To this declaration are appended the signatures of forty-eight

bishops, all but two, we believe, of the whole of their hierarchy. Now

we were somewhat prepared for attempts to wrest the meaning of these

very plain words, but not for the flagrant dishonesty of some of the

High Church journals. Let us call things by their right names, and

speak the truth, if need be, in all sadness. We were not prepared to

hear that “the bishops were not asked nor did they profess to say 516

what regeneration means”; that in saying what it was not, they aimed

to give no explanation whatever of the word. We give two short

extracts, one from the _Churchman_, and the other from the _Church

Weekly_, which for candor and sincerity certainly deserve the first

premium:

“The object aimed at was ‘the quieting of the consciences of

sundry members of the church.’ It was not to give an exhaustive

definition of the word. Certain persons claimed that the term

might be interpreted to signify a moral change in the subject of

baptism. They knew that many would so understand it. And so the

bishops, being asked, stated what no sound churchman ever denied,

and no well-read theologian and respectable student of the

meaning of language ever denied, namely, ‘that the word is not so

used’ in that connection. The thing asked for was granted. The

object aimed at was accomplished, and those who represented the

unquiet consciences have acknowledged their grateful

appreciation.

“We can illustrate this point by a single example. Some readers

of the Bible may think that, whenever the word ‘day’ occurs in

the first chapters of Genesis, it must mean a period of

twenty-four hours. Common people have come to understand it in

that sense. Now, suppose that the question has been raised in

some Baptist or Congregational ‘Sabbath-school.’ The teachers

think a declaration from their pastor or bishop--if they please

to call him so--to the effect that the word does not of necessity

imply a period of time limited to twice twelve hours, would quiet

the consciences of some of their pupils who have studied geology.

Suppose the thing asked for is granted: are we, therefore, to

conclude that the pastor has pretended to give a definition of

the word ‘day,’ and to state exactly ‘what it does mean’? Shall

we speak of him as having ‘grappled with’ the creation question,

and yet ‘failed to tell a waiting’ Sabbath-school what the exact

time indicated by that word ‘day’ was--whether ten thousand

years, as some believe, or, as others think, ten million?”

“Alas! the House of Bishops have put forth a definition which is

_no_ definition! They pretend to define, and yet they do _not_

define! There is not a churchman, however ignorant of theology,

who does not laugh in his sleeve at this pseudo-definition, which

will have the effect, however, of making manifest either the

ignorance or the insincerity of ‘Evangelicals,’ provided that

they remain in the church. For, if the latter remain therein

after this, it must be either because they cannot tell a

definition from an evasion of a question, or because they are in

search of some excuse for not carrying out those boisterous

threats with which they have been for some time past making both

day and night hideous to all peaceful churchmen.”

The respect here shown to these right reverend fathers in God is

nearly as great as their honesty. Now, we insist that the new birth of

water and the Holy Ghost implies a _moral change_ of the most important

kind, and that even the forgiveness of original sin cannot take place

without such a change. We will take the words of the Episcopal

Catechism, and leave it to any just mind if regeneration determines a

_moral change_. There we are taught that the inward grace, inseparable

from baptism, else it is no sacrament, is “a death unto sin and a new

birth unto righteousness; for, being by nature born in sin, and the

children of wrath, we are hereby made the children of grace.” To be

made the child of grace surely requires a moral change, which the

bishops deny. They will, therefore, have to put out a new catechism or

a new dictionary. As for the quibbles upon the sense of the word

“determine,” as if the venerable prelates meant to sport with the

common sense of their constituents, they are too paltry to deserve the

notice of any respectable man. The plain fact is beyond dispute, that

the supreme authority of the Protestant Episcopal Church has formally

denied the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, which is contained in

the Catechism and Office for Baptism. In this they have only spoken 517

the real feeling and belief of the great majority of their religious

communion since the time of its formation. Of this wonderful

declaration, they say in their pastoral that “they have, with an

extraordinary unanimity, set forth a definition touching their offices

for the baptism of infants.” The declaration, they inform us, “was

made in the loving hope that many consciences might thus be for ever

freed from false impressions concerning the teaching of the church, as

respects spiritual religion and personal piety.”

We have no right to expect any accurate use of terms in the language

of those who, according to the testimony of many of their children,

know nothing of canon law or theology; yet here we have a plain

statement which admits of but one interpretation. The bishops at the

next convention may retract it or deny it, and individuals among them

may gravely say that they do not receive a doctrinal definition which

they signed. Stranger things have happened. The two who did not sign

it are, we are told, High Churchmen of the old, dry school, while the

hopeful abettors of ritualism have gone down under this cloud, from

whose darkness they can never clear themselves before an honest

public.

We pass on to notice the further action of the reverend prelates in

council, since to us ecclesiastics they are the only part of the

convention who are properly judges in doctrine or discipline. Having

denied regeneration in holy baptism, and the real presence of Christ

in the Eucharist, they have, with like unanimity, attacked and

forbidden, as far as they may, _private confession_. Sometimes, they

inform us, a soul is so burdened with its sinfulness as to desire “an

authoritative assurance of forgiveness.” This, however, in their view,

is by no means necessary, nor is it “the duty of Christians, or

essential to any high attainments in the religious life.” “Pardon,”

according to them, “is granted to any child of God, on his repentance,

accompanied by prayer, and reliance upon the promises of Christ, as

well as on the use of the means of grace.” What means of grace are

here intended does not appear. To make confession, therefore, “a thing

customary, not exceptional, enforced, not free, is to rob Christ’s

provision (what provision?) of its mercy, and to change it into an

engine of oppression and a source of corruption. History demonstrates

this, and the experience of families, and even of nations, shows that

the worst practical evils are inseparable from this great abuse. To

pervert the godly counsel and advice which may quiet a disturbed

conscience into the _arbitrary direction_ which _supplants_ the

conscience, is to do away with that sense of moral responsibility

under which every man shall give account of himself to God.”

This is not the place to point out the gross ignorance and prejudice

of the Episcopal bishops. They speak of what they know nothing, having

never confessed their own sins, nor felt the need of any

“authoritative assurance of pardon.” To assert a wholesale slander of

one of the most sacred institutions of Christ, hallowed by the

practice of three-fourths of all who call themselves Christians, which

is really the great source of the little purity left in the world, is

a fearful crime before heaven. We acquit them, therefore, in charity,

of the intention to slander, and hold them culpably ignorant. All this

is, however, beyond the scope of our present purpose. We have only to

say that they have forbidden, as far as their words go, the _ordinary_ 518

practice of confession, and that they deprecate it as “an engine of

oppression and a source of corruption.” It remains now to be seen

whether these counsels of the chief pastors of the Protestant

Episcopal Church are to be followed by their children who think them

to be successors of the apostles and fathers in God. Will the Right

Rev. Dr. Potter, who once published, as we have been informed, a

manual for the examination of conscience, to whom a prayer-book, with

directions for confession, has been publicly dedicated, now interfere

and put a stop to this great abuse? Will the handful of _ritual

priests_ in this city cease to sit in their pews or their libraries

to hear and absolve penitents? To speak our honest opinion, the words

of the bishops will have no influence whatever, and things will go on

precisely as they did before. We only venture to wish, for the sake of

propriety, that confessionals might be erected in all these churches,

where at least the female penitents might be heard. We assure our

friends that this advice comes from a good heart. If they cannot hear

confessions in public, they would do well for themselves not to hear

them at all.

The most reverend prelates go on to condemn “the tendency towards

saint-worship, and especially its culmination in the worship of the

Blessed Virgin.” “The bare suggestion that the intercession of the

Virgin Mary, or of any other saint, is in any way to be sought in our

approaches to the throne of grace, is an _indignity_ to the one only

Mediator and Intercessor which we, his _apostolic_ witnesses, cannot

too strongly nor distinctly forbid in his holy and all-sufficient

name.” Is this language plain enough for our ritualistic friends? Do

they think these words equivocal? They as _apostles_ have forbidden

any one to seek the prayers of the Mother of God or of any other

saint. To do so is to offer indignity to Christ, according to their

theology. On the same principle, Episcopalians must not ask the

prayers of each other, unless they wish to insult the one Intercessor.

The reason why the saints cannot intercede for us is that Jesus Christ

alone may do it. We cannot, therefore, suppose that living men or

women are in a different position in this respect from their departed

brethren, especially from the great heroes of Christianity. We really

blush at the stupidity of men who call themselves teachers and wear

episcopal robes, but it is not our business to criticise their

directions to their flock. We simply put before the world what they

have so plainly said. All invocation of any one but Christ is to be

stopped within their communion by their solemn decree, if, indeed, it

was ever practised.

From this restriction of prayer, they pass on to condemn the

devotional books which “have been insidiously multiplied of late years

in England and America, and are alien in their character to the whole

spirit of the Liturgy.” We presume they here refer to the translations

of Catholic books of devotion which have become for some time past the

pious nourishment of all the advanced Episcopalians. We have seen many

of these works ourselves, and have even seen the _Book of Common Prayer_

bound up with parts of the Missal, and preparations for communion and

confession taken from well-known Catholic authors. This, to say the

least, is an acknowledgment that their own church does not feed their

souls, and that they seek a life it can neither give nor support. This

alone ought to be sufficient to send them where they can find a 519

religious system according with their wants. Certainly they can do as

they like in the matter. They can put on all our vestments, and their

bishops may wear rings and crosses, and bear mitres and crosiers, and

they may cross themselves with the left hand, and bow down before an

altar which is only wood or stone. They may call themselves the only

Catholics in the world, and out-herod Herod himself, and quietly put

us Romanists in the shade. But we think the bishops are right to tell

them that all this is inconsistent with Episcopalianism, and that they

ought to be either one thing or the other. A man has a right _before

the law_ to play the Harlequin; but has he a _moral_ right to do so?

Is it an honest or fair thing to remain in a church and use devotions

and teach doctrines which it condemns? Much is said of “that liberty

wherewith Christ has made us free.” But can that be a liberty to

contradict ourselves, to profess to be what we are not, and to carry

private judgment to absurdity? We are forced in reason to commend the

advice of the bishops, and to say with them to our good friends,

“Gentlemen and ladies, if you wish to use Catholic books, be kind

enough to go where they belong. Please do not attempt to foist upon

our people a spirituality which is foreign to our Protestant

communion.” From our past knowledge, however, we do not believe that

the counsel of the reverend fathers will produce much effect. We shall

still as ever have Catholic books of devotion luxuriously bound (the

binding goes a great ways), “and adapted to the use of the _American

Church_.” For our own part, we hope that this will be the case, since

the recitation of our prayers, and the reading of the masters of the

spiritual life, may do much to lead souls to the one true faith.

3. A few remarks will now suffice to show the position in which the

Protestant Episcopal Church has placed herself by the action of this

convention. If we regard the whole body, including the laymen as well

as the clerical deputies, we can see how true to its birthmarks has

been the legislation of a communion which glories in the non-committal

character of its creed and profession. Two or three parties, with

views diametrically opposite, are thus kept together, and in the

diversity of opinions is the safety of the whole. When the Episcopal

Church begins to have anything like a faith, then will it fall to

pieces, and new sects will arise of its component parts. How long it

will go on holding together High Church and Low Church, Broad Church

and no church at all, we do not know. But this we think, its

Protestant character is now well established to all mankind. Not one

single link which could bind it to the doctrine or practice of the

past has been left. If it will not baptize itself with the names of

Luther, Calvin, or Zwingle, it can boast of no father or mother. In

the words of its Bishop Lee, if it is not a _Protestant_ church, it

disowns its birth, and has no right to be called a church. Through the

most solemn action of its supreme authority it has denied the real

presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, the regeneration of children

in baptism, the intercession of the saints, and the practice of

confession. As for the ritualists, they have been handled without

mercy, and their whole system of faith and worship summarily

condemned. It will be of little avail to them to say that the bishops

only have pronounced a decision, and that the division of the clerical

and _lay vote_ in four or five dioceses saved them from a prohibitory 520

canon of the whole convention. Are the presbyters and lay deputies the

successors of the apostles, whom the Lord instituted to govern the

church of God? Who made the sheep of the flock the judges in

ecclesiastical causes?

We have no heart to believe that the condemnation of the bishops will

do any good with the majority of them. A few earnest souls will come,

one by one, into the true fold of the Good Shepherd, where a man has

to _receive_ and obey Christ, and not _make_ a religion for himself.

Yet we fear, and with sadness we say it, that no power whatever could

open the eyes of many. If their church should deny the Holy Trinity or

the incarnation of God the Son, they would explain away the denial.

Blow after blow with a rough hand has been given to these so-called

Catholics within the past few years. Many are not shaken, but in spite

of all the decisions of their councils and the admonition of their

pastors, they go on insisting on vanity, erecting an idol which their

own hands have made, and blindly falling down to worship it. Who shall

reason with men who have histories and even grammars and dictionaries

of their own? Who but God in his infinite mercy can roll away the

darkness of hearts which walk in a vain shadow and disquiet themselves

for naught, calling evil good and good evil? Here logic is wasted, and

the past, with its lessons, ignored, as if the Word made flesh had

never been on earth, nor quickened with divine grace our fallen

humanity. Fellow-Catholics, let us to prayer, that such souls may not

die eternally out of their Father’s house, strangers to the Bread of

Life. In their great need, the pitying heart of Jesus crucified will

hear, and scales shall fall from many eyes. Oh! how sad to travel long

and far in this weary life, and then only to see from a distance the

promised land, but never to rest in the tabernacles of the God of

Jacob.

[113] Except in American Church.

[114] Give notice of S. Andrew’s Day.

----------

CHATEAU REGNIER.

A CHRISTMAS STORY OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY.

I.

A proud man was the Baron Regnier. In the old days of Charlemagne, the

Chateau Regnier had risen, a modest mansion on the pleasant banks of

the Garonne. That great monarch died; his empire fell to pieces; the

lords became each one an independent sovereign in his own castle,

making perpetual war on each other, and electing kings who could

enforce neither respect nor obedience. Then the Chateau Regnier was

enlarged and fortified, its retainers and vassals became numerous,

and, as was the method of growing rich in those times, large parties

of horsemen would sally from its gates, as suited their pleasure or

necessities, to plunder neighboring lords or defenceless travellers.

The Barons Regnier were brave men; never was there a brilliant or 521

dangerous expedition wherein some scion of the house did not

distinguish himself. When the first preaching of the Crusades stirred

the soul of Europe, there was bustle of preparation and burnishing of

weapons at the château; even in the motley company of Peter the Hermit

went one of the younger sons of the family, who did his part of

plundering in Hungary and Dalmatia, and perished on the shores of the

Bosphorus; and in the more orderly expedition that followed, the

reigning baron himself led a brave array under the banner of Raymond

of Toulouse.

The return of the crusaders brought more refined tastes into France,

though not more peaceable manners. The Château Regnier was enriched

and beautified; troubadours gathered there; feasts were continually

spread; still plunder and anarchy were the order of the day till the

reign of Louis le Gros. That energetic king devoted his life to

establishing law and order in France. Then the house of Regnier,

having plundered all that it conveniently could, took part with the

king to prevent all further plundering, so it grew strong in its

possessions.

With such a line of ancestry to look back on, no wonder that the Baron

Regnier was proud. He himself in his youth had shared in the disasters

of a crusade. After his return home, he had married a beautiful wife,

whom he tenderly loved; but his happiness had been of short duration;

in three years after their union she died, leaving him an image of

herself--a frail and lovely little being, the last flower on the

rugged stem of that great house.

A lovely land is the south of France. Two thousand years ago the old

geographer of Pontus[115] called it the Beautiful, and its soft

_langue d’or_ is the very language of love. It was on the shores of

the Garonne, in the twelfth century, that the troubadours sang their

sweetest songs. Among them was found Pierre Rogiers, who wearied once

of the cloister, and so wandered out into the world--to the court of

the beautiful Ermengarde of Narbonne, to the palaces of Aragon, at

last to the shores of the Garonne, and, finding everywhere only vanity

of vanities, once more entered the gates of the monastery and lay down

to die.

Here, too, lived Bernard de Ventadour, who loved and celebrated in his

songs more than one royal princess. Here he dwelt in courtly splendor,

till he too grew weary of all things earthly, and yearned for the

quiet of the cloister, and, wrapping the monk’s robe around him, he

too died in peace.

No wonder if Clemence Regnier, growing up a beautiful girl in the

midst of these influences, should yield her soul to the soft

promptings of affection. She was the favorite companion of her father;

no wish of hers was ungratified; her sweetness of temper endeared her

to all around her. She was sought in marriage by many rich nobles of

Toulouse; she refused them all, and gave her preference to the younger

son of a neighboring baron--a penniless and landless knight.

When the old baron first discovered their mutual attachment, he was at

first incredulous, then amazed, then angry. He persistently and

peremptorily refused his consent. The De Regniers had for so long

married, as they had done everything else, only to augment their power

and wealth, that a marriage where love and happiness only were 522

considered, was an absurd idea to the baron.

“This comes of all these _jongleurs_ and their trashy songs!” he

exclaimed; “they have got nothing to do but wander about the world and

turn girls’ and boys’ heads with their songs. I’ll have no more of

them here!”

So the baron turned all poets and musicians out of his château, but he

could not turn love and romance out; the young heart of Clemence was

their impregnable citadel, and there they held their ground against

all the baron’s assaults.

Four years went by; Clemence was pining away with grief, for she loved

her father and she loved her lover; at last, her love for the latter

prevailed, and, trusting to win the old baron’s forgiveness

afterwards, Clemence fled from the château with the young Count de

Regnault.

Baron de Regnier was a man who, when moderately irritated, gave vent

to his wrath in angry words, but when deeply wounded he was silent;

and here both his pride and his affection had been wounded most

deeply.

He signified to the guests at the castle that they might depart; he

closed the grand halls, keeping near him a few old servants; dismissed

his chaplain, whom he suspected, though falsely, of having married the

runaway couple, and who had been their messenger to him, begging for

his forgiveness and permission to come to him; closed his chapel

doors; and shut himself up, gloomy and alone, in a suite of rooms in a

wing of the château.

Many loving and penitent messages came to him from Clemence. At first

he took no notice of them: at last, to one he returned an answer--“He

would never see her again.”

II.

The summer came and the winter, and many a summer and winter passed,

and the dreariest domain in all France was the once merry Château

Regnier. Year after year the old man brooded alone. If friendship or

chance brought guests to the château, they were received with stately

formality, which forbade their stay; rarely did a stranger pass a

night within its walls. The retainers kept their Christmas holidays as

best they might; no great hall was opened and lighted, no feast was

spread. They wondered how long the baron would live such a life, and

what would become of the château should he die, for he had no heir to

take it.

Ten years passed: the old man began to grow tired at last of his

solitude; he listened to the voice of conscience--it reproached him

with ten long years of neglected duties. The first thing he did was to

open the doors of his chapel. He sent for artisans and ordered it to

be repaired and refitted, then he sent a messenger to the Bishop of

Toulouse, asking him to send a chaplain to the Château Regnier.

The church was in those days what she is now--the great republic of

the world; but at that time she was the _only_ republic, the one

impregnable citadel where, through all the centuries that we call the

middle ages, the liberties and the equality of men held their ground

against hereditary right and feudal despotism. In the monastery the

prior was often of lowly birth, while among the humbler brethren whom

he ruled might be found men of patrician, even of royal lineage.

Virtue and talent were the only rank acknowledged; the noble knelt and

confessed his sins, and received absolution from the hand of the serf. 523

Thus, beside the princely-born Bernard we see the name of Fulbert, the

illustrious Bishop of Chartres, raised to the episcopal throne from

poverty and obscurity--as he himself says, “_sicut de stercore pauper_”;

and the life-long friend and minister of Louis the Sixth, Suger, the

abbot of St. Denis, and regent of France, was the son of a bourgeois

of St. Omer.

So it happened that when the baron sent to the Bishop of Toulouse for

a chaplain, a young priest, who was the son of a vassal of Château

Regnier, threw himself at the prelate’s feet, and begged that he might

be sent. The bishop looked on him with surprise and displeasure.

“Monseigneur,” said the priest, “you reproach me in your heart for

what appears to you my presumption and boldness in making this

request. I have a most earnest reason, for the love of God, in asking

this; for a very brief time do I ask to remain chaplain at the Château

Regnier, but I do most earnestly ask it.” So he was sent.

The young Père Rudal had been in his childhood a favorite with the

baron. It was the baron who had first taken notice of the bright boy,

and who had sent him away to the great schools of Lyons to be

educated; and now, when he saw his former favorite return to him, the

old man’s heart warmed again, and opened to the young priest.

It was with strange emotions that the Père Rudal stood once more in

the home of his childhood. When a careless boy there, with no very

practical plans for life, he had loved, with a boy’s romantic love,

the beautiful Clemence. He was something of a dreamer and poet; she

had been the queen of his reveries. He was the child of a vassal, and

she of noble birth. This thought saddened him, and many were the

ditties wherein he bewailed, in true troubadour fashion, this mournful

fact; but that he was a boy of twelve when she was a girl of seventeen

did not at the time occur to him.

After he had gone to the university he heard of her departure from her

father’s castle, and the old man’s unforgiving anger against her. The

thought of her grief kept the remembrance of her in his heart, and

now--though he could laugh at those old dreams of romance--he could

love her with a nobler love. He knew the baron’s former predilection

for himself, and he prayed daily to heaven that he might once more see

her restored to her father’s halls.

At the château now he was the baron’s constant companion. He led the

old man little by little to interest himself once more in the duties

of life--in plans for ameliorating the condition of some of the poor

vassals--in some improvements in the château. Before two years had

passed the old man seemed to love him like a son. Yet often a cloud

passing over the weary face, a deep sigh, a sudden indifference to all

earthly things, betrayed the lifelong grief of the baron’s heart, and

the thought still kept of her whom that heart so truly loved but would

not pardon.

It was drawing near to the Christmas season, when one day Père Rudal

said to the Baron:

“My lord, more than a year have I been with you, and although you have

heaped many favors upon me, I have never yet solicited one; now I am

going to ask one.”

“My dear friend and companion,” replied the baron, “whatever is in my

power, you know you have only to ask.”

“In the old days,” continued the priest, “this château of yours saw

many a gay feast, especially at the Christmas-tide; then there were 524

nobles and ladies here; now it has grown gloomy and silent. What I ask

is, that this Christmas you will give an entertainment, but one of a

novel kind; let the halls be opened and a banquet spread, and invite

all your poor neighbors, your vassals, your retainers, their wives and

children; let none be omitted: do this for the love of that little

Child who was so poor and outcast for love of us. I myself will

superintend the whole, and pledge myself for the good conduct and

happiness of all; and moreover, you yourself will accompany and remain

among your guests, at least for a little while. I know I am making a

bold request in asking this, but I am sure you will not refuse it, and

I promise you will not repent of it.”

The baron acceded to the request. Had he been asked to entertain grand

company at his castle, in his present mood he would have refused at

once and haughtily; but he was too generous to refuse anything asked

in the name of the poor; besides, he felt in his heart the truth of

what the young priest had said to him: “There is no solace for grief

like that of solacing the sorrows of others; and no happiness like

that of adding to their happiness.”

III.

Christmas Day came; and, after the Grand Mass was over, the great hall

of the château was opened, and tables were spread with abundance of

good cheer; there were presents for the little children too; and there

were _jongleurs_ who, instead of the customary love ditties, sang old

Christmas carols in the soft Provençal dialect. Amidst the hilarity

there was, what by no means was common in those days, order and

decorum. This was due in part to the restraint and awe inspired by the

old château--opened for the first time in so many years; but more to

the presence in their midst of the baron and the priest, who passed

from one group to another with a kind word to each.

After a while the priest laid his hand on the baron’s arm:

“Let us retire to yonder oriel window--there we may sit in quiet and

contemplate this merry scene.”

The baron gladly escaped from the crowd, but, as he seated himself, a

sigh of weariness escaped him, and a cloud gathered on his brow.

“How happy you have made all these good people,” said the priest. “The

merriment of children has something contagious in it, has it not?”

“What have I to do with the merriment of other people’s children--I, a

poor childless old man?”

The baron spoke bitterly; for the first time in his life had he made

an allusion to his griefs.

“But see these three pretty little children coming towards us,” the

priest continued; “we did not see them as we passed through the hall.”

And he beckoned them nearer--a little girl about eight years old, a

little boy some two or three years younger, and the smallest just able

to walk: beautiful children they were, but dressed in the ordinary

dress of peasant children.

“Do not refuse to kiss these pretty little ones for the love of the

little Child who was born to-day,” pleaded the priest, as he raised

one on his own knee. “Now, my lord, if it were the poorest vassal in

your domains, would he not be a happy man whom these pretty ones

should call grandpapa?”

The baron’s face assumed a look of displeasure. “I want no more of

this; entertain your guests as you please, but spare me my presence 525

here any further. I am glad if I can do anything towards making others

happy, but happiness for myself is gone in this world.”

“O my lord!” said the Père Rudal, “why is your happiness gone? Because

you have cast it away. When your daughter, your Clemence, threw

herself and her little ones at your feet, and prayed you, for the love

of the little Child born in Bethlehem, to take _her_ little ones to

your heart, why did you coldly turn away and refuse her?”

The baron turned to him with unfeigned surprise. “What do you mean?”

said he. “I have never seen her since, and her children never.”

“But you see them now.”

“O father!” said a well-known voice, and his own daughter Clemence was

kneeling in the midst of her little ones at his feet.

The old man sank back in his seat--his daughter’s arm was thrown

around his neck--her head was resting on his heart--and after an

instant’s struggle between love, the divine instinct, and pride, the

human fault, his arm was clasped closely about her. Père Rudal lifted

up the youngest child, and placed it on the baron’s knee, and then

quietly stole away.

A merry place was the Château Regnier after that night; the rooms and

halls were opened to the daylight--there was romping and laughing of

children from one end of it to the other. The Count de Regnault was

sent for on the very next day after that happy Christmas, and was

embraced by the baron as a son--and evermore thereafter, with great

splendor and merriment, was that feast held at the château; so that

the Christmas festivals of Château Regnier became famous throughout

France.

As for the young priest--that night, after he had seen Clemence once

more in her father’s arms, he left the château and never returned to

it. He went away to Toulouse, and wrote from thence to the baron,

telling him that his love for him and his was unalterable, but his

mission at the château was accomplished; the voice of duty called him

elsewhere; and he begged the baron’s consent to depart. The baron gave

his acquiescence reluctantly. Père Rudal soon after entered the order

of the Trinitarians, for the redemption of captives, which had been

recently established, and perished on a voyage to Tunis.

[115] Καλὴ δὲ καὶ ἡ τῶν Αὐσκίων--_Strabo._

----------

THE “BROAD SCHOOL.”

What is your “Broad School” now, Professor, say,

But the booking-office of the old “Broad Way”?

AUBREY DE VERE.

----------

THE LIQUEFACTION OF THE BLOOD OF ST. JANUARIUS. 526

NO. V.

The direct and positive arguments which we have presented in our last

article, bearing on the miraculous character of the liquefaction,

cover the ground so entirely that we might, indeed, rest our case on

their presentation. We need, however, make no apology for going

further, and examining also, and somewhat in detail, the difficulties

and counter-statements which have been made, from time to time, by

those who deny its miraculous character. Truth shrinks from no

examination or proper test.

We are confident that, the more closely those objections are examined,

the weaker they will be found to be; and their weakness is an

additional argument for the truth of our conclusion.

The general charge is that this liquefaction is effected by some trick

or other on the part of the priests. A vague charge by itself means

nothing, and is of no value. To be worth anything, there must follow a

“specification,” some indication or explanation of the precise mode or

trick by which the liquefaction is effected. HOW IS IT DONE?

This is the first question to which a reply must be given, before the

objectors can come into court.

The replies to it have been numerous, very numerous--in fact, so

numerous as to lose all real value: they are so wonderfully discordant

and so contradictory.

The liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius has occurred, during

the last two hundred and fifty years--to go no further back just

now--at least four thousand times; in public, without any attempt at

concealment, under the eyes of believers and unbelievers alike,

standing on every side and within a few feet, it may be, in immediate

contact with the officiating clergyman, and, therefore, possessing

ample opportunity for the closest and most critical inspection of

everything concerning it. Under such circumstances, it is

inconceivable that the precise trick, or fraud, or secret, if there

were any, should remain undiscovered. Yet, that no such discovery has

been made is perfectly clear from this striking disagreement among

those who charge that there is fraud, as soon as they undertake to

state distinctly in what the fraud or trick consists. What one

proposes is scouted by another as so weak and so contrary to the facts

of the case, that it is virtually a surrender of the cause. One

declares it to be “one of the most bungling tricks he ever saw”; but

he is entirely silent as to the nature of the trick so obvious to him.

Another states it to be a trick “of great ingenuity,” as well as of

“long standing”; but, with equal prudence, he also is mute as to its

character. A third will explain the manner in which A. thought it was

done; and the very different manner in which B. held that it was

performed; while C. with equal shrewdness proposed a third mode. The

reader is considerately left free to select which he pleases. Which 527

of them or whether any one of them be actually true is apparently a

question of minor importance. The grand purpose aimed at--and for

that, any one of them, even if a mistake, will, it is thought, be

sufficient--is to find some passable or colorable pretext to relieve

the reader from the exceedingly disagreeable necessity of admitting a

popish miracle.

When two and a half centuries of keen and critical examinations,

covering so many thousand instances of the liquefaction, have resulted

only in such utter confusion and disagreement among those who profess

to have discovered the fraud, we may legitimately conclude that in

reality there has been no discovery of any trickery or fraud

whatsoever.

Not to tax the reader’s patience too much, we will endeavor to

classify the various modes in which we are assured by these discordant

voices that the fraud is perpetrated.

The first class attributes the liquefaction, or seeming liquefaction,

to some kind of jugglery or _legerdemain_ practised by the officiating

clergymen during the exposition of the relics.

But _when_, or _how_, it would puzzle Houdin himself, or the Fakir of

Ava, to say.

Is it, as some have suggested, the adroit substitution of a second

reliquary which contains a liquid, and which, at a suitable moment, is

presented to the bystanders, instead of the original reliquary

containing a hard substance?

Most certainly not. The officiating priest stands in front of an altar

built of marble and bronze, without drawers or hiding-places. The

reliquary in his hands is of considerable bulk--twelve inches high,

five inches broad, and two and a half or three inches thick--entirely

too large to elude the keen eyesight of the hundreds close around, who

intently watch it and scan every motion of the clergyman. Where could

the second reliquary lie hidden until needed? Could he lay down the

first one and hide it away, and draw forth the second one and exhibit

it to the people, without some such movement of his hands and arms as

must inevitably be seen? Can it be that never once in these four

thousand times did any eye detect the act of substitution? Many of the

chaplains and canons who officiate are aged men. Can their feeble or

half-paralyzed arms do frequently, regularly, and always with perfect

success, what the most expert and practised prestigitator would shrink

from attempting? The thing is utterly impossible.

If it were possible and actually done, it would not answer the

requirements of the case. In such a substitution, the liquefaction

would _always_ appear to be instantaneous--as instantaneous as the

adroit substitution. But the real process of liquefaction is seldom so

instantaneous. It is often gradual, occupying an appreciable,

sometimes a long time. It may often be followed by the eye in the

various stages from solidity to perfect fluidity.

Moreover, no substitution can account for the subsequent hardenings,

or the alternations of hardenings and liquefactions, especially when

these occur, as they sometimes do, while the reliquary remains

untouched, mounted on its stand on the altar, in the sight of all, or

during a procession in the streets when it is borne aloft, equally

untouched, in its open frame, and is equally visible to all.

The idea of a substitution of reliquaries can only be entertained by

one who is utterly ignorant of the circumstances of the liquefaction.

We set it aside. If nothing else can be said, the miracle must stand. 528

The publicity of all the movements of the officiating clergyman who

holds the reliquary, and the unceasing inspection of the reliquary by

so many observers on every side, are equally peremptory in excluding

the supposition that the liquefaction may possibly be produced by

inserting, during the exposition, some new ingredient into the

ampulla, which, uniting with the hard substance already there, will

give a third substance of a liquid character. How could this be done

so many thousand times; and always under the eyes of a crowd of most

attentive and watchful observers, without a single one of them ever,

in a single instance, detecting this new substance while held in

reserve for the proper moment, or noticing the act of inserting it, as

this precedes the liquefaction? And what shall we say of those

numerous cases in which the blood, having liquefied, becomes hard

again, and, after a time, liquefies again? Is there an adroit

withdrawal of this new ingredient from the ampulla in order that the

liquid may harden again, and is there a fresh application of it, each

time, for every renewal of the liquefaction, during the day? And what

if these changes occur while the reliquary is not in the hands of the

clergyman at all, but has been placed and remains all the while on its

stand on the altar, or is borne aloft in its open frame during a

procession? Does this wondrous ingredient of wondrous power wondrously

manage, of itself, and without the aid of human hands, to find its way

to and into the ampulla, or to withdraw from it, as often as needed?

The drollest attempt at a solution, in this line, which we remember to

have met, was one put forward, with the usual air of positive

assertion, in a bitter anti-Catholic magazine, published years ago in

the United States, which undertook to impugn this miracle. HOT WATER,

the writer maintained, was stealthily introduced into the hollow metal

stem or handle below the reliquary; the heat from which might pass, by

conduction, through the intervening substances, and at last reach the

substance itself within the ampulla and cause it to melt.

The stem aforesaid is just three inches and one-eighth in length, and

seven-eighths of an inch in external diameter. Allowing the metal of

which it is formed to be one-sixteenth of an inch in thickness--less

it can scarcely be--and that the hollow extends the entire length--on

which point we avow our ignorance--the cavity of the stem would hold

about one-fifth of a gill--rather too small a quantity for the purpose

in view.

Moreover, the opening or mouth of the hollow stem is at its lower

extremity. Now, inasmuch as even hot water is subject to the laws of

gravity and will fall downwards, we submit that for the hot water to

remain in the stem or cylinder with its lower extremity quite open,

for even ten minutes, would be as truly a miracle as the liquefaction

itself is claimed to be. Even allowing some invisible plug to be used

to close that opening and to prevent the water from falling down,

would not the first and most powerful effect of the heat of the water

be manifested in the thin metallic sides of the stem itself, scorching

and blistering the hands of the priest that held it?

And again, when the liquefaction is delayed--which, on this

supposition, would occur because the heat in the small quantity of

water first introduced is not sufficient for the purpose, and has been

absorbed by the metal reliquary before producing the desired 529

liquefaction--it would obviously become necessary to empty the stem

and to take in a fresh supply of hot water. The same thing would, at

least on a cold day, have to be repeated over and over again until the

liquefaction finally does occur; and would have to be repeated still

over again as often as the substance in the vial grows hard during the

day, and a fresh liquefaction is required. Where is the vase into

which they pour out the water that has lost its heat? Did any one ever

see the kettle brought in with the fresh supply of water, steaming

hot, as needed?

Perhaps the author of this explanation was a wag, making game of the

gullible readers of the anti-Catholic magazine. If he was in earnest,

we regret that he did not turn his brilliant talents to the task of

discovering perpetual motion.

Lest the reader may think that we are not doing justice to the

opponents of the liquefaction, we will quote the words of one who is

or should be held as a high authority in their ranks. Bishop Douglas

(of Salisbury, England) published A CRITERION _for distinguishing

the Miracles of the New Testament from the Tricks of Pagan and Papal

Priests_. Speaking of the liquefaction, he says:

“The particular natural cause is not indeed absolutely agreed

upon. Some have imagined that the heat of the hands of the

priests who have been tampering with the vial of blood during the

celebration of Mass will be sufficient to make it melt. Others,

again, have been inclined to believe that the liquefaction is

affected by the heat of vast numbers of wax tapers of enormous

size with which the altar is decked out, and many of which are

placed so conveniently that the priest can, without any

appearance of design, hold the glass so near to them as to make

it hot, and consequently dispose the enclosed substance to melt.

I should be inclined to subscribe to this opinion, had I not met

with a more probable solution.

“I am informed (for I have never tried the experiment myself)

that a composition of _crocus martis_ and _cochineal_ will

perfectly resemble congealed blood, and, by dropping the smallest

quantity of _aqua fortis_ amongst this composition, its dry

particles will be put into a ferment, till at last an ebullition

is excited and the substance becomes liquid.

“That a glass may be so contrived as to keep the _aqua fortis_

from the dry substance till the critical moment when the

liquefaction is to be effected may be easily conceived. And

indeed the vial containing the pretended blood is so constituted.

It is something like an hourglass, and the dry substance is

lodged in the upper division. Now, in the lower division of the

glass, a few drops of _aqua fortis_ may be lodged without

furnishing any suspicion, as the color will prevent its being

distinguished. All the attendant circumstances of this bungling

trick are perfectly well accounted for by admitting this

solution. Whenever the priest would have the miracle take effect,

he need only invert the glass, and then the _aqua fortis_, being

uppermost, will drop down on the dry substance and excite an

ebullition, which resembles the melting. And upon restoring the

glass to its former position, the spectators will see the

substance, the particles of which have been separated by the

_aqua fortis_, drop down to the bottom of the glass, in the same

manner that the sands run through an hour-glass.

“Now, upon the supposition that I have assigned the real cause,

the priests can prevent the success of this miracle whenever they

please; and accordingly we know that they do actually do so, when

they have any prospect of advancing their own interest, by

infusing a notion into the minds of the Neapolitans that heaven

is angry with their nation.”

Bishop Douglas with his reliquary “something like an hour-glass”

deserves to stand next to him who filled the stem with boiling water.

They both seem to value the dreamy supposition which they evolve out

of their own inner consciousness as fully equal to undoubted and actual

facts demonstrated by experience or fully established by testimony. 530

We leave aside the chemistry involved in his supposition, since he

candidly avowed that he never tried the experiment. It is a pity he

did not make a similar candid avowal when speaking of the shape of the

vial containing the blood. He should, for the sake of good faith, have

warned his readers that he had never seen the vial itself, nor even an

engraving of it; and should have let them understand that his whole

explanation was based on his assumed ability to describe accurately

and minutely the shape of a vial which, he must have been aware, and

should have informed them, he was entirely ignorant of.

Any one who has seen the reliquary and the ampulla within it, or has

even looked at the figure of it which we have given, or at engravings

of it which are easily obtained in Naples and elsewhere, will see at a

glance that the shape of the ampulla is just the reverse of an

hourglass. In fact, in form it much more closely approaches a sphere.

Not a single point set forth in the explanation is correct. There is

no upper division in which the dry substance, compounded of _crocus

martis_ and _cochineal_, and perfectly resembling congealed blood,

is or can be lodged; there is no lower division, unoccupied save by

the few drops of _aqua fortis_, the color of which prevents its being

discovered, even by keen, curious, prying eyes. There is in the

liquefaction no sandlike fall, from an upper into a lower division, of

a stream of particles of the dry substance, now separated or liquefied

by the _aqua fortis_. The bishop has not only failed to hit the bull’s

eye, he has entirely missed the target, every shot.

And yet, with what delicious complacency he considers, and expects

his readers to admit, that he, above all others, has correctly exposed

the bungling trick, and has unmasked the fraudulent dealings of the

priests, who can effect or prevent the miracle as they please! It is a

genuine sample of the way in which a certain class of writers think

they demolish anything Catholic. And how many, after reading this

passage of the _Criterion_, may have closed the book in perfect

confidence that, after such an exposure, so clear and detailed, by so

learned and so respectable an authority, it would be waste of time to

read another word on the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius!

Need we go back to the two previous explanations he mentions, but

which he will not adopt, until he is forced by the failure of his pet

explanation? So many others have urged them that we may not pass them

entirely unnoticed.

The ordinary form of the first one is this: The officiating priest,

who holds in his hands the vial containing the blood, rubs it with his

handkerchief, and clasps it in his palms. The animal heat of his

hands, and such heat as the friction may produce, suffices to bring

about the liquefaction.

Let the reader cast an eye on the very correct figure of the reliquary

which we give. The priest holds it by the stem below; sometimes, in

turning it, he may put one hand on the crown above. He does not, for

he cannot, touch the interior vials containing the blood. They are

inside the case, held in position by the soldering above and below,

and are enclosed and protected by the thick metal rim, and the plates

of glass in front and rear. The heat of his hands, as he holds it, and

the utmost heat that can be produced by the friction--as occasionally,

every five or ten minutes, he may, if he thinks it necessary, rub 531

the plates of glass with his white handkerchief, in order to see

better through them into the interior--cannot possibly affect the

contents of the ampulla in any appreciable degree. As for causing them

to melt or liquefy, one might as well expect the same animal heat of

one’s hand to light a wax candle by simply grasping and holding the

candlestick in which it stands, or that lightly rubbing the

candlestick with a handkerchief, every five or ten minutes, to keep it

bright and dry, would produce the same physical effect on the candle

placed in it as ordinary mortals obtain nowadays by igniting a lucifer

match and applying it to the wick.

No one who has ever witnessed the liquefaction can listen to this

attempt at explanation without a smile of pity or of contempt. Even in

those cases in which the liquefactions take place while the reliquary

is in the hands of the priest, it is equally insufficient and absurd.

It has no application whatever to the other many cases in which the

liquefaction occurs while the reliquary stands on the altar or is

borne in procession. Like the other solutions we have examined, it

makes no attempt to account for the reiterated hardenings and

liquefactions which may occur during the day, nor for the variations

of volume and for the other phases which are presented. Yet we must

bear in mind that all these are striking and characteristic points,

which are to be strictly accounted for, equally with the simple fact

of a solid substance becoming fluid.

As for the second mode of solution mentioned by Bishop Douglas, that

which attributes the liquefaction to the general heat around the altar

due to the “vast number of wax tapers of enormous size” burning on the

altar, and also, not to omit what others have said, to the crowd

closely packed around the officiating clergyman--that attempted

solution has already been disposed of. Thermometrical investigations

by scientific professors, and the many times that the liquefaction

takes place at the altar when there is little or no crowd, and also

away from the altar and its “wax tapers of enormous size” during a

procession in the streets, and while the reliquary is freely exposed

to the open air of December--all alike combine to exclude this

solution. As for the convenient position in which the bishop places

some of those wax tapers, and the practice of the priests to make use

of this position and, “without any appearance of design,” to “hold the

glass so near to them as to make it hot, and consequently dispose the

enclosed substance to melt,” we may ask, if he did not believe this to

be true, why has he repeated the statement, and expressed his

inclination “to subscribe to this opinion” even as a _pis aller_? If

he did believe that the priest really so manipulated the vial in order

to produce the liquefaction, ought not that to be sufficient? Why

postpone the truth in favor of a pet theory about _crocus martis_,

_cochineal_, _aqua fortis_, and the _hour-glass_? Evidently, his mind

was rather cloudy on the subject. Seriously, the priest could not hold

the reliquary so near to a lighted wax taper of enormous size, long

enough to make it hot, without attracting the attention of hundreds

each time he did it. Not to overlook the smallest point, we may remark

that, on the six occasions when we were present at the liquefaction,

on all of which it invariably occurred at the main altar of the

_Tesoro_ chapel, the lighted tapers on the altar were few. If our

memory serves us right, they were just _six_, three on each side of 532

the crucifix over the centre of the altar, and all of them placed on

tall and elevated altar candlesticks. The nearest blaze must have

been, at least, seven feet away from and above the reliquary, as the

chaplain held it in front of the altar. To achieve the feat which

Bishop Douglas mentions, it would have been necessary to move back a

portion of the crowd, near the altar, in order to get room, and then

to bring in and make use of a good-sized step-ladder! The only burning

light ever held in proximity to the reliquary is the single small

taper, sometimes held by an assistant chaplain, and used on cloudy or

hazy days, when the general light in the _Tesoro_ chapel is not

sufficiently strong to show through the glass plates of the reliquary

and the sides of the ampulla, as distinctly as desired, the state of

the blood in the interior of the ampulla. In such cases, this taper is

now and then brought for half a minute or a minute within eight or ten

inches of the reliquary, and is held a little downward, and behind it,

in such position that its light may shine obliquely onward through the

glasses, on the surface of the blood, and show, as we saw it show, the

state of the interior with perfect distinctness. It is not applied to

the reliquary in any way that can appreciably heat it. When the

atmosphere is perfectly clear, the general light of the chapel is

amply sufficient, and this taper is not needed nor brought forward.

What we have said of the modes thus examined is true of all attempted

explanations based on some supposed feat of jugglery or legerdemain

during the exposition. To one who has witnessed the liquefaction at

Naples, and knows what is really done, they are simply ridiculous. We

repeat: if nothing else can be urged, the miracle must stand.

This has been felt, and in consequence we have another class of

proposed solutions, of a seemingly higher character. Chemistry is

brought into service. Some compound is skilfully prepared, we are

told, and inserted by the priests into the ampulla beforehand. It is

of such a character that it appears more or less hard and solid at the

beginning of the exposition, and, during the exposition, is made to

melt or to appear to melt. Chemists, we are assured, can easily

prepare such substances, and can thus reproduce the liquefactions at

will. These experiments, it is claimed, settle the question. What the

chemists do and acknowledge, the priests do, and pass off as a

miracle.

Let us analyze these experiments, and see whether in reality they

repeat and renew the liquefaction with its characteristic and

essential phenomena, or in what respects and how far they fail to do

so.

The first of these of which we have any account dates from Berlin, in

1734. On the 26th of January in that year--so we are told in a letter

dated a few days after, and published in Paris--Gaspar Neumann,

councillor of his majesty’s court, doctor in medicine, and professor

of chemistry, entertained a party consisting of fourteen learned

friends, assembled to dine at his festive board, with an imitation of

the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius. The letter was written

by one of the party to his friends at home. We carefully reproduce the

facts which the letter states, omitting the badinage and sneering

remarks with which it accompanies them--remarks quite characteristic

of the school of Voltaire whenever religion or anything connected with

it was in question. In default of the original French, we quote from 533

a translation published in England.

The professor, we are told, placed before his friends “a human skull.”

He also produced from his laboratory “three vials of crystal or very

clear and transparent glass, in each of which was contained a matter

in a very small bulk, dry, black, and so hard as to produce a noise on

the sides of the vial when shaken.” The first vial being brought near

to the head, the matter in it “became of a deep-red color, liquefied,

bubbled, increased its bulk, and filled the vial.” The second vial was

also brought near to the head, and the portion of matter in it

“bubbled but little.” But when the third vial was similarly brought

near the head, the whole of its contents “remained dry, hard, and

black.”

The writer evidently wished to convey the impression--perhaps he

himself believed--that these vials, which the professor had carefully

prepared in his laboratory and showed to his friends after dinner,

correctly exhibited the liquefaction in all its chief phases. If the

liquid in the first vial had also several times changed its color; if

it had filled the vial, not by adding bubbles to bubbles, but by an

actual increase of the volume of the liquid within, independently of

that frothing or bubbling; if it had then similarly decreased in bulk;

if the liquid had solidified without any diminution of temperature,

and become fluid again without increase of it, he would have presented

a far stronger case than he has done.

But those points are absent. Perhaps the writer did not know that they

were necessary. The letter itself is written in a jocular and mocking

tone, and evidently in a spirit that relished sharp epigrammatic

points, calculated to excite a laugh, far more than the humdrum

reality of sober truth.

We find another account of this same experiment in a French work

before us: _La Liquefaction du Sang de S. Janvier_, by Postel. This

account is more calm and sober in style, and is based upon the

_Bibliothèque Germanique_, a work to which we have not access. It

varies considerably from the sportive account given in the letter.

According to Postel, the contents of the first vial _liquefied entirely_;

the contents of the second vial _liquefied only partially_; in the

third vial there was _no change whatever_. The statement is distinctly

made that neither in the first vial nor in the second was there any

sign of ebullition. The variation is important.

As between the two accounts, we could scarcely hesitate a moment which

to hold most worthy of credit on any point on which they differed. In

neither account do we find any indication of the nature of the

chemical compounds which Dr. Neumann had prepared in his laboratory

and placed in the vials. But as the experiment was made known and

repeated, especially in France, we may take it for granted that the

material used in those repetitions is the same that he devised.

This material is a mixture of suet, or other similar fatty matter, and

ether, the compound being brought to any desired tint--in this case, a

deep or dark red--by a further admixture of any suitable pigment. The

mixture or compound so prepared is solid at ordinary temperatures; but

at about 92° F. it will melt. If a quantity of such a mixture be

inserted in a small glass vial, and the vial be clasped in the palm of

one’s hand, it will soon receive from the hand sufficient heat to

bring about a total or a partial liquefaction, according to the greater 534

or smaller proportion of the ether used in originally compounding it.

Neither would it be beyond the art of chemistry, in preparing this

mixture, to introduce other ingredients, the particles of which would

be brought into contact with each other when the liquefaction has been

effected and the chemical combinations of which would then give rise

to a greater or less amount of frothing or bubbles.

All this, however, is very far from being a reproduction of the

liquefaction which is seen at Naples. The differences, or rather the

failures to imitate and reproduce it, are essential and evident. We

point out the chief ones:

I. This liquefaction of the laboratory _always and entirely_ depends

on the application of the proper degree of heat. So long as its

temperature is below the melting point, the substance in the vial

remains hard and unliquefied. When the temperature, from whatsoever

cause, is raised above that degree, liquefaction ensues. If the

temperature again sinks below it, the substance, if not meanwhile

decomposed, returns to its previous solid condition. The operators

themselves inform us frankly how the required degree of heat is

usually communicated to it; by holding the vial, if small enough, in

the palm of one hand, or tightly pressing it, if somewhat larger,

between the palms of both hands. If the general heat of the room be

raised high enough to reach the melting point of the substance in the

vial, this circumstance alone would suffice to bring the compound to a

fluid condition.

On the other hand, being from Naples and not from Brobdignag, the

chaplain or canon has a hand only of the ordinary size, and is

altogether unable to clasp in the palm of one hand, or even with both

palms, an object so large as the reliquary. He is forced to hold it by

the stem; in which position, the heat of his hand can have no

appreciable effect on the contents of the vial within the reliquary.

Moreover, the liquefaction often takes place when the reliquary is not

held in his hands at all.

II. We repeat it again. The real liquefaction does not depend on heat

It takes place at various temperatures. There is no fixed melting

point for the substance in the ampulla. It will often solidify at a

higher temperature than that at which it stood liquid; and will

liquefy at a temperature notably below that at which it became or

stood solid. This is an essential difference, going to the root of the

question.

III. The attempted imitation may, at the utmost, present a bubbling or

frothing, produced in the way we have indicated. This may even go to

such an extent as to fill the vial with froth or bubbles. But it can

never cause the bulk or body of the liquid itself, free from those

bubbles, and independently of them, to swell and increase in actual

visible amount so as to completely fill the vial. The amount of the

liquid obtained, when at rest and in its tranquil state, and at the

same temperature, will always be the same. Precisely the reverse

happens in the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius. The liquid

blood may bubble and froth without increasing its bulk, or it may

increase its volume with or without this frothing, or it may decrease

its volume, again, with or without the frothing. And these changes of

the bulk of the actual liquid in the ampulla do not depend on the

temperature. Neither are they points on which a mistake is possible;

for they reach, as we have stated, to the extent of twenty per cent. 535

On those two cardinal points, the imitation entirely fails. We need

scarcely note the facts that the preparation, when solid, does not

resemble coagulated or hardened blood, and, when liquid, could never

be mistaken for liquid blood, whether arterial or venous, nor does it

present the changes of color so often seen in the real liquefaction.

IV. Ether is an essential ingredient of this artificial compound.

Suet, or whatever other fatty substance is used instead, will dissolve

in ether; while it will not dissolve in water or in alcohol. Now,

ether is comparatively a modern discovery. Whether Paracelsus hit upon

the discovery of it or not is a point mooted among those who have

studied his life and achievements in chemistry. But, if he did, the

knowledge of it was lost with him, and it remained unknown to the

world until Künkel discovered or rediscovered it in 1681--early enough

for Neumann, but entirely too late to be of any service in getting up

a compound for the liquefaction at Naples, which, for the matter of

that, runs back far beyond the days of Paracelsus himself.

This explanation, therefore, that the liquefaction of the blood of St.

Januarius is in reality the liquefaction of a compound of ether and

suet or other fatty substance, must be set aside, because entirely

insufficient to meet the case, and because it involves a glaring

anachronism.

It fails, too, in another point. The ether will, in course of time,

gradually escape though the pores of the glass. When it is gone, the

liquefactions are at an end. The fatty matters, too, will decompose in

time. In fact, the whole preparation would have to be frequently

renewed. On the other hand, as we shall see further on, there is ample

evidence that the ampulla remains unopened, and that the substance

within it remains untouched and identically the same, from year to

year, and from century to century.

These reasons were too patent to allow Dr. Neumann’s attempted

imitation to hold its own in the estimation of those who seriously

examined the question. It was thrown aside for others. We find an

account of one of them, written by La Condamine, and presented to no

less a body than the Academy of Sciences in Paris, in 1757. His

article may be found among the various articles published in the

_Memoirs_ for 1763.

La Condamine explains, with no little glee, and some detail, an

experiment which he had lately witnessed in company with others, and

which he was allowed afterward to repeat and study out in private and

at his leisure, and with the assistance and explanations of the

inventor himself. He does not give the inventor’s name, but we know,

from other sources, that it was San Severo.

There was a circular case of bronze or silver gilt. In front and rear,

there were circular plates of glass. The whole stood on a richly

ornamented foot, and was surmounted by a winged mercury. Within the

case, between the plates of glass, was seen a vial. So far, the

workman had prepared a vague imitation of the actual reliquary.

“The vial appeared half full of a stiff grayish paste, which,

judging by its surface, seemed to be powdery or granulated. By

inclining the case, alternately, from side to side, and shaking

it for half a minute, more or less, the paste became liquid and

flowing, sometimes only partially so; at other times, it grew

hard again, and by shaking it anew it became liquid again.... I

remarked beneath the vial two small cones, I do not know of what

material, meeting by their points. I was told (by the inventor) 536

that there was a little passage through these points. He said,

also, that the cones were hollow, and that, as the lower one was

movable, it sometimes happened that its orifice exactly met the

orifice of the upper cone, and sometimes did not; this was

altogether a matter of chance.... As for the powder which I saw

in the vial, I was told that it was an amalgam of mercury, lead,

tin, and bismuth; that the bismuth, which amalgamated only

imperfectly, hindered the mixture from becoming a pasty lump, and

gave it rather the character of a powder too coarse to pass

through the little opening which communicated with the cones.

Finally, there was hidden, within the case, a circular tube

communicating with the lower movable cone, and containing liquid

mercury. In shaking the whole irregularly, whenever the openings

of the two cones came together, more or less of this mercury made

its way into the vial and liquefied the amalgam. It happened

sometimes, in these various movements, that the mercury which had

entered got out again, and then the amalgam returned to its

previous condition and was fluid no longer.”

This is the account which La Condamine has given, after a long and

careful private examination, aided by the explanations of the

inventor, and which, he tells us, he wrote down the same day. The

inventor promised to give him in writing a fuller account, with minute

drawings of all the parts; but up to the date of publication (five

years later) he had, for some unknown reason, failed to keep the

promise.

La Condamine acknowledges that he had never seen the real reliquary,

and had never witnessed the true liquefaction at Naples. He thought

this substitute just as good.

Had he witnessed the reality, and had he examined it with one-half the

care he bestowed on the substitute, he never would have written his

report.

I. He would have instantly seen the difference between a true

liquefaction--where a substance previously hard is unmistakably seen

to become gradually soft and then perfectly liquid, as is often the

case at Naples--and this seeming liquefaction of the experiment, which

consists only in making the loosened grains or particles of the

amalgam swim in and on the fluid mercury which has been introduced,

they themselves remaining hard and not at all liquefied, but ready to

be heaped together again in a hard mass of grains or powder, whenever

the liquid mercury is withdrawn. The difference between the two

processes is as clear as light, and as great as the difference between

the melting of icebergs and a movement of a fleet of ships on the

ocean. A child could not mistake it. Fortunately, the icebergs melt

and disappear as they are changed into water: with equal good fortune,

the ships do not melt, but float on, until they reach their port.

II. He would see that this grayish amalgam, in its dry, powdery state,

is totally unlike the hard, dark mass of blood in the ampulla, and, in

its pretended liquid state, it is equally unlike the liquid blood. In

fact, as the mercury enters below and permeates the mass, its silvery

gleam may somewhat enliven the dull-grayish hue of the amalgam, but it

can present nothing akin to the _rubicund_, the _bright vermilion_, or

the _dark hue_ of the liquid blood. Nor is there anything like the

film which the liquid blood sometimes leaves on the sides of the

glass, nor like the frothing, or the ebullition. On all these points,

the experiment failed.

III. After sufficient mercury has been introduced to occupy the

interstices in the granular mass, any additional supply will lift the

particles, separate them, and allow that motion which the inventor

passed off for fluidity; and this seeming fluidity becomes greater as 537

the quantity of fluid mercury so introduced for the grains to float in

is increased in amount. But the mercury occupies space, and so

increase of bulk and increased fluidity must go together. A hardening

requires, on the contrary, a withdrawal of the mercury, and is

consequently always connected with a decrease of bulk. This is

directly contrary to one of the most striking features of the real

liquefaction, on which we have already commented at length.

IV. It fails to account for the hardenings and the liquefactions which

occur when the reliquary is not in the hands of a chaplain or canon to

incline it never so coaxingly, but stands and has been standing for

hours, untouched and immovable, on its pedestal on the altar. In this

point the imitation again signally fails.

V. What we said of ether, we may almost repeat here concerning the

bismuth. This is the important ingredient of the amalgam, the

intractableness of which keeps the material in a state of powder or

grains. When that is overcome, the whole mass coheres and becomes a

hard lump; and the liquefactions, such as they were, are over. Now,

bismuth was discoved by Agricola in 1529, centuries after the date

when the liquefactions are known to have regularly occurred.

VI. The prying eyes of thousands have never discovered in the

reliquary any trace of a circular tube containing mercury, nor of the

all-important little hollow cones, meeting by their points. More than

once, as we shall see, the reliquary has been in the hands of

goldsmiths and skilled workmen. They found nothing of this nor of any

other contrivance.

These two of Neumann and San Severo are the chief attempts made to

imitate the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius, and they have

signally failed. We need not examine, one by one, the various

substances which have been proposed as the chemical substance craftily

used no this occasion; from the “deep-red sublimate of gold,” which,

one tells us, “being easily fusible by the heat of one’s hand, is

exhibited by the Neapolitan priests for St. Januarius’s blood,” down

to the theory that “the dark-red mass which melts in the ampulla is

only a preparation of ICE; for everybody knows that in Naples they

are more skilful in preparing ices than even in Archangel.” By the

way, we suspect that Aulic Councillor Rehfues, a German Protestant

traveller, to whom we owe this last explanation, was only making fun

of his brother Aulic Councillor Neumann, and of the other theorists,

who were proposing, each one, his own guess as to the substance.

Anyway, the fact that the real liquefaction is not caused by the

application of heat rules out all these suppositions. The fuller and

more accurate our knowledge of chemistry, the more clearly do we

realize the truth that all experimental liquefactions are governed by

the laws of nature. The more conversant we are with the _facts_ of the

real liquefaction, the more clearly do we see that here those laws are

set aside. We cannot shut our eyes to the opposition.

Sir Humphry Davy, who witnessed the liquefaction when he visited

Naples, and who carefully examined it, made no secret afterwards among

his friends of the deep impression it produced on his mind, and of his

decided judgment that chemistry, so far as he knew it, could not

account for the liquefaction. This may have been one of the causes of

that inclination toward the Catholic Church which, from the period of 538

that visit, was manifested by that eminent scholar, and which led him

to think seriously, at least, of entering her fold, even if he did

not--as some thought he did--carry his purpose into effect before

death.

And yet we are asked to believe that, “away back in the dark ages,”

those “ignorant monks and priests in Naples” possessed a knowledge of

chemistry which enabled them to do this! And, more wonderful still,

that they have secretly handed down that knowledge and power, within

their own body, and that they continue to this day to effect the

liquefaction in some strange way entirely unknown to the scientific

world!

We pass on to other views of the question.

This charge of fraud implies that the ampulla is tampered with from

time to time; and that those who have charge of it--clergy and laity

alike--and especially those who hold it at the time of the

liquefaction, are all playing a trick.

Is the ampulla or vial really tampered with? Is it regularly opened

for the insertion of some duly prepared material?

The ampulla stands within a case or reliquary, as our figure shows it.

The case or reliquary, of silver and of glass, is kept in an

_Armoire_, or closet, wrought in the solid stone wall of the _Tesoro_

chapel, as strong and secure as a bank-vault. This _Armoire_ is closed

by metal doors, each secured by two strong locks, with different keys,

one set of which is always in the possession of the municipal

authorities of the city, the other in that of the archbishop and

clergy. They have been so kept for just two hundred and twenty-four

years; for we need not take account just now of the previous

centuries, when the relics were in the exclusive custody of the

archbishop and clergy, and were kept in the old _Tesoro_, or strong

room, still to be seen in the second story of the cathedral tower.

During all these two hundred and twenty-four years, the locks have not

been tampered with. The clergy have not charged any one with doing it.

The municipal authorities have never suspected it.

Moreover, the reliquary, when brought out, remains exposed to public

scrutiny for ten or twelve hours at a time, on eighteen days of each

year; and there is no man, woman, or child in Naples, and no stranger

in the city, who may not, if so minded, scrutinize it a score of times

a day, at less than twelve inches’ distance. Any opening or closing of

the case, any taking out or putting in of the vial, would leave some

trace of the fact, either in the silver rim, or in the position of the

vials within, or at least in the soldering at bottom and at top, which

would have to be disturbed, if not broken, each time, and then

restored. Among the special industries of Naples are working in

jewelry and coral, retouching and repairing paintings, and--we are

sorry to say it--fabricating _Old Masters_. The Neapolitans have eyes

for signs and traces like these in question as quick, sharp, and

unerring as an Indian on a trail. No change or trace of any tampering

has ever been seen by them. The vials are in identically the same

inclined position from year to year--the same as represented in

engravings a century or two centuries old. The soldering, in which the

bottoms and tops are immersed, is hard, old, black, through age, and

evidently untouched. The outer case shows no sign of any opening by

which a side can be unscrewed or lifted out, so as to allow the vials

themselves to be touched. Probably, when originally made, five hundred 539

and fifty or seven hundred years ago, this could have been done. But

the screw or the joint has long since rusted, and the whole thing is

now one mass of dingy and rusted silver, holding two glass plates.

In the year 1649, Cardinal Ascanio Filomarini was Archbishop of

Naples, a man of great culture and taste and of ample private fortune,

and much given to the adornment of the churches of his diocese.

The new _Tesoro_ had just been completed, and was shining in all the

brilliant splendor of newness. The cardinal thought that the reliquary

to contain the vials of the blood, for which the _Tesoro_ had been

built, ought to correspond, as the bust did, with the grandeur of the

chapel itself. This the dingy old silver reliquary, in which they had

been kept for so many centuries, did not do. He determined to replace

it by another of gold, of excellent workmanship, and adorned with rich

jewels. He had one made “regardless of expense,” and, when all was

ready, on September 1, 1649, he came into the _Tesoro_ with some of

his clergy and the delegates from the city, and with public notaries,

that proper legal record might be made of everything, and with chosen

goldsmiths. Are not the names of them all duly recorded? The

_Armoire_ was opened, the reliquary was taken to the adjoining

sacristy; and there, for several hours, in presence of his eminence

and his clergy, and the honorable delegates, “and of us, the

undersigned notaries,” the goldsmiths tried and essayed to open the

reliquary. They failed and gave it up. They could break the reliquary,

if so directed; but they could not open it. Accordingly, the reliquary

was locked up again as it had been taken out. The cardinal was a

persevering man. He got other goldsmiths, and came a second time, on

the 8th of September, with clergy, delegates, and notaries. For two

hours again these goldsmiths tried to open the reliquary, and failed,

as the first had done. They could break it, if required; but how could

they open a case where all their trying could find neither joint nor

screw? Again the reliquary was replaced in the _Armoire_. The

cardinal’s heart was set on using his new grand reliquary on the

festival near at hand, the 19th of September. He thought over the

matter, again summoned the delegates and the notaries, and on the 16th

came, a third time, with his clergy and yet other goldsmiths. A third

prolonged trial was made with the same ill-success. The reliquary

might be broken, if they wished; it could not be opened. To break it

was not to be thought of; that might endanger the precious vials

within. So, the old silver reliquary was put up again, that evening,

and his eminence was forced to use it on the festival of the 19th for

the exposition that year. It has been used ever since. And now, two

hundred and twenty-two years later, it was again brought out on the

19th of September in this present year, 1871. The cardinal, it is to

be presumed, devoted his rich reliquary to some other pious purpose.

But if his eminence had lived to the age of the olden patriarchs, and

had retained it in his possession, he might have at last found a more

favorable opportunity for again trying to change that reliquary. On

the afternoon of Tuesday, May 5, 1762, one of the glass plates, by

dint, of course, of being rubbed for so many hundred years by white

handkerchiefs, became somewhat loose in its groove or socket, and

threatened to fall inward, endangering the precious vials. Accordingly,

early next morning, an hour and a half before the time for the regular 540

exposition (for it was in the May octave), the archbishop of that day,

Cardinal Sersale, came with clergy, city delegates, notaries-public,

and goldsmiths. The reliquary was taken out of the _Armoire_, and the

glass was fixed again firmly in its place, and the reliquary was

returned to its _Armoire_, before the hour for the public exposition.

It does not appear, from the very succinct account we have of the

occurrence, whether or not, during the work, the vials or ampullæ were

taken out of the reliquary, within which they are held in their places

by the old soldering. Nothing is said of this having been done, nor of

the soldering being touched and then repaired when they were put back

in their places. On the whole, considering the nature of the repair to

be done, and that it was done in a few moments at the door of the

_Armoire_, back of the altar, we are inclined to think that they did

not find it necessary to move them, and that they were accordingly

left untouched in their places.

These are the only occasions on which the diaries say anything bearing

on the feasibility of opening this reliquary, or of its being

repaired. In the archives of the cathedral, another incident is

mentioned, of an ancient date. In the year 1507, nearly a century and

a half before the building of the new _Tesoro_, the relics were kept

in the old _Tesoro_ or strong room of the cathedral, a strong vaulted

chamber of stone, in the second story of the tower, which rises at the

northeast corner of the church. That _Tesoro_ was then approached by

a winding stairway. A very aged canon was bringing down the reliquary

from the _Tesoro_ to the church for an exposition. At the very first

step, he tripped and fell; and the reliquary rolled down, from step to

step, to the very bottom. All present feared it was broken, and gave

thanks when it was taken up and found to be perfectly uninjured. Yet

the alarm had been great; and Maria Toleta, “the pious wife of the

viceroy,” who was present at the time and shared in the alarm, had the

winding stairway taken down at her own expense, and replaced by

another one, straight, broad, and easy, which is in use to this day.

We may take these facts as fair evidence that the reliquary is strong,

and not very easily opened, and that they who know all about it do not

believe that it is or can be regularly opened.

The same conclusion is also forced on us by considerations of an

entirely different character. We have already drawn attention to the

fact that, whatever the level at which the blood stands when

the reliquary is locked up at night, at the close of one

exposition--whether _at its ordinary level_, or _somewhat increased_,

or _very much increased_, or _full_--it is invariably found at the

same level when taken out the next time for the ensuing exposition,

whether that time be next morning or after the lapse of months. The

level is one of the points specially noticed and recorded. A variation

would necessarily be detected. Yet, if on each one or on very many of

the four thousand occasions we have spoken of, the old contents had

been privately taken out between the expositions, and a fresh supply

put in, would there not have been, not unfrequently, some appreciable

inequality of level?

Again, sometimes the blood was _hard_ when put up. How could a hard

substance be extracted from a narrow-necked vial of glass without

breaking it? According to our tables, on three different occasions the

blood, after its usual liquefactions and changes in September, _filled_ 541

the ampulla, and was so locked up at the end of the novena. It was

found _full_ and _hard_ in December following, and, not liquefying at

all, was again locked up in the same condition. It was found in

precisely the same state when the reliquary was again taken out in the

May following. Here, on three occasions, the contents of the vial,

solid and completely filling it, must have remained unextracted from

September to May, seven months. Yet in the May octaves that followed,

the liquefactions went on as usual. No freshly inserted compound was

necessary for the liquefaction. The same reasoning applies in a

measure to the numerous cases in which such a fulness went over, four

months and a half, from May to September, or nearly three months, from

September to December.

Again, in quite a number of instances, as the same tables show, the

condition of the blood, when locked up, is noted as _liquid with a

floating hard lump_, as was the case on the 16th of December, 1870.

When it was taken out, the next day, or after several months, though

often found entirely hardened, yet not unfrequently--as on the 6th of

May, 1871--it was found in precisely the same state in which it had

been put up: _liquid with a floating hard lump_. In all these cases,

the condition of the contents of the ampulla is a new and insuperable

objection to the supposition that a newly prepared amount of matter

had been inserted for the subsequent liquefactions. Did other

circumstances allow it, we might conceive a liquid to be poured out of

the ampulla, and a fresh liquid to be poured in. But how is the solid

hard lump, that would not liquefy, to be got out? And if got out, how

is another hard lump to be put in to replace it? Are the constituents

of this new hard lump poured into the ampulla separately, as liquids

or powders that can pass through the neck? Then their character must

be such that, instead of uniting with the liquid already there, or the

constituents of the liquid portion, they will, on the contrary,

combine apart to form the hard mass. But if so antagonistic to the

liquid portion, how is it that, when the lump does liquefy during the

ensuing exposition, these constituents at once intimately unite with

the liquid, the whole forming a homogeneous mass, which without the

least indication of any antagonism between its component parts will

henceforth solidify and liquefy as a single mass?

The more carefully the facts of the case are studied, the more

imperatively do they exclude every hypothesis save the simple one

which so many other facts corroborate, that no attempt has been made

to change the contents of the ampulla. Every- thing about the ampulla

excludes the idea that it is regularly tampered with privately between

the expositions.

There is still another light in which we must view this charge of

fraud. Ever since the opening of the new _Tesoro_, in 1646, there have

been attached to that chapel twelve chaplains and a _custos_, with

inferior attendants as needed. In the cathedral itself, at least from

1496, there have been twenty canons and beneficiaries, besides minor

attendants. When the liquefaction takes place in the _Tesoro_, the

reliquary is in the hands of the chaplains, who act in turn, or

relieve each other as convenient. When it occurs in the procession or

in the cathedral, or in some other church, the reliquary is in the

charge of the canons, who similarly relieve each other. Hence, canons

and chaplains, all alike, must be cognizant of the fraud, if any there 542

be, and must participate in it. Add to these the archbishops and their

vicars-general in Naples since 1496. Add also those clergymen who,

having been canons or chaplains, have passed to other dignities, or

have retired from their office, but must of course still retain the

knowledge of this fraud, if they once possessed it. We may say that

there have been on an average, at all times, forty ecclesiastics, if

not more, who had cognizance of the fraud, if there were any. The

dignity of canon of the cathedral or chaplain of the _Tesoro_ is

ordinarily reached only after years of meritorious service in the

lower grades of the ministry. Hence the canons and chaplains are

usually men of mature and advanced age. We can scarcely give them more

than fifteen years of average life. We have thus about a thousand

clergymen since A.D. 1500, all charged with being cognizant of and

participators in the fraud.

Now, what was the character of those men? Those among whom they lived,

and who knew them, respected them as a body of men devoted to the

service of God, pure and exemplary ecclesiastics, proved by years

spent in the zealous works of the ministry. Some were men of honorable

and noble families; others were men distinguished in the walks of

literature and science; some had sacrificed all the world promised

them, in order to spend their lives in the sanctuary. Some were

revered in life, and remembered after death, as pre-eminently true

servants of God, men of prayer, of strong faith, and of singularly

pure and saintly lives. Of course, individuals here or there may

indeed have been wicked or hypocritical. But this testimony of the

people to their character must have been true of the great body.

Now, could such men have all united in this fraud? On their own

principles and convictions, and according to the doctrines they taught

and should themselves practise, there could scarcely be a more heinous

sin against God and his holy religion, than to palm off a trick of

crafty men as a miracle of God’s working. Could they bring themselves

to it?

Is it possible that no one of them ever repented, even in the presence

of death, and sought to save his soul, and to make reparation, by

disclosing the fraud and arresting the evil? Could all have chosen to

die impenitent, with the certainty of everlasting damnation before

them, rather than reveal the blasphemous and, to them, henceforth

useless trick? The thing is impossible.

Again, men, even though good and pious, may be garrulous. All men have

their unguarded moments. How came it that the secret never leaked out

from any one of them during all these years?

Again, among so many there must have been men wicked, avaricious,

passionate, revengeful. How comes it that no one sought to make money

by revealing the secret; that no one declared it through anger; that

no one did so in retaliation when he was punished by his

ecclesiastical superiors?

Nay, more, we fear that instances might be found in which, toward the

close of the last century, some of them were carried away by the

irreligious mania then prevailing, and became the companions of

infidels, if not themselves infidels. And unless our memory is at

fault, one or two yielded to the blandishments and the privileges of

Protestantism. How comes it that, through such, the world has not

learned how this antiquated trick is actually done? Obviously, they

had no disclosure to make. This is the only possible answer. 543

There is still more to be said on this point. The civil authorities of

Naples are, and have been for two hundred and twenty-four years, joint

custodians with the archbishop and clergy of the _Tesoro_ chapel and

of the relics of St. Januarius. They keep one set of the keys of the

_Armoire_, or closet, which can never be opened save in the presence

of one of their members, whom they send as a delegate, and whose sworn

duty it is never to lose sight of the reliquary until it is placed in

its closet, and he assists in duly locking it up. During these two

hundred and twenty-four years, Naples has again and again changed

masters. Austrians, Lombards, Spaniards, and French--Bourbon,

Imperial, and Republican--have held, as the Piedmontese now hold, the

city, which in fact has oftener been ruled by strangers than by

Neapolitans. These rulers have been men of every character, from the

best to the worst; often rough, ruthless soldiers, who brooked no

opposition, and were ever ready with the sword; often keen, crafty

civilians, ready to cajole, to bribe, and to deceive, and thoroughly

practised to detect plots and ferret out hidden things; sometimes

professed infidels and avowed enemies of all religion; oftener

political enemies of the Neapolitan clergy, whose hearts, of course,

were with their own oppressed people. How comes it that none of these

rulers at any time have ever discovered and made known the fraud?

Can we suppose that those rulers, ill-disposed as they often were

toward the clergy, could or would sacrifice their own interests, their

policy, their jealousies, and their personal feeling, in order to

co-operate in a fraud, the success of which would certainly be less

agreeable, perhaps far less profitable, to them, than its failure and

exposure?

Would not the French infidels, in 1799, have gladly put this stigma on

the odious cause of Christianity?

And, in these present years, would not Ratazzi, Garibaldi, and their

party gladly do it if they could? What a triumph it would be for them

if they could strike this blow at “clericalism”--a blow far more

effective than fining, imprisoning, or exiling bishops and priests and

religious! They would glory in doing it if it were possible. What

holds them back? There are no limits to their hatred or to their

powers of calumny. They are ever denouncing the ignorance and the

blind superstition of priests and people. But the very gist and

copiousness of their invectives prove that they themselves know and

feel that the priests and people are alike sincere. It is the depth

and earnestness of that sincerity which excites their rage.

Brought face to face, in Naples, with this manifestation of the

supernatural, the civil government, whatever the political

circumstances and whatever the private character of individual members

of it, have always seemed struck with awe, and have never failed in

respect. Nay, more, they have ever claimed and exercised their

privilege of sending their delegate to intervene in the exposition.

And so, after all, on the 19th of this last September, as in times

past, they did send a delegate, with his scarlet embroidered bag, and

the two antique keys chained together; and the doors of the

_Armoire_ were opened; and the relics were reverently taken out and

carried to the altar; and the blood was seen to be _hard_; and the

clergy and the crowd prayed and waited for the miracle; “and, after

eight minutes of prayer, the hard mass became entirely liquid.”

There is an anecdote current in the world on this subject which we 544

have heard cited as peremptory against much of what we have just said.

The anecdote, in passing from mouth to mouth, has become so vague and

so full of variations that we would scarcely know how to present it,

had we not found a precise and _quasi_ authoritative form of it in the

columns of the _Coryphæus_ of French infidelity, the _Siècle_ of Paris

of the date of October 11, 1856:

“The history of Championnet did some damage to the miracle of St.

Januarius in the minds of a great many. In 1799, the French army

was in Naples, where it had been well received at first.... On

the 6th of May, the crowd filled the chapel of the cathedral....

For more than half an hour the priest had been turning backward

and foward, on his hands, the round silver lantern with two faces

of glass within which is preserved the precious blood in a small

vial. The little reddish mass would not quit its state of

solidity.... The exasperated populace commenced to attribute the

stubbornness of San Gennaro to the presence of the French. There

was danger of a tumult, when an aid hastened to notify General

Championnet of the suspicious conduct of the saint. In a few

moments the aid returned, approached the priest politely, and

said a few words in his ear. What he did say is not precisely

known, but he had scarcely said it when the blood at once

liquefied, to the great joy of the people, who at last had their

miracle.”

Alexandre Dumas, in one of his novels, narrates the same story much

more dramatically. According to him, “General Championnet saw that it

was important for his safety and the safety of the army that the

miracle should not fail that year; and he made up his mind that, one

way or another, it should positively occur.” The first Sunday of May

was near at hand. On the vigil (May 4, 1799), the procession marched,

but between files of French grenadiers. That night the city was

patrolled by French and Italian soldiers jointly. All day Sunday the

miracle was patiently waited for; but in vain. Six in the afternoon

came--Championnet, with his staff, was in his elevated _loggia_ or

gallery. The people began at length to lose patience and to vociferate

angrily. At 7 P.M. they were brandishing knives and threatening the

general, who pretended not to understand or heed them. At 8 P.M. the

streets around were filled with other crowds equally threatening. “The

grenadiers waited on a signal from the general to charge bayonets. The

general continued unmoved.” At half-past eight, as the tumult was

still increasing, “the general bent over and whispered something to an

aid-de-camp.” The aid left the stand, and passed up to the altar and

knelt in the front rank, and waited. In five minutes the canon,

bearing the reliquary, came round to him in his turn. He kissed the

reliquary as others did; but, while doing so, grasped the priest’s

hand in his.

“‘Father, a word with you.’

“‘What is it?’ asked the priest.

“‘I must say to you, on the part of the general commanding, that

if in ten minutes the miracle is not accomplished, in fifteen

minutes your reverence shall be shot.’

“The canon let the reliquary fall from his hands. Fortunately,

the young officer caught it before it reached the ground, and

gave it back with every mark of profound respect. Then he arose

and returned to his place near the general.

“‘Well?’ said the general.

“‘All right, general,’ said the young officer. ‘In ten minutes

the miracle will take place.’

“The aid-de-camp spoke the truth; nevertheless he made a mistake

of five minutes; for at the end of five minutes only, the canon

raised the reliquary aloft, exclaiming, _Il miracolo è fatto_.

The blood was completely liquefied.”

We suppose we may take these as the best versions of the same story.

The other French and late English versions we have met of it, however 545

they may vary in minor details, all agree as to the person--General

Championnet, and as to the year, 1799. So far as we can judge, the

_Siècle_ and the other writers got their facts from the novelist. It

is their way. When they attack religion, all manner of weapons are

acceptable. Where the novelist got it we need scarcely inquire.

Certainly, on a pinch, he was capable of inventing it out of the whole

cloth. But we can only credit him with twisting and reversing an older

story. In a work entitled _Naples and Campagna Felice_, printed in

London in 1815, there is an earlier account of “the very recent

experiment of General Championnet.”

“When this _Champion_ of liberty entered Naples with his unhosed

_enfans de la patrie_, his curiosity, or rather his infidelity,

prompted him to direct the priests forthwith to perform the

ceremony before him and his companions, the philosophic

worshippers of the Goddess of Reason.... ‘The miracle must be

exhibited this instant, or I’ll smash your vials and all your

nonsense into a thousand pieces.’... Every devout effort of the

priests proved vain; even the general’s active assistance and

repeated trials to give fluidity to the indurated blood, by means

of natural and artificial heat, were equally unsuccessful.”

This want of success, according to, the teller of the story, was due

to the fact that the relatives of St. Januarius were not present. The

general sent soldiers to arrest them, and had them brought into the

church.

“A second experiment was now instituted in due form: which, to

the utter amazement of the French part of the congregation, and

to the inward delight of all the pious Neapolitans, succeeded

almost instantaneously.”

Were it not for the identity of names and place, we could scarcely

recognize this earlier English version, with its characteristic

contempt of French philosophers and _enfans de la patrie_, and its

result of the experiment so satisfactory to the Neapolitans, as in

reality the original form of the story, which Dumas, and after him

many others, have dressed up and presented to the world with such

different details, and with a result exactly opposite.

But a regard for truth obliges us to reject this earlier form, no less

than those which followed, as, all of them, pure fictions. The

evidence is clear and to the point.

I. On May 4,1799, General Championnet was not in Naples. He had

entered that city with his army on the 28th of January preceding, and

had established “The Parthenopean Republic”; but he had been relieved

of his command before May; possibly on account of ill health, for he

died at Antibes a few months later. His successor in the command at

Naples was General, afterwards Marshal Macdonald.

II. The diary of the _Tesoro_ chapel, and the archiepiscopal diary,

in their accounts of the exposition on Saturday, May 4, 1799, both

mention the presence of General Macdonald with his officers.

III. According to the same authorities, the liquefaction, so far from

being long delayed, that day took place quite soon--after a lapse of

only ten minutes.

IV. They indicate the very respectful demeanor of the French general,

and his expressions of reverence; expressions which, by the way, he

confirmed afterwards by presenting to the _Tesoro_ chapel a beautiful

silk mitre, rich in gold work and jewels, which is still shown in the

sacristy.

V. Finally, to clinch the whole matter, we quote the following extract

from a contemporary letter, published at the time in the official 546

organ at Paris--the _Moniteur_, No. 259, of date 19 Prairial, Year VII.

(June 10, 1799).

“Naples, 21 Floréal (May 13).--The festival of St. Januarius has

just been celebrated with the customary solemnity. General

Macdonald (successor to Championnet), Commissary Abrial, and all

the staff, witnessed the renowned miracle. As it took place

somewhat sooner than usual, the people think better of us

Frenchmen, and do not look on us any more as atheists.”

The writer little thought what a dramatic story a novelist’s

imagination would conjure up, and some credulous people would believe,

instead of the simple matter-of-fact statement he gave _en

passant_ of the solemnity he had just witnessed. A more complete

refutation of the whole story could not be desired than that afforded

by the words and tone of this letter.

We have been diffuse on the charge of fraud. But when we consider the

persistence with which it is made, and the variety of forms in which

it is presented; and that, after all, for most minds, the alternative

is between a suspicion of fraud, on one side, and the recognition of

the miraculous character of the liquefaction, on the other--it was

proper to treat this charge at length and in all its aspects.

We have seen that the publicity of everything about the exposition

peremptorily forbids every form of legerdemain during the ceremony.

Equally inadmissible is the supposition of some chemical compound

prepared beforehand. For no chemical compound which man can prepare

will liquefy, as this does, independently of heat, and under such

diverse circumstances, or will present the many varying phases which

are here seen. The most artistic attempts have utterly failed, and

must ever fail. For they are all subject to the laws of nature; while,

in this liquefaction, the laws of nature are clearly set aside.

Again, all testimony goes to show that the ampulla is not opened from

time to time to receive any chemical preparation.

Moreover, if there were any fraud, it would have been known to nearly

a thousand clergymen, and no one can say to how many laymen. Yet pious

men were never heard to denounce it; repentant men never disclosed it;

high-minded and honorable men never repudiated it in scorn, vile and

mercenary men were never moved by anger, revenge, desire of pecuniary

gain, or other potent motives, to betray it. Even political enmities

and fierce party strife, so prone to indulge in charges of fraud, have

failed in Naples to stigmatize this as a fraud. Evidently, there was

no fraud known or suspected there. In fine, were there a fraud, this

universal silence would be a greater miracle than the liquefaction

itself.

It has been asked, sometimes jeeringly, perhaps sometimes seriously,

if the Neapolitans are in such perfect faith and so sure of the

character of the substance which liquefies in the ampulla, why are

they unwilling to submit that substance to the test of chemical

analysis? Is not their omission, nay, their unwillingness to do this,

a confession on their part of the weakness of their cause?

To one who knows them, or who even reflects for a moment on the

subject, the answer is obvious. It is their perfect good faith itself,

and their consequent veneration for what they look on as sacred and

specially blessed of God, and not any fear or doubt, that would make

them rise in indignation against what, in their eyes, would be a 547

profane and unwarrantable desecration.

There are limits, they would protest, to the intrusive and irreverent

meddling of men under pretexts of science. Are there not many points

in pathology and physiology on which further knowledge is very

desirable--a knowledge which some think can be reached best and most

surely, if not only, by vivisection, especially of human subjects,

whether in normal health or presenting peculiar developments? Shall

we, therefore, in the interests of science, pick out such cases in a

community, and deliver them over to be cut up alive, and their still

living bodies to be explored by these science-seeking experimenters?

Knowledge is good and profitable, undoubtedly; but human life is

sacred, and must be preserved intact, even though these men remain in

the dark on various obscure points.

So, too, holding as they do that the ampulla contains a portion of the

veritable blood of St. Januarius, preserved by miracle of divine

Providence, and miraculously liquefied on his feasts, the Neapolitans

would shrink in horror from the sacrilegious profanity of delivering

it over to the retorts and crucibles, and mortars and solutions, of a

chemical laboratory.

Chemical experiments, they would say, are very respectable and very

admirable in their place; but there are things too precious and too

sacred to be submitted to them. In refusing to do so, the Neapolitans

do not confess a sense of the weakness of their own cause. They rather

manifest their sincere veneration for what they believe God has

specially honored.

As for the plea that this test would solve the question, the

Neapolitans would reply that for some minds nothing is ever solved.

If men wish really to know the truth, let them examine the evidences

which were appealed to before modern chemistry was invented. Those

evidences still exist, and are ample and irrefragable. “They have

Moses and the prophets; if they will not hear them, neither will they

believe, though one rose from the dead.”

One other objection remains: does God act uselessly? And of what

possible use is this miracle? What is the benefit of wonderfully

preserving from utter destruction, through so many centuries, a small

portion of blood, and of causing it to soften or liquefy fifteen or

twenty times a year, when brought, even if reverently, close to the

head of the martyr from whose veins it flowed? What good does this do?

Is it not so trifling and insignificant a thing as to be almost

ridiculous, and entirely unworthy of the majesty of God?

Who shall presume to say that it is unworthy of God--of that God

without whose knowledge and permission not a hair can fall from our

heads--of that Saviour who mixed clay with the spittle of his mouth,

and therewith touched the eyes of the blind man, that sight might be

restored to them? It is not for us to decide what is becoming or

unbecoming for God to do.

Who shall say that it is useless? Has not the faith of a simple-minded

people been confirmed and strengthened by it, to such a degree that

the truths of divine revelation and the obligations of man before God

are to them verities as strong, as clear, and as real in their daily

life as is the sunlight that beams down on their fair land? How many

sinners have been led, through it, to repentance and amendment of

life? How often have the indifferent been stirred up to avoid evil and 548

to do good, and the good animated to greater fervor and earnestness in

deeds of piety and virtue? And, after all, are not these the grand

purposes of all God’s dealings with men?

Nor is this miracle--for such we call it, although the church has

never spoken authoritatively on the point--alien from doctrine.

Wrought in honor of a sainted and martyred bishop, it is a perpetual

testimony to the truth of the doctrines he preached, and of the church

which glories in him as one of her exemplary and venerated ministers;

it is a confirmation of the homage and veneration she pays to him

because he chose rather to sacrifice his life than to deny the Saviour

who had redeemed and illumined him. Wrought within her fold, it is a

permanent evidence that she is in fact and in spirit the same now as

in the early days of persecution--the ever true and faithful church of

Christ.

It is a confirmation, likewise, of the doctrine of the resurrection of

the dead--that special doctrine which the apostles put forth so

prominently in the beginning of their preaching; which was ever

present to the minds of the early Christians, cheering and

strengthening them when this world was dark around them; which formed

the frequent theme of their pastoral instructions and their mutual

exhortations, and became the prevailing subject of their household and

their sacred ornamentation in their homes and in their oratories, and

over their tombs in the catacombs; which gave a special tone to their

faith, their hope, and their charity and love of God, and was, as it

were, the very lifeblood of their Christianity.

Nowadays, outside the church, how faint, comparatively, has belief in

this doctrine become, or, rather, has it not died out almost

completely from the thoughts and the hearts of men? Within the church,

the solemn rites of Christian sepulture, burying the dead in

consecrated ground, tells us of it. The preservation and the

veneration of the relics of saints and martyrs teach it still more

strongly. Does not tangible evidence, as it were, come to it anew from

heaven by this constant and perpetual miracle, showing that the bodies

of the sainted dead are in the custody of him who made them, and who

has promised that he will raise them up again in glory?

Finally, this miracle seems to us especially adapted to our own age,

when over-much knowledge is making men mad. Men are so lifted up by

their progress, especially in natural sciences, that they have come to

feel that they can dispense with God and substitute NATURE in his

stead, with her multifarious and unchangeable laws. They boast that,

under the light of their newly-acquired knowledge, everything is

already, or will soon be, susceptible of natural explanation. As for

miracles--direct interventions of God in the affairs of the world,

reversing or suspending, in special cases, these ordinary laws of

nature--they scout the idea. All past accounts of miracles, no matter

when or by whom recorded, they hold to be either accounts of natural

events warped and distorted by excited and unrestrained imaginations,

or else the pure fictions of superstition and credulity. They are sure

that, in the first case, had there been present witnesses of

sufficient knowledge and caution--such knowledge and caution as they

possess--the accounts of those events would have come down to us in a

far simpler garb, and unclothed with this miraculous robing. They are

equally sure that, in the other case, education, especially in the 549

physical sciences, would have forbidden the creation of those

numberless fictions.

Well, here, in the light of this nineteenth century, in one of the

most polished, most delightful, and most accessible cities of

Italy--centuries ago the largest, and even now the fourth largest, in

Europe--there occurs an event to which their attention is invited. It

is not an event of which a few only can be witnesses, and which all

others must learn on their testimony. It occurs in public. It occurs

fifteen or twenty times each year, and year after year. All may

scrutinize it again and again, as often and as closely as they please.

No mystery is made of anything about it. We admit it has come down to

us from the middle ages, dark, ignorant, and superstitious as they are

alleged to have been. But then, if it belongs to the past, it occurs

still, and belongs equally to this nineteenth century. Moreover, it

comes directly in contact with those physical sciences in which they

think themselves strongest, and it should, therefore, interest them,

and claim their attention.

Will they accept the invitation? We think very few will heed it.