Rosary is certainly the happiest invention. Its mere picturesque effect might have brought it into general use, for beautiful it is, whether pendant from the neck of the young, or in the trembling hands of the aged. Nor is its use limited to the convenience of keeping a prayer account in decimals, and thus facilitating the arithmetic. If the Ave Maria were repeated the whole hundred and fifty times, or even a tenth part of those times, in uninterrupted succession, no human vigilance could prevent the words from being articulated without a thought of their meaning; but by this device, when ten Aves have been said, and ten of the smaller or Ave beads dropt to keep time with them, the Pater or large bead comes opportunely in to jog* the memory: sufficient attention is thus excited to satisfy the conscience of the devotee, and yet no effort, no fervour, no feeling are required; the understanding may go wander, the heart

* Mainauduc, the animal magnetist, understood and adopted this principle in his Treatment. The mind," he says, "should be able to perform this work without any particular motions of the body, or of its extremities. But inexperience, and the frequent disturbances which occur to divert the attention, induce us to adopt some mode of action, whose constant repetition may attach, rouse, or recall the mind to the subject, when it becomes languid or diverted from its employment.”—- Lectures, p. 107.

may be asleep, while the lips with the help of the fingers perform their task; and the performer remains with a comfortable confidence of having added to his good works, and rests contented opere operato. The priests of the Romish Church have been wise in their generation, and the structure which they have raised is the greatest monument of human art, as it is of human wickedness,..so skilfully have they known how to take advantage of every weakness, and to practise upon every passion of human nature.

The person by whom the Rosary was brought into general use, and thereby such eminent service rendered to the Romish world in general, and of the Dominican family in particular, was the blessed Alanus de Rupe, or Alain de la Roche, a Breton by birth, a Dominican by calling, and one of the most intrepid dealers in pious fraud that ever did honour to his profession as a son of St. Dominic. Nevertheless, or rather therefore, he is the Blessed Alanus de Rupe, and with that designation his name stands in the Dominican Kalendar, for pious commemoration on the eighth of September.

The Rosary, he says, was used, as it now is, by the Saints Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory, and Benedict, and this the Virgin herself told him. She told him also in what manner she

herself had caused the Society of the Rosary to be instituted, which it was his mission to extend. St. Dominic, when itinerating with one companion in Gallicia, was seized by a party of Moorish rovers who had landed near Compostella; they carried their prisoners on board, and put to sea. A storm arose, the vessel sprung a leak, the water came in so fast that the men swam in the ship; but though Dominic exhorted them to call upon the Virgin, who could save them, they answered him only by blaspheming. The tempest continued to rage through the night, and their condition appeared desperate, and would have been so had not the Saint been aboard. At dawn, on the day of the Annunciation, the Virgin appeared, not to him alone, but to the whole crew, and offered to forgive and deliver those guilty men if they would promise to recite the Rosary every day, and institute a fraternity who should duly perform the same act of acceptable devotion. If they would do this, he had only in her name and in her Son's, to bid the winds and the sea be still; if they refused, she would place him in safety, and leave the rest to suffer, body and soul, immediate death and everlasting punishment. No sooner had the Moors signified their joyful conversion and began to praise her, than

the Virgin visibly conveyed the water-logged ship over the breakers safely to the shore; and voices, as dreadful as the storm, were heard from the sea, exclaiming, O this Dominic! he deprives us of our prey! he releases them with the Rosary! he chains us, he scourges us, he kills us with that Rosary! All the goods which they had thrown overboard to lighten the vessel, were found lying safely upon the strand; and the converts, being led in triumph to be baptized, became the first members of the Society of the Rosary. *

Neither the Law nor the Gospel were introduced with such appalling miracles as this device for making fingers and thumbs perform the work of prayer. When the same thaumaturgic St. Dominic was engaged in his crusade against the Albigenses, as he entered Thoulouse one day after one of his interviews with the Virgin, the bells, unmoved by human hands, rang to honour him; but the heretics neither heeded this manifestation of his sanctity, nor attended to his earnest exhortations that they should use the Rosary. Presently, therefore, a sudden darkness came over the heavens, a storm of wind and thunder arose, the whole firmament seemed ablaze with lightning, earth

* Possadas, 50.

shook, and the howling of affrighted animals was mingled with the cries and supplications of the terrified multitude. People of Thoulouse, said Dominic, it is the voice of God! I see before me an hundred and fifty Angels, whom Christ and his Mother have sent for your chastisement. Abjure your heresies, and take her for your advocate! There was an Image of the Virgin in the Church, where this was said, who raised her arm with a threatening gesture as he spake. Mark me! he continued, not while you persist in your wickedness, not till you supplicate her by reciting the Rosary, will that menace be withdrawn! The Devils yelled audibly at this, the congregation disciplined themselves and told their beads in all the sincerity of fear;* till the Thaumaturge being assured of their conversion, knelt before the Image to intercede for them; the Virgin then was appeased and put down her hand, and the storm ceased.

The prodigious virtues of the Rosary were manifested in a manner not less astounding at Carcassonne, where there dwelt so active and pertinacious a heretic, that Dominic, not being able to convert him by reasoning, (and as it appears, not having at that time the efficacious

* Possadas, 118.