necessary to keep her in bed. I went up-stairs, and on entering into the room, before she saw me, the curtains being drawn on the side where I entered, she turned to the other side of the bed, and struggled so violently to get away that it was with difficulty that her husband and two women overpowered her. In a few minutes, before she had lifted up her eyes to see me (for she had turned her face downwards) she stretched out her hand to me, in a convulsive manner, and fell speechless and spent upon her back.
“After a time she opened her eyes, and in a faint whisper, answered a question that was put to her, and said she knew who I was. She revived by degrees, and in a short time could speak in an audible voice. Her friends having requested me to try if I could discover what it was that weighed most upon her mind, for they said they had tried to no purpose, I requested them to withdraw. Being alone, she related to me, as far as she could recollect, the circumstances of her illness, and I found that they corresponded exactly with the accounts given by her sister. I questioned her as to the cause, but I could not discover that it was owing to anything weighing heavy on her mind. She was positive, she said, that it was the young man who had done her a mischief.
“I then proceeded to explain to her some of the articles of the Catholic Faith. She listened with every attention; and when I assured her that she must believe the Holy Catholic Church before she could obtain relief, she, without hesitation, declared that she did believe, and that she believed from the moment she knew what holy water was, and experienced its effects. From the time it was first applied, she said that the devils seemed to keep at a greater distance from her, and that the number seemed to be diminished.
“Such were the ideas on her mind at the time. She was convinced, she said, that it was not the effect of imagination—that she was not delirious—that she knew everything that was said to her, and that she could recollect everything that had passed. I asked her to tell me where the holy water was. Her voice immediately faltered; and with every endeavour, I perceived that she could not point out with her finger, nor tell me by words where it was. She was like an infant attempting to point out an object.
“I looked about and found it. I dipped my finger into it, and made the sign of the cross on her forehead. She started as soon as I touched her, and was a little convulsed. I asked her what was the matter. For a few moments she could not articulate; but as soon as she could speak, she said that it scalded her.
“After a little more conversation, I desired her to join with me in repeating the Lord’s Prayer. She consented, and without difficulty repeated the first words. But when we came to the petitions, her voice faltered; she was labouring for breath, and appeared to be almost suffocated: her countenance and limbs were convulsed. The greatest stammerer could not find greater difficulty in pronouncing words than she did in pronouncing every word of the petitions. At one time I was inclined to desist, thinking that it was impossible for her to finish it; but we laboured on, and at length came to the end.
“After a short pause, she again began to converse with a free voice, without the least faltering. I explained to her the nature of exorcisms, and proposed to read them over her. She consented, and said that she would endeavour to offer up her prayers to God during the time in the best manner she could. As soon as I began the exorcisms, she fell into a state of convulsive agitation, not indeed endeavouring to get away; but every limb, every joint seemed to be agitated and convulsed, even her countenance was distorted,—it required constant attention to keep her covered.
“Now it was that I felt in a particular manner the awful situation in which I was. All alone with a person in a distressed condition,—the lightning flashing, the thunder rolling, and I with an imperative voice commanding the evil spirit to reply to my interrogatories, and to go forth from her. I acknowledge that my flesh began to creep and my hair to stand on end. However, I proceeded on till I came to the conclusion, and nothing happened except the violent agitation of the poor sufferer, which continued uninterrupted during the whole time.
“After I had finished, she became calm, and in a few minutes began to converse with me with the same ease as before. Among other things, I asked her whether she had felt any particular sensations during the time that I was coming to see her? She said that during the whole afternoon she had felt the most determined resolution to destroy herself; that she employed every means to induce her friends to leave the room, or to make her escape from them; and that if she had succeeded, she would have laid violent hands on herself the moment she was at liberty. I explained to her the nature of baptism, the necessity of receiving it, and the effects produced by it.
“During the course of our conversation, discovering that there were strong reasons to doubt whether she had been baptized at all, or whether the essential rites had been observed in her baptism, I conceived that it would be advisable to re-baptize her conditionally. I proposed it, and she readily consented. I gave her what instructions were necessary, and repeated several acts of contrition. Finding her in dispositions the most satisfactory, I made use of the holy water, and baptized her, subject to the condition, if she was not baptized. During the time she trembled like a leaf, and the features of her countenance were distorted, like those of a person in acute pain. Upon my putting the question to her, she replied as she did before, that it gave her as much pain as if boiling water had been poured over her.
“Immediately after the ceremony was concluded, she began to speak to me with all the cheerfulness of a person in perfect health and spirits. We conversed together for a few minutes, and I took my leave, promising to see her again the next day. Her sister went to her, and her first request was that she might have a cup of tea and something to eat; and before I left the house, she eat and drank as she had done before her affliction. I went to see her the next day, and found her down-stairs in perfect health; at least, no effects of her illness were perceptible, except a weakness of body. From that time to this, she has enjoyed good health, and not the least symptom of her former complaint has been felt. It is more than a twelvemonth since.”
A second example of successful exorcism, now to be narrated, is from the pen of an eminent and well-known clergyman[44] of the Church of England, whose literary labours in the early part of the Oxford movement, were recognized and rewarded by high authority in the English Church. Only a slight verbal alteration here and there to make the narrative of itself quite intelligible, has been made by the Editor.
“The subject is almost too sacred for pen; and I only put it on record to show the goodness of God, and to indicate that His powers are not withdrawn, nor His Arm shortened. It is some years, however, since the event to be related happened; and the subject of it has long gone to his last account. I must scrupulously refrain from any indication of place and person; though, in these latter days of rude and coarse unbelief, when such interpositions of the Almighty’s mercy are laughed to scorn, some may find comfort and edification from its recital.
“The son of a farmer, who had just come of age, having heard a sermon of mine, which I had preached some five years previously, came a distance of more than thirty miles to seek at my hands ghostly counsel. From his childhood he had been led to indulge in breaches of the seventh commandment, and these after a while were certainly of a heinous character. He believed himself (when I saw him) to be possessed by an unclean spirit. Wherever he went, he asserted that he saw a hideous black figure, darkly draped, with a form like a man, but with the face of a beast, sitting opposite to, huddled up, and staring at him. It would appear for weeks together, at home, abroad, in his sleeping-room, in the field, in the market. Sometimes he would throw himself on to the floor in an agony of distraction, and pray God that it might be removed. For a short term he would cease to see it. But in due course it reappeared. And at last (an event which had never happened hitherto,) it would likewise haunt him in dreams. On one occasion he declared that it seemed to elongate itself into a long serpent-like figure, and, as he asserted, tried to creep down his throat. But wherever he went he almost always saw it. Thinking it might be the result of bodily ailment he consulted a physician; but with no effect.
“I am free to say that I was not long in coming to a conclusion, that it was a case of possession; though I did not arrive at that conclusion until I had taken counsel from one of the most pious and holy clergymen I ever knew,[45] and had commended the subject to God Almighty in very earnest prayer.
“The result was that I unfolded to the subject of this apparition my intention, with God’s help, and his own sanction, to cast out the spirit, according to the old rule and custom of Holy Church. Prior to this he made a full and frank confession of his whole life, and resolved by God’s help to amend. Having made an appointment, a fortnight hence, with him, and being resolved to consecrate my proposed act, by special deeds of fasting, self-denial, and prayer, I was alarmed to hear, by letter, of his most serious illness a few days later. His relations asserted that he was suffering from epilepsy, and that the fits were rapid and most severe.
“The following day, taking with me a book containing an authorized form of exorcism, I went to see the sick man. His sufferings seemed to be excruciating: his fits shocking to witness. At a half-lucid interval he saw me; and, starting from his bed, tried to throw himself out of the window. When he was calmer, I knelt down and prayed for him with his relations; making several times an act of Faith.
“Then signing him with the cross on forehead, mouth, and breast, I began the authorized form. During this, his fits returned; and his violence and ravings were terrible to witness. Throughout I felt sustained in my action by a Higher Power, and completed my task in the Name of the Adorable and Ever-Blessed Trinity. Here he sank into a deep sleep; and this sleep proved to be the beginning of a complete change for the better. The fits ceased, the body was no longer tortured with writhings; and, as I heard from him afterwards, the hideous vision or apparition vanished, and was never seen again. A few years afterwards he died, as I believe in grace; and, as I commended his soul to God, so I committed his body to the dust; and have always looked upon this remarkable event as a token, to myself most unworthy, of the Almighty’s power and Presence amongst us, as well as of His exceeding great mercy and goodness to this poor sufferer.”
Another remarkable instance of the active and energizing powers of the Church of God, unimpaired and uncrippled, may be gathered from the record which follows of the sudden and effectual cure of Françoise-Geneviève-Philippe, which took place in the church of the Carmelites of Pontoise on the 16th of July, 1784, upon the Festival of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The record below is a literal translation of the formal act and deed of the person cured:—
“I, the undersigned Françoise-Geneviève-Philippe, called in religion ‘Sister Josephine-Mary of the Incarnation,’ aged thirty years, declare that my health being disordered at Pontoise, where I resided with the Ursuline Dames for eleven years, I was advised to make a change of air; I consequently withdrew to the Dames of the Congregation of Trouvelle-les-Vernon, where I entered on the 16th of February, 1782. My health continued bad in consequence of the frequent attacks of hæmorrhage to which I became subject.
“On the 29th of December following I was seized with a violent headache, beginning with a swoon, which lasted more than two hours, and with a frightful hæmorrhage. Suitable remedies were instantly administered to me by skilful physicians, but in vain; and after this I was attacked with convulsions, and the entire suspension of all motion in my body.
“Different consultations were held at Paris; MM. Fumé and Petit sent me prescriptions which produced no effect. This sickness continued until the 13th of May, 1783, when I was removed into the town of my uncle’s. All these facts have been attested by the physicians and surgeons of Vernon, by the testimony of M. Atadie, physician to his Serene Highness the Duke of Penthievre, and of M. le Noble, physician, who had employed magnetism, but without effect. These certificates, duly legalized by M. le Lieutenant-Général of the same town, attest that my disorder was deemed so violent and incurable to the period when I decided upon returning to Pontoise, hoping to recover my health by the means which it might please God to employ. I arrived there on the 5th of August, 1783; from that time my condition was precisely the same, namely habitual convulsions. I was deprived of the use of my limbs, particularly of my right arm, in which the convulsions were so violent that it was found necessary to fix and tie it with a bandage. The left was not much better, for on merely touching it, or on a change of weather, it experienced similar convulsions. Added to this I was attacked violently with gout, which I felt all over my body, but especially in my head and the extremities of my fingers. I was subject to pains in my breast and stomach, so severe as to occasion me to spit blood and to vomit up even the most liquid of my food. Sleep, of which I had in general but little till this period, now became, as it were, a stranger to me. My voice was for a month or six weeks almost extinct, and there was not a part of my body which was not in a state of suffering; the least noise became almost insupportable.
“It is moreover to be remarked, that I never discovered, although always valetudinary, what could be capable of occasioning such a malady. This is a testimony I offer to truth. The persons who could not be ignorant of what concerned their patient have made the same depositions.[46]
“Such was my condition when they were proceeding at Pontoise, by order of the Holy See, in the process of the beatification of the servant of God, Marie de l’Incarnation, whose name in the world was Madame Acarie, foundress of the Carmelites in France, who, having edified the World by the virtues which characterize great souls, and consecrated at Carmel three of her daughters, herself embraced this holy state under the humble quality of converse-sister in the Convent of Carmelites at Amiens, and died at that of Pontoise in the odour of sanctity on the 18th of April, 1618, aged fifty-two years.
“The fame of this process revived my faith. I made a Novena to her, in which the Carmelites, as well as many other pious persons, united. I not only, during this Novena, took no medicines, but I told my physician: ‘Perhaps, sir, you will smile at me when I tell you that I am performing a Novena to the venerable Sister Marie de l’Incarnation, and that I hope to-morrow to be taken to her tomb!’ ‘I commend your piety,’ said he, ‘to make a Novena to that blessed person, but I do not equally commend the step which you propose to take; I fear that none but bad consequences will result from it.’ I replied, as I had done to many other of my friends, ‘that I had the firmest confidence of a cure.’
“I persevered constantly in this moral and physical disposition until the moment when I was carried in a sedan chair into the church of the Carmelites. I was brought there at five o’clock in the morning. I heard mass, and communicated without quitting my chair. Towards the moment of elevation I felt severe pains throughout my whole frame, and seemed to myself to be in such a state of weakness that I then thought if I were to be communicated it would have been for the last time. A cold sweat spread itself at that time over my whole body. The priest who gave me the Holy Sacrament noticed that I was so weak that I could not hold the cloth upon my knees. He was so much afraid from the paleness of my countenance and the alteration he perceived in me, that in fear of some accident he put the sacred ciborium almost close to my lips.
“Finding me in this painful state, which announced rather a speedy dissolution than a cure, I formed acts of submission to the Will of God. I begged Him to accept the sacrifice of my life; I also thrice made the prayer of the blind man, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me;’ the while interiorly, having lost my power of articulation. I remained in that state till the end of the mass, and finding my strength recovering I called my nurse, and begged her to go and see if the chapel in which the precious remains of the Venerable Sister Marie de l’Incarnation were deposited was open, having the design to be carried there. But O bounty and mercy of the Lord! at the very moment the people were preparing I quitted the chair myself; my nurse came hastily upon me to stop me, imagining that this movement was a last effort of nature. I corrected her, saying that I thanked her, but that thanks be to God! I had no need of her help, and instantly after, on the steps of the altar, returned thanks after communion; for I did not as yet perceive the change that was made in me. I was not sensible of it till after having made my thanksgiving, which was near a quarter of an hour after. I then raised myself from the ground filled with joy and consolation, finding I had recovered the use of my limbs; my breast and stomach at ease and devoid of pain, enjoying tranquillity altogether wonderful. I first ascended the seven steps of the altar; and then went to the grate of the choir and thanked the community for the prayers that they had the goodness to offer up for me; requesting them to add still further their thanks to mine. I then turned towards the Blessed Sacrament, where I remained on my knees on the ground without any support during the period of three masses, which were said in succession. I afterwards heard high mass, and assisted at the entire Office of the Day, without the noise of chaunting, of the instruments, nor the great concourse of people, occasioning me the slightest inconvenience. Although I had to answer in the course of the day to more than four thousand persons attracted by the novelty of the circumstance to the church of the Carmelites, on the afternoon of the same day I went on foot to visit the Ursuline Dames.
“Done at Compiègne on the 12th of Feb. 1792.
(Signed) “Françoise-Geneviève-Philippe,
“Called in religion ‘Sr. Josephine of the Incarnation,’ Religious Carmelite of the Monastery of the City of Compiègne, in which I had the happiness to enter on the 20th of December, 1786, and to pronounce my holy and inviolable engagements on the 22nd of July, 1788.”
Another point bearing very directly on the subject of this chapter here suggests itself for some brief consideration:—
Deeds of benediction have been so universally recognized in history, that it may be credibly maintained that the custom originated in the earliest ages of the World’s existence, either by a direct revelation from Heaven or by the most elementary religious instinct of the immediate descendants of our first parents. The heads of tribes, after the Flood, blessed their children and followers. And, when the Patriarchal dispensation drew towards its close, the power of blessing was exercised by the leaders and chiefs of God’s chosen people. Proof of all this is on record in the Sacred Writings. He, therefore, who runs may read. And we may gather from the same source that a form of blessing was attached to the priest’s office;[47] and that such blessing was efficient. All this is of course taken for granted under the Christian dispensation; and it is evident that the various forms of sacerdotal benediction are true means of bestowing the Divine blessing and grace: and this, because of the salient principle that the Fall of man from original righteousness, having effected a loss of union with God Almighty, salvation is the renewal of that union by and through Jesus Christ and His Church. Now, a Blessing, in the Name of God, is bestowed by a superior upon an inferior.[48] Thus a bishop gives his benediction to a priest, deacon, or layman; a priest to a layman; a father or head of a family to a son or an inferior member of that same family; a patriarch or chieftain to his tribe, or to any member of it. The blessing of God is a great and mighty gift of grace, and has always been intimately conjoined with the offering of sacrifice, and so particularly and specifically with the offering of the Christian sacrifice, as also with and by a benediction, some of the most solemn services of Holy Church have been brought to an end.
Of course, if there be a power to bless, there is, as has already been pointed out, likewise a power to curse. Neither blessing nor curse may be absolute in their effect, and all acts and deeds are done under God, or with the permission of the Almighty. Of the results respectively of blessings or curses we know but little. But the glimpses which History, Revealed Religion, and Experience alike afford of those results are full of interest, and are subjects for contemplation and study. Here, as in the consideration of similar details, concerning the Supernatural, the Church Universal should be our guide. Where she leads we should go: where she directs we should follow.
As bearing on this subject, it may be suitably pointed out that Mr. Robert Southey in his “Common-Place Book” puts on record a very remarkable story of “citation” by a man unjustly and cruelly murdered:—
“The Philipsons of Colgarth coveted a field like Ahab, and had the possessor hung for an offence which he had not committed. The night before his execution the old man (for he was very old) read the 109th Psalm as his solemn and dying commination, verses 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16.” The verses contain a prayer for vengeance upon “the wicked and deceitful, who have spoken with a lying tongue,” and whose days are to be few, and their children to be fatherless, their descendants continually vagabonds and beggars, and their posterity to be cut off. “The curse,” Southey adds, “was fully accomplished; the family were cut off, and the only daughter who remained sold laces and bobbins about the country.”
Two remarkable and, as may be well believed, supernatural events occurred (which may be fittingly recorded here) with regard to the cruel and shameful death of Edmund Arrowsmith, a Roman Catholic priest of the county of Lancaster, in the year 1628. He was born at Haddock in the parish of Winwick, five miles from Warrington and seven from Wigan. His father was Robert Arrowsmith, a yeoman, and his mother Margaret Gerard, of the ancient and noble family of that name. His immediate ancestors had suffered much for their religion. Edmund, their son, having been received into the College at Douay in 1605, was eventually ordained priest at Arras on December 9th, 1612. A year afterwards he was sent to England to minister to his fellow religionists. One of his flock being exasperated against him because he refused to marry him to his first cousin and had rebuked him for evil-living, informed against him to the vigilant authorities; and Arrowsmith, being apprehended, was sent to Lancaster Castle, “for not having taken the oaths, and upon vehement suspicion that he was a priest and a jesuit.” The judge on circuit was Sir Henry Yelverton.
“Are you a priest, sir?” asked the judge, when the accused person was brought before him.
Arrowsmith, signing himself with the cross, replied, “My lord, I would to God I were worthy.”
On the judge repeating the question Arrowsmith replied coolly, “I would I were.”
When the accused, in reply to a minister on the bench, suggested a disputation regarding religion, and claimed to defend his Faith, the judge silenced him at once, and declared that he would not allow him to make any defence at all.
“I am ready, my lord, bear in mind,” replied Arrowsmith, “not only to defend it in words, but in deeds, and to seal it with my blood.”
The judge then told him, in an insulting and savage manner, that he should die, and see his bowels burnt before his very face.
“And you too must die, my lord, and that within a year.”[49]
Two indictments were framed against him: one for being a priest and a jesuit, and the other for disparaging Protestantism; on these he was found guilty of high treason, and ordered to die according to the law. To the gaoler of the prison, the sheriff brought express commands from the judge to load him with the heaviest irons in the Castle, and to lodge him in a small cell where he could not lie down. This occurred on the 26th of August, 1628, and he suffered death on the 28th of the same month. He was dragged on a hurdle from the Castle to the place of execution, having received absolution from a fellow prisoner, Mr. Southworth, in the Castle yard. He was bound on the hurdle, and for greater ignominy with his head to the horse’s tail. The gallows and boiling caldron were set up about a quarter of a mile distant from the Castle. The devotion and piety of this holy and zealous man were as remarkable as his constancy and fortitude,—graces which edified those who witnessed his sad end. He offered himself up as a sacrifice thrice: once upon his knees at the foot of the ladder, again on the ladder, which he kissed, and a third time just before the halter was fastened round his neck; and then prayed fervently, “O Sweet Jesus, I freely offer Thee my death, in satisfaction for my sins.” Then he was cast off, suffered to hang until he was dead—an act of mercy, by no means ordinary or common—cut down, disembowelled, and quartered; his head being placed on a pole amongst the pinnacles of the Castle. It is recorded that the judge being vexed and annoyed with the clever and luminous answers which Arrowsmith made when under examination, in the hearing of so many, appeared to take a special pleasure in viewing the execution from his lodgings, through a perspective glass; that he had the curiosity to examine the four quarters of his body, which, by his command, being brought to his apartment, he made an unnatural and shocking comparison between them and a haunch or two of venison with which he had that day been presented; and that he deliberately kicked the right hand of the body in contempt. On leaving the town he ordered the martyr’s head to be placed on a pole six yards higher than the pinnacles of the Castle.
The judge, sitting at supper at an inn on January 23, 1629, upon return from circuit, felt a heavy blow, as if someone had struck him on the back of the head; upon which he fell into a violent rage with, and severely rated, the servant who was waiting upon him; who protested that he had not struck him, nor did he see anyone strike him. A little while afterwards, the judge felt another blow like the first; and, as some records say, a third just as the meal was being ended. The blows he himself evidently thought to have come from the hand of divine justice, for he exclaimed in fear and trepidation: “That dog Arrowsmith hath killed me.”[50] In great terror he was carried to bed, and dying the next morning, the prophecy of the holy priest regarding his death was exactly fulfilled.
As regards the Hand of the sufferer, it was procured and treasured up by his relatives the Gerards: and the following remarkable occurrence is connected with it.
In the year 1813 a young man named Joseph Lamb, then residing at Eccles, near Trafford Hall, about four miles from Manchester, fell from a rick of considerable height to the ground, and received a violent injury in the back. He was so injured that he could neither stand nor walk and suffered very considerable pain; but after many attempts had been made by physicians to give him relief and effect a cure, his case at a later stage was unanimously pronounced to be incurable. In religion he was a Roman Catholic, having been converted to that ancient faith from being an Anabaptist—a sect to which his father still belonged. Local circumstances had led to his investigating the martyrdom of the venerable priest, Edmund Arrowsmith, who, as already recounted, gave up his life in the cause of God at Lancaster, on the 28th of August, 1628. Of this holy man a Hand had been long and carefully preserved at Sir William Gerard’s, of Garswood, near Wigan, where it was and is deservedly venerated and held in respect by all Roman Catholics. The sufferer Lamb, finding that the skill and power of man could do nothing for him, conceived a firm conviction that it would please the Almighty to restore him to health by the instrumentality of this relic, and he consequently most earnestly and systematically prayed to God that it might be so. His parents consequently, in response to his urgent entreaties, on October 2nd, 1814, had him conveyed in a covered cart from his own house near Trafford Hall to Garswood, a distance of fourteen miles.[51] In a state of considerable suffering, and quite unable to assist himself, he was lifted out of the cart and carried into the Roman Catholic chapel, where he was placed before the altar. Then the “Holy Hand,” as it is termed, was brought forth; the sacred sign of the cross was solemnly made over the affected part of the poor suffering man’s back; when, in an instant, he felt freedom from pain and found his former health and strength perfectly restored. He immediately rose, stood up for some time in prayer, and then walked, without any assistance whatsoever, to his relatives and friends who were gathered at the chief entrance of the chapel. He returned home quite recovered and perfectly well, and so remained, up to the 19th of September, 1816.[52] The result of this miraculous intervention was that several of his kinsmen and acquaintances became converts to the religion which he had elected to follow; and these, together with many Roman Catholics who became acquainted with Almighty God’s merciful visitation of him, joined in a solemn act of thanksgiving, by assembling to sing the Te Deum in the chapel of Garswood.[53]
Thus, then, we see the prophecy of a Christian priest, who was unjustly and illegally condemned and cruelly murdered, exactly and most strikingly fulfilled; and a wonderful sign bestowed from God to man of Eternal Truth, in the supernatural cure wrought some two centuries and more afterwards upon this Lancashire farm-labourer.
Here something may be properly put on record, regarding cases in which visible marks and tokens of the Passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ have been supernaturally and miraculously impressed upon God’s saints and servants, in order to set forth before the eyes of man, as a matter of sight and not as a matter of faith, the truth of the Revelation of Almighty God, through His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
The first recorded instance of stigmatization is that of S. Francis of Assisi, in the thirteenth century. From the life of this distinguished saint, written by S. Bonaventure (chapters xii. and xv.), we gather the following particulars of these remarkable phenomena.
It was the custom of the saint, from time to time, to retire into the solitudes of Mount Alverna, in the Apennines, in order the more easily to give himself up to prayer and meditation. “While fasting there for forty days, being in prayer, on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and feeling within his soul an intense desire to be crucified with his Lord, he beheld, descending from heaven towards him, a seraph, having six wings as it were of fire.[54] When the celestial messenger came near to him, there appeared between the wings the form of One crucified, with the hands and feet stretched out upon the cross. Two wings rose above the head, two were spread forth in flight, while the others veiled the whole body.” Francis felt a great joy at the apparition, and yet, at the same time, a deep sorrow at beholding Him Whom his soul loved, so cruelly fastened to the Cross, the thought of which pierced his heart as with a sword of grief. It was presently revealed to him that he was to imitate the Passion of our Lord.
“The vision disappearing, his soul was filled with heavenly light, while a marvellous sign was left imprinted on his limbs. On his hand and feet were the marks of the nails, as he had beheld in the seraphic vision, and on his right side was a wound, as if made by a lance’s thrust. His hands and feet appeared transfixed with the nails, their heads being seen in the upper part of the feet, and the points on the reverse sides. The heads of these nails were round and black, and the points somewhat long and bent, as if turned back; so that between them and the skin there was the space of a finger. They could be moved with ease; for on the one side they were embedded in the flesh, whilst on the other they were clear of it: yet it was not possible to draw them out, as we are assured by S. Clare, who, after the saint’s death, essayed to do so, but could not succeed. The wound in the side was deep, and of the width of three fingers. It was red, and the saint’s habit was often stained by the blood which flowed from it.”
These stigmata were seen during his life by the reigning Pope Alexander with many of his cardinals; and after his death, by more than fifty brethren together, by S. Clare and many of her sisters, and an innumerable crowd of seculars, who came from all parts of the country to be witnesses of these wonders.
At the close of the seventeenth century, another case of stigmatization occurred to Veronica Juliana, a nun; and her examination by the bishop of her diocese, aided by several physicians, was of so strict and severe a character, that deception on her part would have been quite impossible.
In the early part of the same century, Joanna di Jesu Maria, a Spanish nun, was subjected to even a more rigorous examination, before a court composed of the Commissary of the Inquisition, the Suffragan Bishop, several of the secular and regular clergy of the district, of many learned men, and two distinguished physicians. In this case, the subject of the phenomena bore not only the wounds on her hands, feet, and side, from which blood and water frequently flowed, but also around her head, as from the crown of thorns, a deep wound, which, in the opinion of the doctors, penetrated to the skull. They, furthermore, declared by oath that the wounds were not natural, and could not possibly be the effect of fraud.
The most celebrated subjects of stigmata in our own days are Maria Mörl, the Ecstatica of Caldamo, in the Tyrol, and Maria Domenica Lazzari, a peasant girl of Capriana, whose cases were brought before the English public by that late distinguished nobleman John, Earl of Shrewsbury, A. L. M. P. De Lisle, Esq.,[55] the Rev. T. W. Allies, and others.
The following account of Maria Mörl is abridged from that of Görres, in his work on the Supernatural, entitled “Christliche Mystik,” which, perhaps, is the most complete and detailed description published. After giving a brief sketch of her life, which tells us that she was a girl of great piety, also that at the age of eighteen she became a confirmed invalid, and after receiving Holy Communion she always remained in an ecstasy for several hours, we read, that “in the autumn of 1833, her Confessor, Father Capistran, had by chance noticed that the parts of her hands where the wounds afterwards appeared had begun to form in hollows, as though impressed by some external substance, the parts, at the same time, becoming the seat of considerable pain, accompanied by frequent cramps.” Soon afterwards, the wounds appeared on the hands, feet, and side. On Thursdays and Fridays these places often ran with clear blood, and were covered on other days with a scar of dried blood, without showing any signs of inflammation. “In 1834, on the occasion of a solemn procession, a new phase of her ecstasy developed itself, and one day surprised her in the presence of several witnesses, when she was transfigured with an angelic beauty, radiant and glorious as a heavenly spirit, her arms extended to their extreme width in the form of a cross, and her feet barely seeming to touch the bed on which she reposed. All around could then plainly perceive the mysterious stigmata, and the matter could no longer remain a secret.”
Of Maria Domenica Lazzari, who was born March 16th, 1815, and whose case is no less remarkable than the above, Mr. Allies, then a clergyman of the Church of England, wrote the following account, twenty-five years ago:—“In August, 1833, she had an illness, not in the first instance of an extraordinary nature; but it took the form of an intermittent fever, confining her completely to her bed, and finally contracting the nerves of her hands and feet so as to cripple them. On the 10th of January, 1834, she received on her hands, feet, and left side, the marks of our Lord’s Five Wounds.... Three weeks afterwards, her family found her in the morning covering her face in a state of great delight,—a sort of trance. On removing the handkerchief, letters were found on it marked in blood, and Domenica’s brow had a complete impression of the crown of thorns, in a line of small punctures about a quarter of an inch apart, from which the blood was flowing freshly. They asked her who had torn her so. She replied, ‘A very fair lady had come in the night and adorned her.’... From the time that she first received the stigmata, in January, 1834, to the present time (account published in 1847), the wounds have bled every Friday, with a loss of from one to two ounces of blood, beginning early in the morning, and on Friday only. The above information (Mr. Allies declares) we received from Signor Yoris, a surgeon of Cavalese, the chief village of the district in which Capriana lies.”
Two additional and quite recent examples of stigmatization, most perfectly and satisfactorily authenticated, demand to have the facts which are known and admitted here set forth. The first is as follows:—
On the 30th January, 1850, was born at Bois d’Haine, a village in the province of Hainaut, in Belgium, Anne Louise Lateau, the daughter of Gregory and Adèle Lateau. The family, though of humble condition, were at the time in tolerably comfortable circumstances. The father was employed as a workman in a neighbouring metal factory, and the cottage in which they dwelt, together with the land on which it stood, was their own property. But a sad change soon took place. On the 30th April, 1850, Gregory Lateau died of small-pox, leaving the mother and three children (the infant Louise and two little girls of two and three years of age) unprovided for. To add to their distress, the widow Lateau was seriously ill, and the infant had caught the small-pox. Abandoned by all, they were in danger of perishing of starvation had they not been relieved by the timely aid of a charitable neighbour. It was a long time, however, before the mother’s health was sufficiently restored to enable her to better their condition by her own exertions. When eight years old, Louise was sent to take charge of an old woman confined to her bed, and almost as poor as themselves. She afterwards received five months’ schooling, which is all the education she has ever had. At eleven years old, having made her first communion, she went as a servant to her aunt, with whom she remained until her death, which occurred two years later. Her next situation was with a lady at Brussels, but she was obliged to leave through illness. On her recovery, she was again employed in a farm at Manage, where she remained till called home by her mother, with whom she has since lived, working as a dressmaker. With regard to her moral character, one of its most important features is charity. During the ravages of the cholera in Belgium, in 1866, she gave examples of the most heroic devotedness—nursing the sick when their own relations had fled in dismay, laying out the dead, and, in some instances, even conveying them to the cemetery. For the rest, she is of a cheerful disposition, simple and straightforward in her manner, possessed of good sense, without smartness or enthusiasm. Owing to the small amount of instruction she has received, her education is limited, but has been much improved by her own exertions. She speaks French with tolerable fluency, but is unable to write correctly or read with ease. The mother of Louise is fifty-eight years of age, of a frank and outspoken character, upright and religious. Though poor, she refuses to receive any pecuniary assistance, and manifests great reluctance to the introduction of the numerous visitors attracted to her cottage from all parts of the world by the wonderful accounts respecting her daughter. We now come to the consideration of those phenomena which for nearly six years have been exciting such universal interest. On Friday, the 24th April, 1868, manifestations of an extraordinary character commenced with a flow of blood from the chest. The young girl, with her accustomed reserve, made no mention of the fact; but as on successive Fridays the bleeding extended to the feet and hands, concealment became no longer possible. The phenomenon, as it now appears, is thus described by Dr. Lefebvre:—
“If in the course of the week, from Saturday to Thursday morning, an inspection is made of the parts from which blood flows on the Friday, this is what is seen:—On the back of each hand there is a rather oval surface, nearly one inch in length. It is rather more pink in colour, and it is smoother than the neighbouring skin, and does not show a trace of oozing of any kind. On the palm of each hand there is also an oval surface of a light pink colour, corresponding precisely to the stigmatized surface of the back. On the upper aspect of each foot, the impress has the shape of a long square with rounded angles, the square being a little more than an inch long. To conclude, there are on the soles of the feet, as on the palms of the hands, small surfaces of pinkish white colour.
“... The first symptoms indicative of the approaching efflux of blood occur on the Thursday, generally about noon. On each of the pink surfaces already described on the hands and feet, a vesicle is seen to commence, and to rise little by little. When completely developed, it is a rounded hemispherical prominence on the surface of the skin; its base is the same size as the pink surface on which it rests—that is, nearly an inch long, by a little more than half an inch broad. This vesicle is formed by the epidermis detached from the dermis, and elevated as a half sphere by serous liquid within.”
We again quote some of the medical details:—
“The phenomenon occurs thus:—The vesicle bursts, and the contained serosity escapes. This occurs in different ways—sometimes by a rent lengthways, sometimes by a crucial or a triangular division. In the last case, the rupture of the vesicle suggests the puncture of a leech; but this is a mere resemblance, to prove which it is enough to ascertain the entire absence on the hands and feet of those three-cornered white and indelible scars which always follow leech-bites. But a still more decisive observation is that this triangular rent only divides the epidermis; in fact, if this be removed by rubbing with a cloth, the little wound is no longer seen, and the true skin is found to be quite intact. Directly after the rupture of the vesicle and the escape of the fluid, blood begins to ooze from the bare derma.
“The flow of blood always detaches the piece of scarf-skin that makes the vesicle, so that the bleeding surface of the true skin is quite bare; sometimes, however—and especially on the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet, where the epidermis is very tough—the blood collects, and forms a clot in the partly-torn vesicle.”[56]
The general appearance of the wound in the side on Friday is as follows:—The blood issues from three small points of a triangular form at the distance of half an inch from each other. A vesicle has also been observed similar to those upon the hands and feet. On its bursting, the blood flowed through the derma or thick skin over a round surface of the diameter of about half an inch.
The bleeding on the forehead commenced on Friday, the 25th September, 1868, and, at the present time,[57] takes place every week, and has extended round the whole of the head. The bleeding circlet on the forehead forms a band of two fingers’ breadth in width, and the blood oozes from twelve or fifteen points. There is no appearance of vesicle, nor is the skin discoloured.
The second extraordinary account of a young girl, who is now marked with the stigmata, is furnished by the Rev. F. Prendergast, of San Francisco:[58]—
“Miss Collins was born in England; both her parents are Roman Catholics. About two years and a half ago she was a pupil at the Convent of Notre Dame. On her return to this city she left her father’s home, and with a friend, Miss Armer, commenced the practice of charitable acts—visiting the sick, clothing the destitute, and instructing little children. Many of the charitable persons of the city co-operate with Miss Collins, Miss Armer, and an elderly lady who keeps house for them, in their good works. The archbishop approved of this semi-religious order, and has paid the house rent of these ladies since they began this practice. Miss Collins has always been in delicate health, and has frequently received the last sacraments of the Church, given to those in a dying condition. She has had periodical attacks of heart disease, and intense pulmonary congestion. Soon after Miss Collins and Miss Armer entered upon their charitable and self-denying duties, the former was prostrated by a return of her complaint. She recovered but slowly and imperfectly, and on January 2nd, at the children’s festival in the basement of S. Mary’s Cathedral, she was seized with a most violent attack. She was taken to her residence; and two or three days afterwards was again seized with congestion of the lungs, followed by congestion of the brain. The attending physician, herself, and all her friends were convinced that there was no hope of her recovery. She took leave of those who stood by her bedside, and made her final preparations for death. On Wednesday, January 8th, she was all day in convulsions.... Towards six o’clock she grew better, but on the night of the third day became speechless, and was compelled to write her wants and wishes in pencil.
“At twelve o’clock that night, Miss Armer and the nurse, who watched by her bedside, believed her to be dying, if not dead. They recited the prayers for the departing soul, and held the blessed candle by her hand, according to the custom of the Church. Presently Miss Collins closed her eyes and drew a long breath. They then believed her to be dead; but to their utter amazement and bewilderment she revived, and made signs that she wished to write. They gave her the pencil and paper, and she wrote as follows: ‘Put three drops of the water from the font of Our Lady of La Salette in my mouth, and say three Hail Maries with me before the crucifix.’ They complied with the instructions, and perceived that she joined mentally in the recital of the prayers. As soon as ended, she reached out her hands for the crucifix, and kissed, with an expression of great devotion, the Five Wounds of our Blessed Saviour. She then intimated that she wished to have a little water. They gave her some, and she immediately rose up and declared, with a beaming and heavenly countenance, that she was cured; and she called on her companions, Miss Armer and the nurse, to join her in saying the rosary for the sick. She wished to recite the principal parts of the devotion herself, but yielding to the request of Miss Armer, only made the responses in a clear and loud voice. She then requested her companions to retire, but seeing they had some objections, told them she would set the example. She laid down quietly, and slept without motion or sign till morning, when she ate heartily, and seemed quite restored to health. Since then she has never for a moment suffered from any of those diseases to which she had been before a victim, and which had more than once brought her to death’s door.
“On being questioned about her recovery, she stated to her confessor, her companions, and others of her friends, that immediately previous to her recovery the Blessed Virgin spoke to her in a voice clear and musical, but as if it were coming from afar, directing her what to do in order to obtain her health, approving her manner of life, and giving her some counsels for her own guidance. Her recovery was regarded by all conversant with the facts as being a miraculous one; and, contrasting her subsequent excellent health with her former miserable condition, there seems to be no reason to doubt but that she was saved by the merciful interposition of the Supreme Power of God.
“After some weeks she experienced, without any assignable natural cause, an intense pain in her temples, which caused her indescribable anguish. These sufferings suddenly passed away, but in the course of some days returned with equal violence. So far there were no perceptible marks on any portion of her body, but during her sufferings on the Feast of the Five Wounds of our Lord she felt an acute pain in her head, her side, in both hands, and in both feet. On the Friday before Good Friday, the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin, she experienced pains in the same parts, and on that day the stigmata, or marks of our Saviour’s Wounds, became clearly visible on the backs of her hands, and blood oozed from her left side, near the heart.
“Several persons witnessed the stigmata on this occasion, but were loth to reveal the fact, preferring to await further developments. That night the pains passed away, and her usual health returned. On Holy Thursday the same sufferings were experienced, commencing in the afternoon and becoming very intense during Thursday night. On Friday the stigmata appeared on the surfaces of both hands and on the upper surface of both feet. Blood also oozed from her side. During the day her sufferings were indescribable, and were witnessed by a large number of people.[59] The stigmata and suffering continued unabated until twelve o’clock on Friday night, when she suddenly experienced some relief, and was able, for the first time in twenty-four hours, to take a little water. On the next day she attended divine service in church, and has since been in the enjoyment of excellent health. The marks of the stigmata remain on her hands and side. She has never, at any time during her sufferings, been unconscious, except when they were so intense as to cause momentary delirium. She prayed continually, and her countenance, ordinarily indicating extreme agony, occasionally relaxed into a sweet and heavenly smile. At times her hands were extended in the form of a crucifix, and became so rigid in that position that it was impossible to move them.”[60]
As serving still further to illustrate the subject of this chapter, it should be known that Dr. John Milner, F.S.A., Vicar Apostolic of the Midland District of England (a prelate eminent both for his high character and great literary ability), records a supernatural cure, the subject of which was personally known to himself.
“On March 15, 1809, Mary Wood, living at Taunton Lodge, near Taunton, in Somersetshire, in attempting to open a sash-window, pushed her left hand through a pane of glass, which caused a very large and deep transverse wound in the inside of the left arm, and divided the muscles and nearly the whole of the tendons that lead to the hand; from which accident she not only suffered at times the most acute pain, but was, from the period the bishop saw her [March 15, 1809], until some time in July, totally deprived of the use of her hand and arm.”[61] What passed between the latter end of July, when, as the surgeon states, “he left his patient with no hope of her recovery or of restoring her,” until the 6th of August, on the night of which she was miraculously cured, can be gathered from a Letter to Bishop Milner, dated November 19th, 1809, by her amanuensis Miss Maria Hornyold, of the ancient family of that name:
“The surgeon gave little or no hopes of the girl ever again having the use of her hand; which, together with the arm, seemed withered and somewhat contracted; only saying [that] in some years Nature might give her some little use of it, which was considered by her superior as a mere delusive comfort. Despairing of further human assistance toward her cure, she determined, with the approbation of her said superiors, to have recourse to God, through the intercession of S. Winifred by a Novena.[62] Accordingly on the 6th of August she put a piece of moss from the Saint’s Well on her arm, continuing recollected and praying, &c., when, to her great surprise, the next morning she found that she could dress herself, put her arm behind her, and to her head, having regained the free use and full strength of it. In short, she was perfectly cured.”
So much for this portion of Miss Hornyold’s narrative. Now, reverting to Bishop Milner, his testimony to the fact of the cure having been effected is here set forth:
“In this state I myself saw her a few years afterwards, when I examined her hand; and in the same state she still continues, at the above-named place, with many other highly credible vouchers, who are ready respectively to attest these particulars.”
The conclusion of Miss Hornyold’s Letter is as follows:
“On the 16th of the month the surgeon was sent for, and being asked his opinion concerning Mary Wood’s arm, he gave no hope of a perfect cure, and little of her ever having even the least use of it; when she, being introduced to him and showing him the arm, which he thoroughly examined and tried, he was so affected at the sight and the recital of the manner of the cure, as to shed tears, and exclaim, ‘It is a special interposition of Divine Providence.’”
The case of Winifred White, a young woman of Wolverhampton, suddenly and miraculously cured, is not less important and interesting:—“The disease from which she was suffering,” writes Bishop Milner, “was one of the most alarming of a topical nature of any that is known, namely a curvature of the spine, as the physician and surgeon ascertained, who treated it accordingly, by making two great issues, one on each side of the spine, of which the marks are still imprinted on the patient’s back. Secondly, that besides the most acute pains throughout the whole nervous system, and particularly in the brain, this disease of the spine produced a hemiplegia, or palsy of one side of the patient, so that when she could feebly crawl, with the help of a crutch under her right arm, she was forced to drag her left leg and arm after her, just as if they constituted no part of her body. Thirdly, that her disorder was of long continuance, namely, of three years’ standing, though not in the same degree till the latter part of that time, and that it was publicly known to all her neighbours and a great many others. Fourthly, that having performed the acts of devotion which she felt herself called upon to undertake, and having bathed in the fountain [at Holywell in Flintshire], she, in one instant of time, on the 28th of June, 1805, found herself freed from all pains and disabilities, so as to be able to walk, run, and jump like any other young person, and to carry a greater weight with the left arm than with the right. Fifthly, that she has continued in this state these thirteen years, down to the present time; and that all the above-mentioned circumstances have been ascertained by me in the regular examination of the several witnesses of them, in the places of their respective residences, namely in Staffordshire, Lancashire, and Wales, they being persons of different counties, no less than of different religions and situation of life.”[63]
The result of a solemn Curse, made in the Name of Almighty God, by one who had been greatly and grievously wronged, is recorded and not unsuitably here, it is hoped, in the following remarkable narrative—one fresh evidence of the existence of the Supernatural amongst us, had we only eyes to see and ears to hear.
The younger son of a Nova Scotia baronet, under promise of marriage, betrayed the only surviving daughter of a Northumbrian yeoman of ancient and respectable family, nearly allied to a peer, so created in William the Fourth’s reign. She was a person of rare beauty and of considerable accomplishments, having received an education of a very superior character in Edinburgh. After her betrayal she was deserted by her lover, who fled abroad. The night before he left, however, at her earnest request, he met her in company with a friend with the avowed intention of promising marriage in the future, when his family (as he declared) might be less averse to it. After-events show that this was merely an empty promise, and that he had no intention of fulfilling it. A long discussion took place between the girl and her betrayer, in the presence of the female friend in question, a first cousin of her father. High words, strong phrases, and sharp upbraidings were uttered on both sides; until at last the young man in cruel and harsh language, turning upon her fiercely, declared that he would never marry her at all, and held himself, as he maintained, perfectly free to wed whom he should choose. “You will be my certain death,” she exclaimed, “but death will be more welcome than life.” “Die and be ——,” he replied. At this the girl, with a wail of agony, swooned away. On her recovery she seemed to gather up her strength to pronounce a Curse upon him and his. It was spoken in the Name of the One Living and True God. She uttered it with deliberation, yet with wildness and bitterness, maintaining that she was his wife, and would haunt him to the day of his death; declaring at the same time to her relation present, “And you shall be the witness.” He left the place of meeting without any reconciliation or kind word, and, it was believed, went abroad. In less than five months, in giving birth to her child, she died, away from her home, and was buried with it (for the child, soon after its baptism, died likewise) in a village churchyard near Ambleside. Neither stone nor memorial marks the grave. Her father, a widower, wounded to the quick by the loss of his only daughter, pined away and soon followed her to his last resting-place.
Five years had passed and the female cousin of the old yeoman, being possessed of a competency, had gone to live in London, when, on a certain morning in the spring of the year 1842, she was passing by a church in the west end, where, from the number of carriages waiting, she saw that a marriage was being solemnized. She felt mysteriously and instinctively drawn to look in. On doing so, and pressing forwards towards the altar, she beheld to her astonishment, the very man, somewhat altered and weather-worn, who had caused so much misery to her relations, being married (as on inquiring she discovered) to the daughter of a rich city merchant. This affected her deeply, bringing back the saddest memories of the past. But, as the bridal party were passing out of the church, and she pushed forward to look, and be quite sure that she had made no mistake, both herself and the bridegroom at one moment saw an apparition of her relation, the poor girl whom he had ruined, dressed in white, with flowing hair and a wild look, holding up in both hands her little infant. Both seemed perfectly natural in appearance and to be of ordinary flesh and blood. There was no mistaking her certain identity. This occurred in the full sunshine of noon and under a heavy Palladian Porch in the presence of a crowd. The bridegroom turned deathly pale in a moment, trembled violently, and then, staggering, fell forward down the steps. This occasioned a vast stir and sensation amongst the crowd. It seemed incomprehensible. The bridegroom, said the church officials in answer to inquiries, was in a fit. He was carried down the steps and taken in the bridal carriage to his father-in-law’s house. But it was reported that he never spoke again; and this fact is mentioned in a contemporary newspaper-account of the event. Anyhow his marriage and death appeared in the same number of one of the daily papers. And although the family of the city merchant knew nothing of the apparition, what is thus set forth was put on record by the lady in question, who knew the mysterious circumstances in all their details; which record is reasonably believed by her to afford at once a signal example of retributive justice and a marked piece of evidence of the Supernatural. Names, for obvious reasons, are not mentioned here. The truth of this narrative, however, was affirmed on oath by the lady in question, before two justices of the peace, at Windsor, on October 3, 1848, one of whom was a beneficed clergyman in the diocese of Oxford, well known to the Editor of this volume,—to whom this record was given, in the year 1857 (when he was assistant-minister of Berkeley Chapel), by a lady of rank who worshipped there.
Here, accounts of two cases of miraculous cure through and by the Blessed Sacrament will be suitably and fittingly introduced. The first is from the pen of a well-known mission-preacher of the Church of England, and occurred in the diocese of London: the second, equally remarkable, took place in the diocese of Metz.
The introductory remarks, so full of truth and piety, which immediately precede the first narrative, have an equal bearing on that which follows. Both are instances of God’s extraordinary mercy and goodness to the children of men.
“The Blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord works its effects not only on the soul of man, but also on his body. We need not be surprized at this, for if the body is affected by the soul, so that a person depressed in mind often falls sick in body; and, on the contrary, if good spirits are of great use in preserving bodily health—as indeed we frequently see,—if this be the case, may we not expect that the Sacrament, which only reaches the soul through the body, will have some influence on that body through which they are transmitted. The Blessed Sacrament, then, when worthily received, affects the body in three ways. First, it tends to moderate what is called ‘concupiscence,’ that is those natural appetites and desires of the body which dwell in the flesh and tempt to sin. And this we learn from the words of the prayer of Humble Access in the Communion Service—that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His Body.
“Secondly, the Blessed Sacrament gives to our bodies glory in the Day of the Resurrection.
“Our Lord says, ‘He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood hath Eternal Life, and I will raise him up at the last day.’ Not that all men will not rise from the dead at that day, but that the wicked will rise with hideous bodies, and the righteous only with bodies like unto our Lord’s own Body; whilst the glory also of those who are saved will differ one from another. And so S. Paul writes, ‘One star differeth from another star in glory.’
“Thirdly, the Blessed Sacrament sometimes works the cure of sick persons who receive it with faith. Of course this is not often the case, for if miracles were common they would cease to be miracles. Moreover, there is but little faith now-a-days, and even when our Lord walked in the flesh there were some places in which He did not do many mighty works because of their unbelief. Also He worked bodily cures the rather during His earthly ministry; because when He gives these more excellent gifts it is less necessary for Him to show this power by miracles of healing. It pleases Him however, sometimes even now, to cure bodily sickness by his bodily touch, and a case of this sort we will now relate:—
“I. Two or three years ago there lived in one of our great cities a poor woman of devotion and faith. She attended a church where the Holy Eucharist was frequently celebrated, and the true faith believingly taught. She received the faith gladly, and lived up to it, communicating regularly and with devotion. It befell her, however, to be taken with sickness, which brought on lockjaw, so that she could not eat, and only small portions of nourishment could be given her through an opening in her teeth. She was in this state several days, looking forward to certain death.
“At last, thinking more of the suffering which her loss would bring upon her family than upon any fear of death in her own heart, she said to her husband, ‘Surely, the Lord Jesus is very merciful and would restore me to health if we were to ask Him. For how dreadful would it be for the poor children to be left without a mother! I have heard of a woman who was cured of a sickness by our Lord when the doctors gave her up. Why should we not ask Him to cure me?’ Thus she spoke, and her husband agreed with her, that they would ask this of the Lord.
“The priest of the church which they attended was visiting the poor woman, and next time he came she told him of what she had thought, and asked whether it would be wrong to pray for this object. Seeing the faith of the poor people, he could not say anything against it, only exhorting them to be ready to accept the Will of the Lord whatever it might be. ‘It is not wrong,’ said he, ‘to pray to the Lord for restoration to health, so long as we add, “Not my will but Thine be done.”’
“Accordingly he arranged that they should have a special Celebration of the Blessed Sacrament with that intention—to ask of our Lord the cure of the poor mother. The time was fixed. The woman was to be present herself, and to communicate, and the priest promised to ask some other devout people to attend and unite in prayer for the same object.
“At the hour appointed the priest was at the altar, a little body of devout persons was gathered in the church, and the poor woman was brought there, suffering, but still with good hope. The service proceeded; the prayer of Consecration was said; the Lamb of God was upon the altar, and the priest pleaded the one true and perfect and all-sufficient Sacrifice on behalf of the poor sufferer, and prayed for her recovery, as did also herself and her friends. Having communicated himself, the priest brought the Holy Sacrament to the woman, giving her only a small particle, such as she could receive between her teeth, and then the chalice of the Lord’s Blood. The faithful now communicated; the remainder of the service was said, the Priest gave the Peace and Blessing, and the last Amen was said. Then the woman fell down in a sort of swoon; but it only lasted a short time, for presently she got up, opened her mouth, and said, ‘I am quite well.’ Yes! The Lord had heard her. We were astonished with joy, and joined in hearty thanksgiving to God for the miracle which he had wrought. The woman walked home, to the great delight of her family, and was able to return to her ordinary work.
“A fortnight after the event, the writer of this narrative[64] saw the woman, and heard from her own lips, as well as from the Priest, the account of the miracle, which he has related as nearly as he can remember it.
“We are not to be anxious for miracles, nor to crave after signs; but when it pleases God to work such as this, it seems to be right for His glory, and for the dignity of the Most Holy Sacrament, that His mercy should be made known; and is it not joy to every faithful heart, that the Lord should manifest His power over all His works, and show to men His tender compassion of the sick and suffering?”
II. The second case is thus related. It bears a remarkable similarity to that just set forth:—
“Anne de Cléry, the subject of the extraordinary cure about to be recorded, was at school in the Convent of the Sacred Heart, at Metz, in the year 1855. She was then thirteen years of age, and her health and spirits good. Previously she had lived two years in Africa, where her father still resides,[65] and occupies the post of Notary-General to the Imperial Court at Algiers. Madame de Cléry’s health having suffered from the climate, she returned to Metz with her two daughters, the youngest of whom—Anne—was very uneasy about her mother’s health, and prayed fervently for her recovery, offering herself to suffer the pains of sickness in her stead. Anne’s illness, which was of a very distressing nature, commenced in the Holy Week of 1856, and continued steadily to increase, in spite of the prescriptions of the first physicians at Metz, Aix in Savoy, and Paris. Remedies of every possible kind—some of them of a terribly severe character—were tried, but without the smallest result, except to increase the sufferings of the poor patient. The Paris physician, at length (in the year 1857), pronounced her case to be incurable. He says: ‘Mdlle. Anne is labouring under the disease known by the name of “muscular and atrophical paralysis.” I very much apprehend that no remedies can touch the disease.’ The sufferings of the poor girl were continuous and severe. Her limbs were deprived of power and strength; they shrank and contracted, and the muscles under each knee produced a sort of knot which no power on earth could untie. She would be, as far as man could foresee, a cripple as long as she lived. Anne de Cléry was, however, resigned to the Will of God, and supported her heavy trial by a deep piety and constant prayer. At times her faith suggested the possibility of a miraculous cure; but she scarcely hoped or wished for such a wonderful favour. She had a particular devotion to the Blessed Sacrament; and every week the priest brought her the Holy Communion, which was her greatest support and consolation. She employed her time, when able, though in the recumbent position, and unable to lift her head, in embroidering altar-cloths, and making artificial flowers for the adornment of the sanctuary. It was while thus preparing for the devotion known as ‘the Forty Hours’ Adoration’ in the parochial church of S. Martin at Metz, in the year 1865, that the thought sometimes crossed her mind that she might be cured by the Blessed Sacrament. But she was slow to encourage an idea which might be an illusion, and deprive her of her resignation and peace of mind. The devotion above mentioned was to take place on the 12th, 13th, and 14th of June. On the first two days it was impossible to carry her to the church (whither she had not been taken for a long while), her pains were so severe; but on the third day, with the greatest difficulty, and at the cost of much suffering, after having received Communion, she was carried to the church by her maid Clémentine, who sat on a bench and held her on her knees. Madame de Cléry and Mdlle. de Coetlosquet knelt close beside her; but neither Anne nor her friends were expecting the extraordinary event about to follow.
“After a few moments’ rest Anne became absorbed in devotion, and prayed as she often did at the moment of Communion: ‘Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst cure me.’ At the same instant she felt so violent a pain in her whole body, that it was all she could do not to scream out. She prayed for strength to bear it, and resigned herself to God’s will. Then, she says, she felt filled with faith and hope, and became conscious that she was cured. Anne threw herself immediately upon her knees and said to her companions, ‘Pray, pray; I am cured!’ Madame de Cléry overcome with emotion, in a state of bewilderment, led her daughter out of the church, scarcely believing the evidence of her senses when she saw her standing alone and able to walk. She ascertained that the knots under her daughter’s knees had entirely disappeared; and then Anne returned to the church, where she remained kneeling in praise and thanksgiving before the Blessed Sacrament for three-quarters of an hour, without feeling the least fatigue.
“Her cure was complete; all the ailments that had afflicted her disappeared, leaving behind no trace of illness. Eleven days after her cure, Anne walked through the streets of Metz in a procession of the Blessed Sacrament, which lasted an hour and a quarter, to the astonishment and admiration of all who had known her former sad condition. Her physician, when he saw her rise and walk to meet him, said, ‘Mademoiselle, what men could not effect, God has done.’”[66]
The Editor has been furnished with many similar accounts; some coming before him on slender testimony: others on testimony which it is impossible either to weaken or to reject. In some cases strange and supernatural events which have occurred of late years—beautiful glimpses of the unseen world—are treasured up by those who were the direct subjects of them, though considerable difficulty is experienced in obtaining such satisfactory attestations of their authentication, (owing to the fact that persons naturally shrink from publicity,) as would warrant their appearance in this volume.
Before this chapter is closed, however, it may be well to add the following, from the pen of an English clergyman well known to the Editor, which possess some inherent interest:
“This passed under my own eyes a few weeks back. A little child, three years old, daughter of highly-respectable but poor parents, was accidentally burnt to death—fell upon the grate, and lingered only some two hours, it might have been supposed in frightful tortures. Her mother, who blamed herself for leaving the child even for a moment, seemed in imminent danger of losing her reason, and was in a state of terrible despair. The little one raised herself to say, ‘Mother, don’t cry! I’m going to die;’ and then pointing, added, ‘Don’t you see that Good Man who stands there and waits for me?’ This from a child of three years old.
“Let those who choose, elect to believe that this was an optical delusion: those who honestly believe that the angels of little children do behold His Father’s face, and doubt not that angels minister to the heirs of salvation, will probably arrive at a different conclusion.”[67]
Here is another remarkable case of the Supernatural, provided by the same clergyman:—
“A lady of my acquaintance, a woman of great intellectual powers, with a keenly satirical and inquiring mind, chastened, however, by Christian faith and love—a most devout communicant—was the voucher of these facts.
“Retiring to rest some years ago, late at night, she happened, on her way to her room, to look out of a window which opened on a court behind the house. To her surprise (she was not in the least a superstitious person, nor had her mind been travelling in a ghostly direction), she saw standing beneath the window, in the full rays of the moonlight, the figure of a child in white clothing, the arms crossed in prayer, the face inclining forward, with a kind of white cowl or head-covering, from the body of which child rays seemed to pass. She was not terrified, but amazed; and after gazing fixedly some little while, during which the figure did not move, she went to her room, and sent the nurse down to fetch something, where she would be likely to see the figure, without saying anything about it to her. The nurse returned speedily, white with fear, saying, ‘Ma’am, did you see that wonderful thing all shining?’ The lady inquired what she meant. The servant’s impressions were identical with her own. Neither of them went to look again; but the lady thought within herself, that this might be a warning sent from God to prepare her for the death of an elder child, a daughter, whose figure and bearing, she thought, resembled that of the child enshrouded in white linen in the yard; and she consequently entertained a dread that that daughter might be taken from her. This did not prove the case; but as another younger child—the very darling of the mother’s heart, and an infant at the time of this singular apparition—grew older, the idea was borne in strongly upon the lady’s mind, that that younger child would be taken from her about the time when it attained the apparent age and stature of the mysterious visitant, who seemed to be a little girl of about five years old. This, doubtless, might be a fancy only: she had not seen the face, only the figure; and when this dear little one—a peculiarly sweet and engaging child—actually sickened, and at last, after a long illness, died, at about this age, the mother did not dare take to herself the consolation it seemed likely to afford her, as a foreshadowing of her child’s beatified rest. On the contrary, the mother’s heart was distracted with doubts and fears.... There had been no direct communion with God, as far as man could judge, near the last; rather a certain fretfulness, a turning from God to man, a clinging to the mother as her all. The Christian’s heart was almost paralysed by the vast and unspeakable terror which took possession of her soul. Was her dear one indeed saved?... Although she thought all day long of this child,—I knew her at the time, and she seemed consumed by grief, fast breaking, though never was God’s house opened without her finding her way thither,—she had never once dreamt of her, or seen her in her dreams, much to her own surprise, and despite the constant craving of her aching heart. But at last, one night she dreamt, and thus: that she had risen from her bed, and was standing in her chamber; that the door softly opened, and her little one came and sat upon the threshold, sweetly smiling. ‘What, my own darling! (she thought she said,) are you come back again to me?’ ‘Yes, my mamma,’ replied the child. ‘And are you happy, dearest?’ ‘Yes, quite happy; but not for anything I have done,—only for the merit of my Lord.’ The mother advanced and embraced her child, and thus embracing she awoke. And now wonderfully was it borne in upon her that the midnight apparition of so many years ago and the child of her dream were one. Her dream was so real, that she could not but receive it as a divine intimation, a direct answer to her prayers. She now felt and believed that her dear one was in Paradise. For some weeks, despite her longings to renew the vision, she saw her child no more. Then she did so once again, in a dream. She was crossing a radiant garden, where she knew not; in its centre was a stately hall or cupola, and on the marble steps which led to it stood her sweet one, looking pure and blessed. The mother bounded towards her, when she espied, within the hall, at the further end of a corridor or long passage, the form of another child of hers still living! This sight terrified her; she shrieked out, and shrieking she awoke. That child lives still, and may it long be preserved to the mother’s prayers! But meanwhile, it is not a little remarkable, that during nearly three years which have elapsed, despite every effort on the mother’s part, she has never once dreamt of her darling! This is what contributes, with the vision of the radiant child at first, to impart a supernatural character to the whole transaction, and take these visitations out of the category of ordinary dreams. On my own mind there is not the smallest doubt that here was a two-fold supernatural intervention; firstly, vision,—seen, remember, by two witnesses; then by a most strangely corroborative dream.”
Another example, shadowing forth the possible value and power of prayer,—“the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man,”—though briefly told, is not without its own special interest in these days of Irreligion and Unbelief.
“An English gentleman I knew well was residing in France; his only son was a barrister in the Middle Temple Chambers in London. This son suffered from disease of the heart, not known to be immediately dangerous; he was a professed unbeliever—a scoffer, even; and had, alas! spoken lightly of Revelation the day before his death. A sudden, violent attack prostrated him; and, after a few hours of suffering, he departed. That night, the father, who was not aware of any immediate danger to his child, dreamt that the spirit of his deceased wife appeared to him, and addressed him, saying, ‘Rise and pray! William is dying, and there are none to pray for him!’—or words to that effect. This dream was repeated, I believe, thrice. The father did rise, and remained in earnest intercessory prayer (he was a devout Christian man,) for the greater part of the night. This is a well-authenticated fact, the certainty of which may be relied on.”
This chapter is brought to its close by a most impressive account of sweet and heavenly music which was heard near the dying bed of one, whose patience and devotion during sickness were as remarkable as her earthly life had been pure and holy.
It is from the pen of one who for many years was a clergyman of the Church of England, but is now a Cistercian monk of the Monastery of Mount S. Bernard, on the Charnwood Hills, in Leicestershire, and who is known in religion as Father Augustine.
“On the last day she [Mary, daughter of A. P. de Lisle, of Garendon Park, Esq.], longed much for a cup of cold water, but it was not thought good for her; and so, when reminded of our Saviour’s thirst on the Cross, she offered up her own thirst in union with His, and said she would ask for it no more.[68] Her faculties, however, continued entire and clear to the end, and by her particular request indulgenced prayers[69] were recited to her that she might frequently repeat them. Thus her life ebbed softly away; the last words on her lips being a prayer to her ‘Sweet Saviour to have mercy upon her.’ And are not such things as these natural grounds for having a sure hope that she died in the favour of God? It is true that we have even supernatural grounds in the fact that on the night before her decease (whilst she was receiving with devout mind the last anointing of Holy Church to prepare her for her end) there was heard distinctly and by several persons the sound of a celestial chant, proceeding from her chamber, hymned by no earthly voices. Does not this look as if the blessed spirits themselves had been assisting to prepare her that she might soon become one of their company?”
“Four men,” continues the author of the Sermon from which the above is taken, in a note to it, “none of them [Roman] Catholics, heard the chanting three several times. They all agreed in their conviction as to whence it came, that it was from the chamber of the dying child. The third time it was so loud that they could distinguish, as it were, the several voices that blended in this celestial harmony, some of which sung the treble notes, while others took the deeper parts. The character of the music was indescribably beautiful; and one of the men, who had been in the habit of attending the Catholic service in S. Mary’s chapel, at Grâce-Dieu, declared that the style of it was exactly like that of the solemn Plain Chant used in that chapel which he was accustomed to hear there. They described the chanting as having no air in it that they could carry away, but the effect was solemn and beautiful beyond expression. They supposed, at the moment, that it was some service, according to the Catholic rites, which was being sung in the sick chamber by the priest and his attendants. When they heard it, therefore, they were not surprised at the sound, except that its beauty exceeded that of any religious service they had ever heard; and it was not until the following morning, at the breakfast hour, when relating what they had heard to their fellow-servants, and being then informed that there had been no service chanted in the sick room, that the conviction flashed upon them, as upon all to whom these facts have been since related, that the chanting proceeded from heavenly spirits and departed saints, who had come hither on an errand of mercy, to hedge round the dying bed of the departing child.”—Note, p. 13.
The Editor prefers to leave these varied records of the spiritual powers and properties of the Church, these different examples of the presence of the Supernatural, to the consideration of the reader; himself declining either to lay down principles, frame arguments, or draw deductions from facts already set forth.
Appendix to Chapter III.
THE FORM OF EXORCISING THE POSSESSED.
[Translated from the “Roman Ritual.”]
he Priest, having confessed, or at least hating sin in his heart, and having said Mass, if it possibly and conveniently can be done, and humbly implored the Divine help, vested in surplice and violet stole, the end of which he shall place round the neck of the one possessed, and having the possessed person before him, and bound if there be danger of violence, shall sign himself, the person, and those standing by, with the sign of the Cross, and sprinkle them with holy water, and kneeling down, the others making the responses, shall say the Litany as far as the prayers.
At the end the Antiphon. Remember not, Lord, our offences, nor the offences of our forefathers, neither take Thou vengeance of our sins.
Our Father. Secretly.
℣ And lead us not into temptation.
℟ But deliver us from evil.
Psalm liv.
Deus, in Nomine.
The whole shall be said with Glory be to the Father.
℣ Save Thy servant,
℟ O my God, that putteth his trust in Thee.
℣ Be unto him, O Lord, a strong tower,
℟ From the face of his enemy.
℣ Let the enemy have no advantage of him,
℟ Nor the son of wickedness approach to hurt him.