Without entering into the question whether the illusions of heathen superstition may be explained wholly by human artifice, or must sometimes be ascribed to the agency of evil spirits, it is certain that the heathens believed miracles were performed by their Deities; the Primitive Christians admitted that such wonders were wrought, but imputed them to the Devil; and thus the converts brought with them a habit of credulity, which was changed only in its direction. They expected no more from the Martyrs than they used to expect from the Demigods; and it would have been strange indeed if they should have rejected as incredible such tales of their living teachers as they found recorded by the gravest and best historians of the Emperor Vespasian.

It has sometimes been said concerning the Romish miracles, that of such relations some are miraculous but not true, and the others true but not miraculous. This however ought to be observed, that in the latter division there are many which must have seemed miraculous to all the parties concerned. And here it may suffice, without noticing other natural phenomena, to instance only those effects, whether sanative or injurious, which the mind when deeply excited is capable of producing upon

the body. I do not doubt that in this manner bodily diseases have frequently been cured, and more frequently for a time suspended. And this has taken place not in the Romish Church alone, but in all other religious communities where such curative means have been practised, Mahommedan and Heathen as well as Christian, the effects which seem and are believed to be prodigious being merely natural. Whether such effects are produced by faith in a saint or in a quack, by relics or tractors, by exorcism or animal magnetism, the same principle in human nature is appealed to, the same unconscious power is put in action. I have no more difficulty therefore in crediting the cases of this description, than in believing the cures which Valentine Gretrakes* and his predecessor Coker are said to have performed, or those which are recorded as having been effected by the royal touch.

Cases of this nature became more frequent as the superstition concerning relics gained ground; and here what began in credulity offered a tempting opportunity for fraudulent practices, and soon led to them. This mode of superstition was one of the corruptions with which

* For an account of this person, see Henry More's" Brief Discourse of Enthusiasm," sect. 58, with the Scholia thereon.

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Christianity became tainted in its compromise with the practices of Pagan Rome. With the rites and ceremonies which were adopted because they impressed the senses of the people, the arts whereby the Heathen priests had been accustomed to delude them were introduced also. The use of relics was one of the easiest and most gainful: and it might also have seemed not only harmless but beneficial; for the same deceit which practised upon the weakness of humanity, administered to its wants. If the sufferer's malady were one which might be remedied by the force of imagination, the priest could call forth a faith which was not given to the physician; if the mind remained unaffected, and the remedial powers of the constitution were of themselves sufficient to resist and overcome the disease, in that case the dust, or the lotion, which the relic-dealer administered, was perfectly harmless, where the medical practitioner's prescription might have disturbed the course of nature; and if there was not less knavery in palming false relics upon popular faith, than there is in adulterating drus, the fraud produced no injury to the patient. Apologies," says Mr. D'Israeli,* only account for the evil which they cannot alter.' * Curiosities of Literature, Second Series, vol. i. P. 12.

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But it is due to justice, it is due to our common religion, to show where we can, how imperceptibly men were led from one delusion to another; that the corruptions which have disgraced Christianity arose at first more from credulity than deceit; and that when they had been matured into a system of fraud, that system was sometimes promoted by good men in good faith, who, while unconsciously deceiving others, were themselves deceived.

Bede is an example of this: he has lent his authority to a scheme of delusion, but it has been shown that his veracity is not in the slightest degree impeached by the wonders which he has recorded. The wonders themselves appear upon examination to be of four kinds: those which relate to relics constitute the largest class, and belong as much to the history of medicine as of miracles. Dreams form a second class; the third consists of stories in which artifice is apparent; the last of palpable falsehoods invented and propagated for the purpose of gain. You shall have examples of each, Sir, with all the exactness of reference that you have desired. It is necessary that I should produce them, because you have contradicted my assertion, that the Anglo-Saxon clergy practised upon the credulity of a barba

rous people; and you have received public thanks for having confuted what the English Romanists are pleased to call my calumnies; as if in contradiction from you, confutation were necessarily implied. The task would not be supererogatory even if it were not thus called for, seeing that you appeal with Roman confidence to the succession of miracles in the Romish Church, and that the practitioners of that Church are as busy as ever, though perhaps not quite as expert in keeping up the succession at this time.

Neither Church, nor altar, nor standard of Christianity had been erected in the kingdom of Bernicia, till King Oswald set up a wooden cross at Heofenfeld, (Heavenfield) near the Roman wall, before the battle which he gained there. Pieces of that cross were afterwards carried away, as medicinal both for men and cattle, a chip imparting miraculous virtue to the water wherein it was dipt, or steept. The moss which grew upon it possessed equal efficacy; and a brother in the monastery at Hagulstad, who had lost the use of his arm in consequence of a fracture, found it restored by sleeping with some of this moss in his bosom.* Earth taken from the spot where Oswald was slain, to be