try, with six and twenty plates, by Messrs. Keating, Brown, and Co. You could not upon your own knowledge depose to the wonderful cure of Winifred White, at her namesake's St. Winifred's Well: but your learned friend the vicar-apostolic and titular bishop Dr. Milner, had inquired into the miracle upon the spot, seen and examined the patient, collected depositions concerning her character and her case, and laid them in the most authentic form, with his own signature and the sign of the cross, before the public. You might speak of Dr. Milner's abilities and erudition in fitting terms, as having been acknowledged by the numerous persons of his own Church as well as ours with whom he has engaged in controversy; you might praise him for the religious Roman Catholic spirit, the burning zeal which he manifests in all his writings; and it would not be necessary for you to dwell upon the fidelity of his references, nor to notice the urbanity of his manner, the meekness of his temper, and the enlarged and enlightened liberality of his sentiments. Then, Sir, much as you might regret that you had not yourself been so happy as to witness any of the miracles effected by Prince Hohenloe's intercession, you might assure posterity that they were matters of public notoriety in your days;

that accounts of them frequently appeared in the newspapers; that books had been published concerning them; that cases had occurred at Dublin; and that a mass having been celebrated at Celbridge in Ireland, in unison with the thaumaturgic Prince's prayers, which were to be offered at the same time for the benefit of those who should desire to take advantage of them, many were said to have been cured; and it was confidently affirmed that one person, a Munster man, Flanagan by name, who had been quite blind for many years, had recovered his sight instantaneously, at the elevation of the host.

*

I put this hypothetically:.. not to impeach your understanding by representing that you believe in all or any of these things; still less to insinuate that you would lend your authority to accredit them if you believed them not. But if you were persuaded of their truth, thus it is that you might in perfect good faith record them, and yet prove nothing more than that such mi

* See an account of this gross deception in the Observations on J. K. L.'s Vindication of the Religious and Civil Principles of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, 1824, a very able pamphlet, and well worthy of attention at this time. Two Protestant clergymen very properly took the trouble of inquiring into this juggle and exposing it.

racles were said to have been enacted in your days, and that you honestly supposed them to be miraculous. Now this is all (in one point of view) that can be inferred from Bede's testimony; unless it should be suspected that he himself entertained some doubts concerning the truth of such stories from the singularly careful manner in which he always adduces some authority for them, never in one instance resting a statement of this nature on his own. I notice this possible suspicion only for the purpose of declaring my full persuasion that there is no ground for it. Sorry should I be if there were; for the integrity of his character would then be tainted, and we should lose one of those objects of unmingled admiration which it is wholesome both for the understanding and the heart to contemplate. It is to me perfectly apparent from his writings that he lived in a state of happy, unhesitating belief, being in this respect altogether in sympathy with his contemporaries, far as he was advanced beyond them in other things. It will require a separate disquisition to show in what manner the general credulity which then prevailed arose, and by what natural causes and accidental circumstances it was fostered, and how it was abused. Such an inquiry is important in itself and pertinent to our imme

diate subject. But as it is pleasanter to take short stages than long ones, and to see the distance measured by miles rather than leagues,

Qui fard fine,-per tornar di novo

A donarvi piacer col canto novo.

124

ON THE MIRACLES OF THE PAPAL CHURCH.

You maintain, Sir, that we are taught to expect an uninterrupted succession of miracles in the Church. To prove this you quote the prophecy of Joel,* "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:" and you ground your application of this text upon the declaration of St. Peter to the Jews, when, after citing these words, he said,† "the promise is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." You add then the promise of our Saviour to his disciples and because no limitation of time is expressed in his words, you conclude that they are unlimited, and therefore miracles must somewhere have been uninterruptedly wrought. Even in law, Sir, you would find it difficult to establish as a maxim, that words must mean any thing they