was not for want of exertion on the part of the vendors.* According to the Bollandists, this extraordinary militia was instituted with a particular view to the benefit of the female sex. Men * Even Echard says that experience had proved the utility of these girdles, and that this species of piety! was propagated not without effect in Louvain (where the Association began) and in other cities of the Low Countries, when he wrote. work was published in 1721. t. ii. p. 618. His The Bollandists, notwithstanding the enmity between their order and the Dominicans, gave it a good puff in the true style of Romish quackery. It is not necessary to transcribe it after the samples which have been given of this... superstition shall I call it... or knavery? But the reader, who may at once be idle and industrious enough to trace me to my authorities, will find it in the first volume of the Acta for March, p. 747, at the end of the section De Cingulo S. Thomæ Vercellis culto, et Militia Angelica sub hoc titulo apud Belgas institutâ. Had the Militia been instituted a little earlier, we should have had some glorious conceits upon it in the prize poems written for the Certamen Angelico at the dedication of the Angelical Doctor's Church at Madrid, 1656. As it is, the collection is truly characteristic. † Acta SS. ut supra. Though the Girdle of St. Thomas was a Dominican and an Italian invention, it appears, from the Memoirs of Scipio de Ricci, that the cherubic sons of St. Dominic did not introduce it into the Italian Nunneries which were under their spiritual direction! The Friars of that worthy order have been detected in old times in such practices as have recently been brought to light in those memoirs. An attempt was made by some Nuns, might visit the shrine of the Angelical Thomas, but as it was placed in one of those churches where no woman was allowed to enter, this means was devised whereby the weaker sex might obtain the same virtue which the real presence of his holy remains would have infused. It followed, as one of the demoralizing consequences, when holiness was imputed to celibacy, that women were disparaged as much as they were dreaded. The remark has been gravely made* that wicked Angels have frequently appeared in the form of women, but good ones never. F. Bernardus Baptizatus, in a sermon before the Council of at the instigation of a Dominican, to murder Vitrarius, (of whom Erasmus has left so beautiful an account,) for interfering to reform a Nunnery at St. Omers. "Erat illic monasterium sororcularum, in quo sic erat prolapsa omnis religiosa vita disciplina, ut lupanar verius esset, quàm monasterium. Et tamen inter has erant quæ sanari possent et cuperent. Has dum crebris concionibus hortatibusque revocaret ad Christum, octo deploratæ ex eo numero conspirárant, et hominem observatum in locum semotum pertrahunt, atque ibi fasciis injectis præfocant. Nec finem faciunt donec casu nescio qui intervenientes, impium facinus dirimunt. Atque ille jam exanimatus erat, vixque revocatus est ut spiraret: nec tamen usquam hac de re questus est, ne his quidem quos habebat intimos, nec ullum officium prætermisit, quo solet illarum saluti subvenire; imò ne cultus quidem unquam visus est in illas solito tristior. Noverat autorem hujus conspirationis, is erat Theologus Dominicanus, Episcopi Moriensis à suffragiis Episcopus, vir palam impie vite."-Epist. 1. xv. Ep. 14. 699. * P. Le Heurt. Philosophie des Espritz, p. 589. Constance, exhorted the Council, in allusion to the then received story of Pope Joan, not to elect a woman for Pope; and he enforced the strange exhortation by saying, that woman was the head of sin, the weapon of the Devil, and the mother of guilt.* There was a Bishop who doubted, upon theological principles, whether the word homo could properly be applied to a woman, †..as if she were rather an imperfection in nature than a perfect human being: not however being obstinate enough to found a heresy, he yielded to the arguments and opinions of his brethren in synod assembled. proof, stronger than the decision of a synod, has been afforded that, whether woman be or be not an inferior animal, there is desecration in her touch for any thing that has been sanctified. One of the miracles which Pope St. Gregory the Great relates, as making no doubt of their truth, is of a horse which a Grecian nobleman lent to Pope St. John, when that Pontiff was on his way to confer with the Em *Lenfant, C. of Constance, vol. ii. 103. But Greg. Tur. Hist. 1. viii. § 20. p. 453. Gregory gives the scriptural arguments by which the Bishop was convinced; and, as if to show how entirely he was of the same opinion as the Council, when he speaks of Queen Ingeberga, he calls her hominem timentem Deum.--Ib. 1. ix. § 26. p. 525. Ed. 1561. Z peror Justinian. It was a gentle beast, and for that reason had always been ridden by the nobleman's wife. But after carrying the Pope, the horse could never again be brought to brook his mistress; showing by the most expressive snorting and neighing, and by his indignant motions,* that, consecrated as his back had been, no woman must ever again presume to take her seat there. And this choice story is inserted in the prayer-book of the Romanists, to be read by all their clergy annually on Pope St. John's day! Falsehoods like this, Sir, prove the prevalence of an opinion, as much as fables may enforce a moral truth. There are facts, however, to show the unnatural state of mind which the preposterous obligation to celibacy induces. A lady of the Portugueze court was desirous of receiving spiritual instruction from one of the primitive Friars Minorite, for whom her mistress, the Infanta St. Sancha, had founded * Dialogues, b. iii. c. ii. p. 211. I learn this from the "Poor Man's Preservative against Popery," (p. 132) which happened to reach me this day (Oct. 12), while I was transcribing the story for the press. By this very useful little work, and by his " Practical and Internal Evidence," my excellent friend Mr. Blanco White has rendered great and well-timed service to the Protestant cause. a monastery at Alenquer. The Friar, who was such a paragon of seraphical holiness, that he never allowed his eyes to look upon a woman, took as much pains to avoid her as she did to obtain an interview with him. One day they met in a place where he had no means of escaping, upon which he requested that she would send for some flax and a lighted taper, saying that when this was done he would talk with her. These things were brought accordingly, and he set fire to the flax. "See, Lady," he exclaimed in the fervour of his spirit, "how the flame spreads! Our human frailty is kindled in like manner by conversation with women, and therefore I fly from them." Upon this he turned his back and hastened away, leaving her,* says one of the seraphic historians, not more confused at his departure than edified by his caution and his virtue. When this Friar (whose name has not been preserved on earth) died at Alenquer, St. Antonio, who was then performing mass in the Convent of Santa Cruz, at Coimbra, saw his soul pass clean through Purgatory, like a bird upon the wing, unsinged, and ascend gloriously into Paradise.† * Fr. Manoel da Esperança, Hist. Seraf. da Prov. de Portugal, t. i. l. i. c. xiv. § 3. p. 76. + Les Chroniques des Frères Mineurs composées première : |