probably learnt it from the Moors. Nor is it surprizing that the same usage should be found among people who differ so widely in the grounds of their belief; for when the opinion was once established, that prayers are taken by tale, some such device was necessary for those who might be desirous of keeping even scores, and knowing how their accounts stood with the other world.

The use of vain repetitions in devotion is one of those superstitions which may be derived from the Judaizing Christians. It was an axiom with the Jews* that every one who multiplies prayers is heard; and against this error Christ warned his disciples, thus condemning the notion that in such repetitions there can be either power or piety. I know not if there be an earlier example than that which Sozoment mentions; and that points to a Jewish origin, for it occurred in Egypt. It is of a certain Paul

Idas (p. 36) describes a Lama at Jakutskoi, "who had such a string of beads in his hand, according to the Mongalian and Colmakkian fashion, which he very swiftly and incessantly turned over through his fingers, continually moving his lips as though he were at his private devotions; and with this perpetual telling of his beads, his thumb was worn through the flesh and nail up to the knuckle, which rubbing off by slow degrees did not at all pain him."

*Lightfoot's Works, xi. 140.

+ L. vi. c. xxix.

who resided at Pherme, where he had five hundred disciples. This person, having made a vow that he would say three hundred prayers every day, used to put that number of pebbles in his bosom when he began his task, and drop out one at the end of every prayer, that he might neither fail in the performance of his engagement, nor weary himself with any work of supererogation. In later times, and in our own country, the Lady Godiva, who figures so remarkably in the history of Coventry, counted her prayers upon a string of jewels, which at her death she bequeathed to an Image of the Virgin in that city.* The use of such beadstrings was common in the thirteenth century, and it appears that they were then, as now, divided into fifteen decads of smaller beads for the Ave Maria, with a larger one between each ten for the Pater Noster. They were then generally called Pater-Nosters. But it was not till the fifteenth century that their virtue was preached far and wide, and that the history and mystery of the Rosary were revealed.

Of all the tools, trinkets, or playthings of devotion, in whichever class we place it, the

* William of Malmsbury. Gest. Pont. Aug. 1. iv. c. iv. p. 289. Acta SS. Aug. t. i. p. 434.

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