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bishops were in their pontifical garments and covered with their mitres; the Pope himself presiding as the supremus episcopus, or the bishop of bishops, had only the mitre upon his head; in that pompous manner the mass was celebrated by the Pope, and when he arrived at that part where the collects of the saints are said; the Pope [by a special bull] declared the friar, of whom three miracles had been scrupulously investigated, to be a saint, with all the privileges to work miracles when and wherever he pleases.' At the same time the cooks and friars were very busy in preparing a good dinner for the cardinals, prelates and other illustrious guests. In the afternoon his holiness went in great pomp to the church of the Franciscan convent, where the painting of the new saint was exposed for the adoration of the people. He kneeled before that very being whom he had created a saint, and adored that very painting, to the original of which he had a few hours before granted the privilege of saintship and the permission to perform miracles. After the invo

'Before the canonization takes place, three miracles are brought before the curia in trial, where a prelate, called "the Devil's Advocate" pleads against them, and examines the evidences of the miracles.

cation of his new manufactured saint, his holiness graciously entered the convent and admitted the whole family to kiss his holy foot, or rather his holy slipper.

To satisfy the great mass of the people who do not understand latin, the three approved miracles were exhibited in painting at the facade of St. Peter's, in order that they might see what had been the miracles for which he was elevated to the glory of being saint. Among the largest and most conspicuous, was the one which represents the sainted friar seated in the kitchen of a tavern, and warming himself at the fire at which the landlady, who had the reputation of being a very uncharitable woman, was roasting birds for her guests. After an interval of a short time, the lady was obliged to leave the kitchen, when the friar [not being as yet a saint] took the roasted birds from the fire, and after holding them one by one up in the air, they immediately received life, became covered with feathers and flew about in the kitchen. The woman entering and seeing that spectacle, fell upon her knees and would have worshiped him; but the friar said unto her: "Woman give all the glory to the Virgin Mary."

As a narrator I will make no remarks on this peculiar case; my object is only to show the spirit of the Roman population, that they are not so ignorant as some travellers have described them, and not so bigoted as they appear.

Scarcely was the painting displayed to the eyes of the people, when a general burst of laughter filled the air; even the ladies who are not averse to the miracles of friars, considered it very puerile. Their disapproval was not expressed in secret, but in the presence of the spies, and openly in broad day to the mortification of the priests. I heard it said: "the friar has eaten the roasted birds and let fly some living one which he had in his large sleeves." Others more serious asked: "What benefit has that miracle conferred on the human family, for christianity, or even for the tavern keeper?" A great many in a joking manner said:" that miracle resembled very much those of the Jesuits at St. Domingo, when they asked only [for the love of the holy Virgin] a little boiled water, which they poured upon toasted bread, and soon the fragrance of that dish filled the house. The people were astonished, that the water should be changed into such delicious food. They [the Jesuits] told them: "give all the glory

to the holy Virgin who performed the miracle;" and in secret the good fathers put preserved meat and concentrated broth as ingredients of the miracle into it. Similar anecdotes, abounding in facetiousness and wit were publicly related. I trembled for them; I was apprehensive that the gens d'arms would lay hands on them. But the disapprobation being general, the police were overawed and dared not touch them; otherwise they would have been massacred on the spot.

The result of that censure was not less humiliating than the censure itself. The next day. another painting was placed in its stead. But for all that the effect of the blunder was not removed. Like the ass in the fable, who clothed himself in the dress of the shepherd, whose long ears betrayed him, that he was even in the cloak of the shepherd nothing but an ass. Such was the effect which the change of the picture produced.

We read in history many deceptions practiced by the heathen priests, but that in papal Rome, under the garb of christianity, such intrigues should be perpetrated in the nineteenth century, is too revolting even to narrate. If the apostle Paul, who withstood Peter to his face in Antioch, because he was blamed of having dissimulated

and walked not uprightly, according to the gospel;'-what would that apostle say, if he could appear again upon the palatinum, and see the intrigues, deceptions and corruptions of the so-called Vicar of Christ in the so-styled chair of Peter?

THE PATRIARCH OF EGYPT AND THE HORNED PRIEST.

The following is a narrative which I published in the Lutheran Observer during the last year, but as that journal is not read by Roman Catholics, I will insert it here, that they may hear something of the infallibility of their supreme pontiff.

The blunder of the miraculous birds was too great; the impression it left too strong to be easily effaced, they immediately put forth a new spectacle, new in every respect in the history of Popes, and I may safely say new in the history of heathen Rome.

In the Propaganda fide are educated missionaries for the countries of the East; there are usually from seven to eight hundred pupils in it, many of whom are taken when nine years old,

1Galat. c. 2, v. 11-14.

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