the word; and instantly his chum stood before him with a pale and livid countenance, and an expression in it alike mournful and ghastly, The Student's knees shook, and his speech failed, nor was his terror abated when the ghost, for such it was, asked if he did not know him, and, bewailing the hour of his miserable birth, told him how that night, when they were both alike engaged in debauchery, the Devil had preferred his accusation against them, laid the process of their offences before the throne of God, and asked permission to take away their lives, and plunge their souls in hell, according to their deserts. Their sins had been so manifold that the Judge signified his consent; but at that critical instant the survivor was saying his beads; and though he said them without a feeling of devotion, the compassionate goodness of Our Lady was so great that she interceded for him, and obtained a respite that he might repent and be saved. But for me, miserable me, the Ghost continued, I had said no rosary, so for me there was none to mediate ! The Devil, therefore, as I was returning home, met me in the street, and twisted my neck; there my body lies dead, where he left it,.. and for my soul, see what is its condition! With that he unbuttoned his waistcoat, and disclosed his

inner parts wrapt in flames, and filled with devouring snakes. The live Student swooned at the sight; the dead one with dreadful cries departed to his place of torment; and when the survivor came to his senses, he made a vow that he would turn Friar. Just then the bells of the Recollets rung to matins; he hastened to their Church, telling his beads devoutly as he went, threw himself at the Guardian's feet, and entreated him to assist a poor sinner who had just escaped from the very jaws of Hell. When he had told his dreadful tale, two Friars were sent to verify it, by looking for the corpse; they found it with the head twisted half round, blacker and uglier than a devil, and they brought it to the convent. In the morning the people were convoked there, the circumstances were related, and the body produced in proof: the Student took the habit in the presence of the whole city; his companion was buried in the fields, like a dog, as one for whom the suffrages of the Church could be of no avail; many Students, warned by this portentous event, forsook the world, and took the vows;* and upon the faith of one of these converts the story was recorded by the Venerable Father Alonso de Andrade, Calificador of the Inquisition.

* Andrade, 560.

Why this is a more exquisite miracle than the other!" And yet there are others more exquisite than this. Shall I tell you of the Valencian gallant,.. but no; that story is positively too good to be told in prose; and these may suffice as samples of the miracles by which the Romanists are persuaded to put their trust in the Rosary and in the Virgin Mary,..of the fables which are related, not as fables, but as truths by the Romish Clergy, in treatises of divinity, in books of popular devotion, and in sermons,..of the manner in which they delude the people. Beausobre has well said that les plus hardis imposteurs étoient les plus applaudis: le mensonge n'avoit point de frein, et n'en a pas encore dans les lieux où la Réformation n'a point pénétré."* As the vain repetition of words, which in themselves are no prayer, addressed to one unto whom, if there be any force in reason, if there be any truth in Scripture, prayer ought not to be addressed; as this vain repetition, connected with a mechanical practice of piety, a scheme of finger and thumb worship,

* Sur les Adamites, p. 321.

† Madame de Sevigné used to say that the Rosary was not a devotion, but a distraction. In one of her letters she says,

"Le

bon Abbé prie Dieu sans cesse ; j'écoute ses lectures saintes; mais quand il est dans le chapelet, je m'en dispense, trouvant que je rêve bién sans cela,”—t. vi. p. 368.

proves the charge of superstition and creatureworship upon the Church of whose usages it makes so conspicuous a part; the means whereby it is recommended prove also the charge of imposture upon all persons concerned in inventing, sanctioning, and circulating these fables as miraculous proofs in favour of a superstitious and idolatrous usage. "O wicked imagination, whence camest thou in to cover the earth with deceit !"*

SLAVES OF THE VIRGIN MARY.

THE Society of Slaves of the Virgin is another branch from the same root of superstition. The origin of this fraternity has been traced with little foundation to the Hungarian King St. Stephen, who is said to have made over himself, his new kingdom, and all his subjects in fee simple to the Virgin; the Hungarians at that time calling themselves her slaves in conformity to his pleasure, and always entitling her their Mistress or Lady, and bowing the knee and the head whenever her name was mentioned. Hence Hungary was called the family or house

* Ecclesiasticus, xxxvii. 3.

+ Yepes, vi. ff. xliv. Acta SS. Sept. i. 531. ib. Sept. vi. 722.

hold of the Blessed Virgin.* St. Gerard has the credit of having been the King's adviser on this occasion. Little, however, is heard of any such fraternity till it was brought into vogue in Spain by P. M. Fr. Antonio de Alvarado, Abbot of the Royal Monastery of Yrache in Navarre, in the early part of the seventeenth century. For the Benedictines, to whom civilization in their earlier, and literature in their later ages, have been so deeply beholden, used to vie with the Mendicant Orders in bringing forward extravagant legends, and introducing new practices of superstition to gratify and to delude the people. In this instance they were so successful that ere long there was scarcely a village in Spain without one of these fraternities:† and the rules of the Society, with its service and manual of devotions, were published in our own language for the use of English Romanists. The edifying example of Marino, brother of St. Peter Damian, was set before them, who, "unclothing himself of his garments, and putting about his neck the belt wherewith he was

* Macedo. Divi Tutelares, 359. This Jesuit assures us that the English used to stand in the same relation as the Hungarians to the Virgin Mary, and that England, in former times, was called her Dowry.-Ib. 453.

+ Yepes, ft. li.