books of devotion concerning the Rosary relate or refer to these revelations and favours which Alain pretended to have received from the Virgin, as arguments for its use.

With such fables in his mouth, and with a collection of rosaries in his hand, Alain preached up the efficacy of his wares through the Low Countries; the brethren of his Order seconded him zealously, and this new and mechanical devotion presently made its fortune. The Emperor Frederic III. brought it into fashion, and was followed by Kings, Dukes, Princes, Lords, Prelates, Masters in Theology, Doctors, Religioners, Gentry, Citizens, Artisans and men of all descriptions, as well as by Queens, Duchesses, Princesses, Baronesses, Abbesses, Nuns, Sisters and Ladies of all sorts.* It was boldly affirmed that innumerable miracles approved the peculiar virtues of the practice which was

viaria non illico putanda esse ab omni historicá aberratione libera, sed magná plerumque spongia egere, licet illa in suum usum usurpet Ecclesia. (Acta SS. Aug. t. i. 428.) Benedict XIII. however, did not use the sponge when it was in his power to have used it: ... and what are we to think of a Church which compels its priests to read in their service, and deliver to the people as truths, legends which they themselves know, and cannot but know, to be fabulous?

*Rosario, p. 12.

thus introduced; that persons were delivered. by it from dangers, diseases, sin and infamy, and that the dead were raised. It was not long before a means for extending its use more widely, and enhancing its benefits to all who used it, was devised by F. Jacob Spenger, Prior of the Dominican Convent at Cologne, and afterwards Provincial of that Province. This was by instituting an association, called the Society of the Rosary, the object of which may be made generally intelligible in these days by explaining that it was to be a Joint Stock Prayer Company.

The Rosary itself was a device for making devotion easy by a manual operation; and this Society was one from which "neither the husbandman in the fields, nor the traveller on his journey, nor the labourer with his toiling, nor the simple by his unskilfulness, nor the woman by her sex, nor the married by their estate, nor the young by their ignorance, nor the aged by their impotency,* nor the poor for want of ability, nor the blind for want of sight," should be excluded. The performance of its conditions being so easy that it required no more knowledge than to say the Pater Noster and Ave Maria,

66

* Society of the Rosary, p. 3.

nor more charge than the price of a pair of beads, nor any choice of place or situation of body, but as it shall like the party, either to stand, sit, lie, walk, or kneel and "having no burden of conscience, or charge of sin, if it be omitted, who seeth not, says an English Romanist, how easy it is, and with what facility it may be observed? Yea who seeth not how great and careless a negligence, and how contemptuous a singularity it were to omit so general a profession?"*

It was especially recommended to the English Romanists, as an ancient means, even from St. Dominic's time of rooting out heresy." (Societie of the Rosary. Preface to the Reader.) St. Dominic having devised it as an antidote against that most pestiferous poison of the Albigean heresy,"... it "proved so prevalent and successful that soon after that infernal fire was quenched, that contagious current was stopt, that wicked heresy was utterly abolished. If we therefore lay hold of the same means, make use of the same remedy, and present the like humble and hearty petitions to the same Mother of Mercy and Fower, we may also hope to obtain the same happy effects; and to see these our blind adversaries enlightened, these strayed sheep reduced, these our obstinate countrymen converted. It is therefore convenient for all Christians, and proper for us in particular, to practise this sort of piety and devotion to God's glory, his Mother's honour, and the extirpation of heresies." -Jesus, Maria, Joseph, or the Devout Pilgrim of the ever-blessed Virgin Mary. Published for the benefit of the pious Rosarists, by A. C. and T. V. Religious Monks of the Holy Order of St. Bennet. Amsterdam, 1657.-p. 69.

The Virgin, it should be remembered, is represented by the

The terms of admission were as easy as the practice. The applicant had only to appear in a Dominican Church and desire to be enrolled in the books of the Society. No fee might be required for matriculation; and if the opportunity were taken for asking alms for the Convent, the applicant was warned not to give them,* the Virgin having been pleased to direct that this her own fraternity should be immaculate on that score. The Dominicans could very well afford their trouble, seeing she had not directed that Rosaries should either be supplied or blest gratuitously. There was a form of prayer for blessing them, in which the Almighty is implored to infuse so much virtue of the Holy Spirit into the beads, that

Romanists as the great destroyer of heresies. And the English Romanist, who in Elizabeth's reign, as it appears, (for the book is without date,) set forth this "Societie of the Rosary," says that that Society is now undoubtedly offered by the Virgin herself to her country. (Preface.)

* So it is stated in the Italian Rosario. But in one of the English books I find this "Annotation." "The receiving of what is freely given, and offered by devout persons, either for the ornament of the altar, or for the entertainment of him that serves the altar, or for the succouring of the poor members of the Confraternity, is not forbidden.”—Jesus, Maria, Joseph. 108.

Rosario, ff. 33.

whosoever wears the string, and keeps it reverently in his house, should always and every where be delivered from all ghostly and bodily enemies in this world, and deserve in the next to be by the Virgin Mary presented to Him as one full of good works. The popular opinion in Romish countries is, that the beads are of no virtue unless the priest has consecrated them. Whether prayers which are told upon an unblest string would be rejected altogether, or merely reduced to the common standard of value, might be a case for the casuists in divinity to determine.

Even upon the more favourable decision there would be a lamentable fall in the value of Purgatory stock. When Alain de la Roche first brought the Rosary into vogue, there were persons who ventured to object to it as a superstitious practice; and in consequence of their opposition, Francis Duke of Britanny and Marguerite his wife applied to Pope Sixtus IV. for an approbation of it, which the Pope granted accordingly, with an indulgence of five years and five quarantines* for every fifty recitations of the string, notwithstanding the Apostolical

* "A Quarantine is as much as if he had fasted a whole Lent, according to the custom."-Jesus, Maria, Joseph, p. 91.