Holywell, in Flintshire, is famous for St. Winifred’s well, one of the
finest springs in the world. On account of the sanctity in which it was
holden, it gave name to the town. This well pours out, each minute,
_twenty-one tuns of water_, which, running to the middle of the town,
down the side of a hill, is made use of by every house as it passes,
after which it turns several mills, and is employed in various
manufactures, which greatly increase the population of the place and its
neighborhood. Over the spring, where a handsome bath has been erected,
is a neat chapel, supported by pillars, and on the windows are painted
the chief events of St. Winifred’s (or, as it was anciently written,
Wenefrede’s) life. About the well grows moss, which the ignorant and
superstitious devotees most stupidly imagine to be St. Winifred’s hair.
This saint is reported to have been a virgin martyr, who lived in the
seventh century, and, as the legend says, was ravished and beheaded in
this place by a pagan tyrant; the spring having miraculously risen from
her blood. Hence this bath was much frequented by popish pilgrims, out
of devotion, as well as by those who came to bathe in it for medicinal
purposes. Mr. Pennant says, “The custom of visiting this well in
pilgrimage, and offering up devotions there, is not yet entirely laid
aside: in the summer a few are to be seen in the water, in deep
devotion, up to their chins for hours, sending up their prayers, or
performing a number of evolutions round the polygonal well.”
It might have been supposed that the present enlightened age would have
been secure against a repetition of impostures of this kind; but Doctor
Milner, a Catholic bishop, of Wolverhampton, took much pains to persuade
the world that an ignorant proselyte, of the name of Winefrid White, was
there cured of various chronic diseases, so late as the year 1804, by a
miracle. Sir Richard Phillips, having, in the Monthly Magazine, referred
this pretended miracle to the known effect of strong faith on ignorant
minds, in any proposed means of cure, was attacked by the Catholic
clergy for his incredulity; but in number three hundred and two, of the
Monthly Magazine, he replies in the following words.
“We have no doubt whatever that Winefrid White was cured by her journey
to Holywell, and by bathing in the wonderful natural spring at that
place; but we are not credulous enough to believe that her cure was
effected by any antagonist properties of the water to the cause of her
disease; nor impious enough so to sport with eternal omnipotence, as to
assert that a capricious suspension of the laws of nature took place for
this purpose. On the contrary, we believe that the poor woman was cured
by causes well known to every medical practitioner, and proved in
hundreds of recorded instances; that is to say, by her faith in the
means proposed for her cure, wrought to the highest pitch by her
religion, and by the assurances of those to whom she was accustomed to
defer. We think, nevertheless, that the publication of this ‘case of
Winefrid White,’ savors strongly of religious empiricism, and is exactly
analogous to the ‘cases of cure’ which we every day see advertised in
all the newspapers. We refrain from treating the subject theologically,
yet it appears to us that Matthew xxiv. 24, proves that ‘signs and
wonders’ are not only no evidence of divine interposition, but may be
used even by ‘false prophets, so as to deceive the very elect.’ The
continuance of miraculous powers will be found, we suspect, to depend on
other circumstances than the date of the year. They disappear wherever
the printing-press begins to be freely used, and, by its agency, fixes
all the circumstances that attend them; and they still continue to
flourish wherever the history of the circumstances depends for any
period on traditional evidence. Miracles are, therefore, performed in
abundance, even in our days, among the negroes, the Hottentots, the
Caffres, the Tartars, the South Sea islanders, and the Indians of the
two Americas. The last we believe on record are to be found in the Hon.
M. Elphinstone’s published embassy to Cabul in 1808: he states that the
sick were carried after him many days’ journey; and, at page
twenty-eight, he says: ‘Some thought we could raise the dead; and there
was a story current, that we had made and animated a wooden ram at
Mooltaun; that we had sold him as a ram; and that it was not till the
purchaser began to eat him, that the material of which he was made was
discovered.’ We forbear to press the subject further.”