Superstition in Roman Catholic
Countries--Miracle-working Images, Winking Madonnas
and Apparitions--Image paying Homage to the Virgin
Mary--St. Dominic--Madonnas at Trastevere--Girl
carrying the Sacred Stigmata of the
Passion--Miraculous Cures--The Virgin Mary appearing
to Children--Superstitious Ceremony at
Dieppe--Blessing the Neva--Lady offering up her Life
to save the Pope--A Legend--Superstitious Belief of
Napoleon's Mother--Trust in Amulets--Zulu
Superstition--Witchcraft forbidden under Treaty of
Peace with Great Britain--Eating Fetish--Superstition
among the Ashantees--Endeavour to prevent the Advance
of the British Army--Shah of Persia's
Talismans--Bathing Fair--Indian Princes consulting
Fortune-tellers--The Queen of Hearts--Procuring Rain
in India--Superstition in America--Mysterious Lights
at St. Lawrence--Superstitious Artists--Hogarth's last
Picture, "The End of all Things."
In Roman Catholic countries superstition frequently culminates in
miracle-working images, winking madonnas, and apparitions resembling
the Virgin Mary. For not a few delusions the priests and nuns are
responsible. We are not speaking without authority. The Very Rev.
Father A. Vincent Jandel, General of the Dominican Order, addressed
from Rome a circular letter in 1870 to all the provincials of his
order, giving an account of what he considered a wonderful occurrence
that took place at Soriano, in Calabria. There is at Soriano a
celebrated Sanctuary of St. Dominic, and in the church an ancient
image of that saint, life-size, carved in wood, held in high
veneration. On the 15th of September of that year, which is its festa,
another image of wood is carried processionally with much pomp. Thirty
persons, who had remained after the conclusion of the solemnity to
pray before the ancient image, suddenly perceived it to move, as if
alive. It came forward, then retreated, and turned towards the image
of the Virgin of the Holy Rosary. The cry of "St. Dominic! St.
Dominic! A miracle! a miracle!" burst from every lip. The wonderful
news sped like lightning through the town. Men and women left their
occupations to crowd to the sanctuary; and soon no fewer than two
thousand persons had witnessed the strange movements, which continued
for about an hour and a half, amidst prayers, tears, and acclamations.
To the great joy of the monks of the Holy Trinity, in 1871, two
madonnas, in an obscure, out-of-the-way church of St. Grisogono, in
Trastevere, melted multitudes to tears by the miraculous movements and
expressions of their eyes. The most remarkable in its exercises was an
oil painting in the interior of the church. To such a height did the
excitement reach amongst the crowd privileged to witness it, that the
friars judged it prudent to bring its performances to a close by
removing it from the church, and shutting it up in a press in the
convent. The second madonna is a fresco in the open piazza as one
approaches the church and convent. It is a recent painting, of
life-size, with eyes lowered on the spectators looking at it from
below, in such a manner that the movements of the pupils (if movements
there be) should be very sensible. The madonna is but one of three
figures on the fresco. On her right is John the Baptist in the dress
of the monks of the establishment, and on the left Pio Nono as
Pontiff. This madonna began to move its eyes as soon as its companion
was locked up, and the wonder lasted for many days.
In the same year (1871) the Rev. Father Ubald sent a letter to a
colleague, the following passages of which were quoted in the
_Bulletin Religieux_ of Versailles:--"I arrive from Belgium; this time
I have seen Louise Lateau. I do not know whether you ever heard of
her, but at present the name is in everybody's mouth in Belgium and
Northern France. Louise Lateau is a girl of 21, who carries the sacred
stigmata of the Passion, and every week on Friday is in a state of
profound ecstacy. Dr. Lefevre, professor of medicine at the University
of Louvain, has published a medical examination, in which he says:
'The flow of blood begins in the night (from Thursday to Friday
generally), between midnight and one o'clock.' It took place for the
first time on the 24th April 1868, by her losing blood on the left
side of her chest. On the Friday following, hemorrhage was observed at
the same place, and, moreover, blood oozed out from the top or instep
of the foot. On the third Friday--viz. the 8th May--blood came out at
the left side and from the feet during the night. Towards nine in the
morning blood rushed out copiously from both hands, back and palm.
Finally, on the 27th September, a percolation of blood also set in on
the forehead, as if the young girl had been crowned with thorns. Since
then the marvellous phenomenon never missed a Friday, except once or
twice. Doctors affirm that Louise thus loses from five to ten ounces
of blood every Friday. In spite of this, and albeit she has not taken
food for the last six months, she has, I assure you, quite ruddy
cheeks (_teint vermeil_), and seems to enjoy capital health (_sante
florissant_)."
The correspondent of the Paris Ultramontane paper _L'Univers_ wrote
from the Lourdes in 1876: "I have just been witness of a marvel, of
which I hasten to send you an account. Several other miracles have
taken place within the last couple of days, but I have said nothing
about them, as they did not come under my own observation. However, I
can assure you of the accuracy of the following statement:--Madeleine
Lansereau, aged 33 years, broke one of her legs about 19 years ago,
and became lame, her left leg being fearfully twisted. She came to
Lourdes with the pilgrimage from Picardy, and was radically cured at
the moment the Papal Nuncio sent to crown the Holy Virgin was saying
the paternoster in the mass he was celebrating in the grotto. She told
the crowd that, having walked into the little pool, a lively internal
emotion took possession of her, and she cried out, 'I am cured! I am
cured!' Her companions wept with joy and admiration at the miracle.
When they asked her what she had done for that great grace, her simple
reply was, 'I have prayed to St. Radogonde and St. Joseph, but
especially to the Holy Virgin, and now I am cured.' While she was
speaking, the Bishop of Poictiers came and said, 'Madeleine, thank the
Holy Virgin fervently.'"
The Rev. Canon Tandy, D.D., writing from St. Paul's Convent,
Birmingham, in 1871, to a reverend brother, informs him, in pious
phraseology, that two nuns had been suddenly cured of serious
disorders of long standing by drinking a bottle of water from Lourdes.
In acknowledgment of the favours shown by our Lady of Lourdes, the _Te
Deum_ was recited.
A deaf and dumb girl from Blois was made whole at Lourdes a few years
ago by the Virgin Mary.
Not long since the Bishop of Laval wrote a pastoral letter on the
subject of the miraculous appearance of the Virgin to four children in
a village in Mayence, and was so convinced of the reality of the fact
that he decided to erect a chapel in honour of Mary on the ground upon
which she had condescended to appear.
Recently there might be seen emerging from a church at Dieppe, on a
Saturday morning, a religious procession, headed by a person carrying
a silver processional cross, and accompanied by choristers singing
penitential psalms, proceeding to the eastern pier of the harbour to
perform a curious Roman Catholic ceremony. Taking up a position beside
the rolling water, the priests prayed for the success of the fishing,
then said a paternoster, while the people knelt; then a priest,
dipping a brush in holy water (which was carried in a swinging silver
vase), sprinkled three times the salt water of the ocean with the holy
fluid, making the sign of the cross with the brush at the words, _Seo
sibera nos a malo_. Then came a collect of repose for the souls of the
dead whose bodies had not been recovered from the depths of the sea;
and, all being over, the priests, with the choristers, people, and
cross-bearers, returned, chanting their psalms to the church, where
the high mass of the festival of St. Luke was celebrated.
This ceremony at Dieppe reminds one of the well-known annual ceremony
in Russia, of blessing the Neva in presence of the Czar and other
members of the Imperial Family; but, as the performance has been
described by numerous writers, we shall not further refer to it.
The Marquis of Segur, a zealous Catholic, relates that, in 1866, when
the Pope was seriously ill, Mdlle. Leautard, a lady of Marseilles,
resolved to offer up her life in place of his Holiness, and sought his
permission to do so. The Pope, after long silence, placed his hand on
her head, and said, "Go, my daughter, and do what the Spirit of God
has suggested to you." Next day, on receiving the consecrated wafer,
the lady fervently expressed her desire to die, and was immediately
seized with a sharp pain, which carried her off three days afterwards.
The Pope, on hearing of her death, exclaimed, "So soon accepted!" The
Marquis believes this sacrifice accounted for the Pope's prolonged
life.
A Hohenzollern legend was brought to mind in Germany through a serious
illness of the Emperor, who, however, fortunately recovered, and
continues to adorn his exalted position. The legend runs thus:--
Many years ago there was a Hohenzollern Princess (a widow with two
children), who fell in love with a foreign Prince--rich, handsome, and
brave. She sent him a proposition of marriage; but the Prince declined
her suit, explaining that "four eyes" stood between him and
acceptance. He referred to his parents, whose consent he could not
obtain. But the Princess understood him to refer to the four eyes of
her two children--to his unwillingness, in fact, to become a
stepfather. So she suffocated the infant obstacles, and wrote to her
lover that the way was clear. He was stricken with horror at the cruel
deed, and died cursing her bloodthirsty rashness. The Princess, in her
turn, became overwhelmed with remorse. After lingering a day or two in
indescribable anguish, she too died, and was buried under the old
castle at Berlin; but not to rest quietly in her unhappy grave. At
rare intervals she appears at midnight, clad in white, gliding, ghost
like, about the castle; and the apparition always forebodes the death
of some member of the Hohenzollern family. The white lady has been
seen, we are assured, three times within about a year--once just
before the death of Prince Albrecht; again, to announce the end of
Prince Adalbert; and the last time while Queen Elizabeth lay on her
deathbed.
We have shown that the great Napoleon Bonaparte was superstitious in
the highest degree; and so was his mother before him. Both believed in
fate or destiny. She was surrounded by luxury and pomp; but her
solicitude about her son, and the belief that his glory could not
last, rendered her miserable. The divorce of Josephine, the retreat
from Russia, the exile to Elba, the final overthrow at Waterloo, and
the banishment to St. Helena, were heavy blows; but she was prepared
for them. While the sun of the Emperor's fortunes blazed in the
zenith, she shivered under the shadow of her fear; and her fear proved
prophetic. She witnessed the downfall of every one of her children;
but she bore her adversity with dignity and resignation, and died in
her eighty-seventh year.
Indeed not only were Napoleon and his mother superstitious, but the
whole Bonaparte family were believers in fate. Napoleon III. says in
his will, "With regard to my son" (the late Prince Imperial, who
perished at the hands of Zulus), "let him keep, as a talisman, the
seal attached to my watch." True to the traditions of his family, the
young Prince put trust in amulets. When the Prince's body was
discovered (here we have a double case of superstition), it lay
stripped of all its clothing, but there were left with the body a
locket and a gold amulet, admittedly the seal bequeathed to him by his
Imperial father, as the Zulus were afraid they were charms--articles
they stand in great dread of.
Thinking of Prince Napoleon's untimely death, brings the Zulu
character to remembrance. Among the Zulus a belief prevails that
kindly and angry spirits hover around them--the former endeavouring to
do them good; the latter trying to do them harm. Zulus also believe in
divine smoke, witchcraft, and dreams. Whenever a charge of witchcraft
is made against any one, no mercy is shown him. Such an accusation
affords a pretext to a king or chief for getting rid of an obnoxious
person and acquiring his substance. The Inyanga, like our witch-finder
of old, has no difficulty in bringing home guilt to the unfortunate
accused. A Zulu judge, before pronouncing sentence, pretends that he
consults the divine oracles of his nation. When a Zulu sneezes he
says, "I am blessed, and the ancestral spirit is with me." So he
praises the family manes, and ends by asking blessings, such as cattle
and wives.
In September 1879 official news came from Sir Garnet Wolseley that
King Cetewayo had been captured, that the Zulu war had come to an end,
and that the following were among the terms of peace, signed by the
chiefs of Zululand: "I will not tolerate the employment of witch
doctors, or the practice known as smelling out, or any practices of
witchcraft."
Not unfrequently the representatives of Great Britain, in concluding
peace with heathen nations, have, as in the case of the Zulus, to
respect the superstitious notions of the people they have to deal
with, so as to make the agreement more binding in the minds of the
heathen contracting parties.
On one occasion the Ashantees put up a fetish to stop the advance of
the British army. It consisted of a kid transfixed through the throat
and heart, and staked to the ground; six cooking-pots, inverted, were
stuck on stakes round the kid, and, a few feet from it, another kid
was found buried: this, according to Ashantee custom, had been buried
alive. A similar fetish had been put up at a river near Moinsey to
stop the British troops. The advancing army found almost every turn of
the road to Coomassie strewn with fetish documents. Near Fommanah
nearly every tree had a white rag fastened to it as a charm. On the
King hearing of the British victory, he went to pour libation to the
spirits of his ancestors, and to ask their assistance against the
enemies of his country.
The Shah of Persia has numerous talismans, exceeding two hundred in
number. We give details of four of them. One is a gold star, supposed
to have been possessed by the legendary Rustem. It is called Merzoum,
and has the reputation of making conspirators immediately confess.
When the Shah's brother was accused of treason some time since, the
star was shown him, and, terrified and overcome by remorse, he avowed
his iniquities. His confession was, of course, attributed to its
efficacy. He was banished. The next important talisman is a cube of
amber, which, we are told, fell from heaven in Mohammed's time. It is
supposed to render the Shah invulnerable, and he wears it about his
neck. Another is a little box of gold, set in emeralds, and blessed by
the Prophet. It renders the Royal Family invisible as long as they are
celibates. Another is a diamond set in one of the Shah's scimitars,
which renders its possessor invincible; and there is also a dagger
with the same property, but it is ordained that those who use it shall
perish by it. It is therefore carefully kept shut up in a sandal-wood
box, on which is engraved a verse of the Koran.
As of old, superstition prevails all over India. Semi-religious
ceremonies are gone through in seasons of drought, to procure rain. At
other times means are taken to propitiate the gods, to subdue enemies,
and to secure good fortune to individuals, households, and
communities. There are Indian princes who regularly consult their
fortune-tellers regarding public and private affairs.
A curious bathing fair was held at Ajudhia, in Oude, in February 1878.
When a peculiar conjunction of the planets takes place (which occurs
only once in eighty years), the natives rush in crowds to the river,
as they believe that if they manage to bathe and go through certain
ceremonies in four minutes and a half, they will obtain the remission
of their own sins and those of millions of their ancestors. On this
occasion the rush to the river turned out so great that numbers were
trodden under foot, and sixty-five persons lost their lives.
The mysterious lights in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which are believed
by mariners to be warnings of great tempests and shipwreck, were
unusually brilliant in 1878. It is said to be a fact, established by
the experience of a century, that when these lights blaze brightly in
the summer nights, the phenomena are invariably followed by great
storms. They give the appearance to spectators on the shore of a ship
on fire. The fire itself seems to consist of blue and yellow flames,
now dancing high above the water, and then flickering, paling, and
dying out, only to spring up again with fresh brilliancy. If a boat
approaches, it flits away, moving further out, and is pursued in vain.
The lights are plainly visible from the shore from midnight until two
in the morning. They appear to come from the sea shoreward, and at
dawn retire gradually, and are lost in the morning mist. Paradis, the
French pilot, who took charge of the British Fleet under Admiral Sir
Hovenden Walker when it sailed up the St. Lawrence to seize Quebec in
1711, declared he saw one of these lights before that armada was
shattered by a dreadful gale on the 22d of August. The light, he said,
danced before his vessel all the way up the gulf. Every great wreck
that has taken place there since Sir Hovenden Walker's calamity has
been preceded, if tradition is to be believed, by these mysterious
lights, and they have thus warned the mariner of fatal storms.
In July last (1879) a woman, known as the Queen of Hearts, who had
attained the age of one hundred years, and who had been known for
three quarters of a century as a fortune-teller, died in Vienna.
Apparently gifted with the faculty of prescience, intimately
acquainted with the shuffling of cards, deeply learned in the lore of
the prophetic lines traced by the graver of Fate upon human hands and
feet, this lady devoted her days to the unravelling of the tangled
secrets of the future, charging those whose curiosity prompted them to
pry into the regions of the unknown, five ducats per revelation. As
many of the leading ladies of the Austrian aristocracy were among her
clients, and the accuracy of her forecasts having earned for her a
mighty reputation throughout the realms of the Hapsburgs, she
contrived to amass a handsome fortune. "Herz-Dame" was a person of
extraordinary acumen, and a physiognomist of the highest order. Her
sources of private information were numerous, and her ramifications
are believed to have permeated every class of Austrian society.
A comparatively recent instance of superstition in America is that
of an old Indian woman being suspected of witchcraft, and stoned
to death in Pine Nut Valley, Nevada; and in another part of the
world, far separated from America, a similar act of superstition
was committed, in which a human creature fell a victim to the gross
delusions of her neighbours. We refer to a case of witch-burning in
Russia. In October 1879 seventeen peasants were tried for burning
to death a supposed witch, who resided near Nijni-Novgorod. Of the
accused persons, fourteen were acquitted, and three sentenced to
church penances--sentences which, if rigorously carried out, will
not be easily borne.
A Leipsic writer gives an account of a number of superstitious
artists, some of which are very curious. Tietjens, for instance,
believed that the person would speedily die who shook hands with her
over the threshold at parting; Rachel thought she gained her greatest
successes immediately after she had met a funeral; Bellini would not
permit a new work to be brought out if on the day announced he was
first greeted by a man, and "La Somnambula" was several times thus
postponed; Meyerbeer regularly washed his hands before beginning an
overture; and a noted _tragedienne_ never plays unless she has a white
mouse in her bosom.
But these eccentricities can hardly compare with the strange belief
and doings of Hogarth, the celebrated painter and engraver,
particularly towards the close of his long life. A few months before
he was seized with the malady which cut him off, he commenced his "End
of all Things." A few of his intimate friends looked upon his picture
as prophetic; and so he seemed to regard it himself. The artist
worked with diligence, seemingly with an apprehension that he would
not live to complete the piece. Finish it, however, he did in a
masterly style, grouping everything that could denote the end of all
things. Prominent were a broken bottle, an old broom, a bow unstrung,
the butt-end of an old musket, a crown tumbled in pieces, towers in
ruins, the moon in her wane, the map of the globe burning, Ph[oe]bus
and his horses dead in the clouds, a vessel wrecked, Time with his
hourglass and scythe broken, a tobacco-pipe in his mouth, the last
puff of smoke going out; a play-book, with _Exeunt Omnes_ on one of
the open pages; an empty purse, and a statute of bankruptcy taken out
against nature.
"So far so good," said Hogarth. "Nothing remains but this,"--taking
his pencil and dashing off the similitude of a painter's palette
broken. "FINIS!" exclaimed the artist; "_the deed is done_--ALL IS
OVER." Hogarth never handled pencil again, and within a month of the
completion of this picture he was no more.
Transcriber's Notes:
There are a number of quotations in this work, many of which contain
archaic spelling and/or dialect. There are also several occurrences of
variant spelling and hyphenation used by the author. These have all
been retained as printed, with a few exceptions relating to proper
names or references to quotations, which are listed below. Printing
errors (transposed or missing letters, etc.) have been corrected
throughout.
^ has been used to indicate superscripted matter.
There are several instances of words containing the oe ligature. This
has been indicated by [oe].
This book sometimes uses asterisks to indicate an ellipsis.
Transcriber's Amendments:
Table of Contents - Chapter XVII - Mirando amended to Miranda -
"Miranda beseeching Prospero to allay the Wild Waters"
Table of Contents - Chapter XVIII - De'il amended to Deil - ""Address
to the Deil""
Page 66 - Hamadrydes amended to Hamadryades - "... and Hamadryades,
who are born and die with the oaks;"
Page 75 - Anguigen[oe] amended to Anguigenae - "... calls them
Anguigenae, serpent or snake-descended."
Page 84 - Phorcus amended to Phorcys - "Scylla, a daughter of
Phorcys ..."
Page 173 - De'il amended to Deil - ""Address to the Deil""
Page 177 - Boccacio amended to Boccaccio - "In the story of
_Isabella_, by Boccaccio ..."
Page 203 - Lock amended to Loch - "They dwell in the tempests of dark
Loch-na-Garr."
Page 218 - Haiawatha amended to Hiawatha - ""Song of Hiawatha.""
Page 240 - Cladius amended to Claudius - "He was dragged before
Claudius Maximus ..."
Page 271 - Hengest amended to Hengist - "... who had been massacred by
Hengist ..."
Page 273 - Rabinical amended to Rabbinical - "Rabbinical Tradition"
Page 358 - Nastradamus amended to Nostradamus - "... then a child, to
old Nostradamus ..."
Page 554 - Murdoch amended to Morduck - "In July Sarah Morduck was
brought ..."
Page 639 - Leipzic amended to Leipsic - "A Leipsic writer gives an
account ..."
End of Project Gutenberg's The Mysteries of All Nations, by James Grant