of Portugal, and were generally acknowledged, not only by Europeans of different religions in India, but also by the native Mahometans and Pagans." Letter XXIII. pp. 80, 81.

It is painful to think," says Mr. Grier, "that in the present enlightened age, a gentleman like Dr. Milner, who displays learning in almost every department of science; who possesses experience, intelligence, and taste; who writes well and who reasons acutely-should be so besotted, as not only to believe himself, but to attempt to induce others to believe, all the stupid legends of the dark ages, and the modern fabrications of the same stamp. Such fatuity would be a miracle in itself, were it not known how superstition debases the reason, when it has gained the ascendant over the mind." Reply to Dr. Milner's End of Controversy, p. 361.

"As to Xavier," says the same writer, "it might have been expected that the doctor would have been more reserved in ascribing miraculous powers to one, who lived so much nearer our own times, than to those of more distant ages; because, the means of detecting imposture is more within our reach, in the former than in the latter case; and because, if he found that recourse had been had to fabrication with respect to accounts of modern date, it sinks into disrepute those of earlier origin.

"Of Xavier's miracles, which, Dr. Milner says, 'consisted in foretelling future events, speaking unknown languages, calming tempests at sea, and raising the dead to life,' Acosta, a cotemporary writer, a Jesuit, and a missionary also, makes no mention. But had these singular occurrences taken place, he must have noticed them. And, with respect to the gift of tongues, which is ascribed to him in a supernatural degree, it is certain that he himself deeply lamented, in one of his letters, his deficiency in this very particular! Now, where he wanted a requisite which would have been so essential to the cause of proselytism among the pagans, it is highly improbable that his saintship would have been invested with any other. Indeed, his simple acknowledgment on this one point throws discredit on the other miraculous stories told of him. But Dr. Milner adds, that Xavier's miracles 'were verified soon after the saint's death by virtue of a commission from John III. king of Portugal.' Here again the silence of Acosta about those alleged miracles meets him; and not only this, but the express assertion of this writer that no miracles whatever were performed in India. And, as Acosta's account was not published for nearly forty years after Xavier's death, it is evident that that space of time at least elapsed before his miracles were thought of. This is Bishop Douglas' opinion on the subject; and though Dr. Milner attempts to invalidate it by a reference to Acosta's work, yet the very place † referred to es

"See CRITERION of miracles, page 84. Dr. Buchanan tells of his having observed to the Archbishop of Goa that 'Xavier was an eminently great man; but that what others have written for him and of him, tarnished his fame by making him the inventor of fables. To which the chief inquisitor candidly signified his assent.' See Christian Researches, page 162. This anecdote is the more valuable, both as it records the admission of a popish ecclesiastic of high rank, resident on the very theatre of Xavier's ministry, and consequently acquainted with every act of his; and as it exhibits the hollow pretensions set up for this saint by Dr. Milner, on the score of miraculous agency." + "quod miraculorum nulla facultas sit, quæ apostoli plurima perpetrârunt.' De Procur, &c. l. ii. cap. 8. Here Acosta denies that the missionaries had ANY power;

tablishes its correctness. That writer barely says that 'great signs were reported of Xavier by numerous and credible witnesses.' But Dr. Milner goes farther, since he says that they not only 'vie in number, splendour, and publicity, with the miracles of St. Bernard;' but appear to equal those of our Saviour himself!!" Reply, &c. pages

367-369.

About a year or two ago, I read as much of St. Francis Xavier's life and miracles as disgust and contempt would allow me. I shall give one miracle as a sample of the whole. I write from memory, as I am not now in possession of the book:-The holy saint had a consecrated crucifix which he valued above all things in the world. On a sea voyage, one day, he lost it overboard; and was quite inconsolable. After landing at the country whither he went, and walking on the sea shore, he saw his favourite image coming towards him, elevated above the surface of the water. Gazing with astonishment and delight, and going to the water's edge, it was most reverently laid down at his feet, by a crab, who had borne it in its claws through the ocean, to the very spot where the saint was miraculously brought at the time to receive it.

This is gravely related as one of the miracles of St. Francis Xavier, the apostle of the Indies. But it appears to me that he had no hand in it whatever; and did not so much as expect any thing of the kind to happen. The crab is entitled to the whole credit of this miracle; and I would have advised the pope, at his next diet of canonization, to have put this animal among the saints, had he not been anticipated by the heathen Egyptians or Chaldeans, who gave him a place among the Constellations, where, under his Latin name, Cancer, he has the honour of making the extremity of the sun's northern declination.

But the gross wickedness of such a story as the above consists chiefly in the idolatry that it implies and cherishes. It is evidently meant to be inculcated that there was a divinity in the holy image which the saint worshipped, that could inspire the crab with the thought of its preservation, and restoration to its devout worshipper; and those who believe the story are confirmed in their idolatrous practices; for that Papists, even those who live among us, do worship such things is beyond all doubt, though they deny, or wish to conceal it. Of this I have the evidence of one of their own communion, who lately called on me, being introduced by a friend, for the purpose of becoming acquainted with one who had made himself so notorious by his opposition to the "Catholic church." He had read part at least of my work with great care, and had many passages marked, which he wished to converse with me about. I talked fully an hour with him; and showed him several popish books which he had never seen, and some sentiments in them which surprised him, of which he requested and obtained, written extracts. Turning over Dr. Milner's work, I pointed to the crucifix, or figure of the crucifixion, at the root of his apostolical tree, and asked him to tell me candidly,-"Do you really worship a thing like that ?"-" They do it," said he, "but I always felt

an aversion to it."

With regard to home, and more recent miracles, Dr. Milner thus but Dr. Milner's gloss is, 'that they only had not the same facility as the apostles.' FACULTAS-facility, secundum Milner!" See Letter XXIV.

addresses his correspondents: "Methinks I hear some of your soci ety thus asking me: Do you then pretend that your church possesses the miraculous powers at the present day?' I answer, that the church never possessed miraculous powers in the sense of most Protestant writers, so as to be able to effect cures or other supernatural events at her mere pleasure: for even the apostles could not do this; as we learn from the history of the lunatic child, Matt. xvii. 16. But this I say, that the Catholic church, being always the beloved spouse of Christ, Rev. xxi. 9. and continuing at all times to bring forth children of he roical sanctity, God fails not in this, any more than in past ages, to illustrate her and them by unquestionable miracles. Accordingly, in those processes which are constantly going on, at the apostolic see, for the canonization of new saints, fresh miracles of a recent date continue to be proved with the highest degree of evidence, as I can testify from having perused, on the spot, the official printed account of some of them. For the further satisfaction of your friends, I will inform them that I had satisfactory proof, that the astonishing catastrophe of Louis XVI. and his queen, in being beheaded on a scaffold, was foretold by a nun of Fougeres, Sœur Nativité, twenty years before it happened; and that the banishment of the French clergy from their country, long before it happened, was predicted by the holy French pilgrim, Benedict Labre, whose miracles caused the conversion of the late Rev. Mr. Thayer, an American clergyman, who, being at Rome, witnessed several of them. With respect to miraculous cures of a late date, I have the most respectable attestation of several of them, and I am well acquainted with four or five persons who have experienced them. The following facts are respectively attested, but at much greater length, by the Rev. Thomas Sadler, of Trafford, near Manchester, and the Rev. J. Crathorne, of Garswood, near Wigan:-Joseph Lamb, of Eccles, near Manchester, now twenty-eight years of age, on the 12th of August, 1814, fell from a hay-rick, four yards and a half high, by which accident it was conceived the spine of his back was broken. Certain it is, he could neither walk nor stand without crutches, down to the 2d of October, and that he described himself as feeling the most exquisite pain in the back. On that day, having prevailed with much difficulty upon his father, who was then a Protestant, to take him in a cart, with his wife and two friends, Thomas Cutler and Elizabeth Dooley, to Garswood near Wigan, where the hand of F. Arrowsmith, one of the Catholic priests who suffered death at Lancaster, for the exercise of his religion, in the reign of Charles I., is preserved, and has often caused wonderful cures; he got himself conveyed to the altar rails of the chapel, and there to be signed, on his back, with the sign of the cross, by that hand; when feeling a particular sensation and total change in himself, as he expressed it, he exclaimed to his wife Mary, I can walk! This he did, without any help whatever, walking first into an adjoining room, and thence to the cart which conveyed him home. With his debility his pains also left him, and his back has continued well ever since. (August 6th, 1817.) These particulars the above named persons, all still living, are ready, as they were respectively

I cannot find any account of this saint and martyr, in either the Protestant or popish histories of that period, to which I have access; from which we may infer that his saintship was not then acknowledged.

VOL. II.-79

witnesses of them, to declare upon oath. I have attestations of incurable cancers and other disorders being suddenly remedied by the same instrument of God's bounty: but it would be a tedious work to transcribe them, or the other attestations in my possession of a similar nature." Letter XXIII. pp. 87-89.

I have inserted this story at full length, though it occupies more space than it deserves, in order to show with what a face of brass Papists can gravely relate their "lying wonders;" and how they impose upon the poor credulous dupes of their deceit and cunning.

I need not say that I disbelieve this story; for I suppose none but a Papist can believe it to be any thing but a gross imposition. It has not so much as a feature of credibility in it; and the only thing wonderful about it, is, that it should be believed by any person capable of distinguishing his right hand from his left. This Joseph Lamb fell from a hay-rick, "by which accident it was conceived the spine of his back was broken;" but no means were used, so far as appears, to ascertain the fact. There was no surgeon called to certify the fracture, or the state of the body before or after the alleged cure. There are no witnesses of either the disease or the remedy, but persons interested in propagating a belief in the virtue of the wonder-working dead hand, except the father of Lamb, who was then a Protestant, but whose conversion to popery was the consequence of the supposed miracle. This lets us into the secret of the matter. It was easy for the son to feign both the disease and the cure, for such a good purpose as the conversion of his father; and the priests, no doubt in the secret, knew how to do the work with becoming solemnity. Such tricks have been so common in the church of Rome, that they would have lost all interest and effect long ago, but for the besotted ignorance and stupidity of the people who submit both conscience and understanding to their ghostly guides. I request the reader to turn to my first volume, page 366, and he will find an account of a young man, trained almost from his infancy to counterfeit blindness, for the express purpose of making him the subject of a miracle at some convenient time; which must have been a much more difficult affair than that of Lamb feigning himself lame only from August till October.

Dr. Milner gives us the particulars of two other cases of miraculous cures peformed by St. Wenefride, at her holy well. One of them is narrated in a letter to himself, dated Nov. 19th, 1809, by a Miss Maria Hornyold. Some writers have endeavoured to account for these cures from the effects of the cold bath; but I see no necessity of accounting for them at all; for I believe they are nothing more than the effects of deceiving and being deceived. There are impostors among common beggars who can assume the appearance of almost any disease; and the wily priests know well how to make use of this art for impressing the belief of miraculous cures.

When the apostles of Christ went preaching the gospel, God was pleased to confirm their testimony by "signs and wonders, and divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost.' But when the truth of their testimony was confirmed, and received by the churches, in the apostolic writings, the truth was then left to make its way by its own evidence with the enlightening influence of the Holy Spirit, which Christ promised should remain with his disciples for ever: and to suppose

that miracles are still necessary, is to say that the truth of the gospel is not yet sufficiently confirmed What is it that Papists propose to establish by their miracles? Is it that Jesus is the Christ? This was the design of Christ's own miracles. Is it to prove that the apostles of Christ were his messengers, and spoke by his authority? This was the design of their miracles; this is what was established by them; and having this established, we have no more to ask for,-we have nothing to do but to receive their testimony, and obey what they commanded. This renders further miraculous interference quite unnecessary and as God does nothing in vain, miracles must of course have ceased when the canon of divine revelation was closed: and persons who understand and believe what is written, will not look for new miracles, any more than for a new revelation.

But I return to the question, What is it that Papists propose to establish by their miracles? It is what we know from the word of God to be erroneous, superstitious, and idolatrous; such as, that there is a divine virtue in certain images,-in the relics of certain saints, as in the withered hand of Father Arrowsmith, and in the holy water of St. Wenefride's well; and all this for the purpose of cherishing devotion, and religious worship to saints and images. This we know to be contrary to the word of God; we are sure no real miracle can be wrought to establish such impiety; and, therefore, what is pretended must be false; and we ought not to believe such things, even though supported by what has the appearance of a miracle. The children of Israel were instructed by Moses that false prophets would arise among them; but they were commanded to beware of them; and not to believe any man who would tempt them to idolatry, though they did miraculous things, or what appeared to be such. See Deut. xiii. 1-18. In reference to this, the apostle Peter gives us warning of what should take place in the last days: "But there were false prophets among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you."- And through covetousness shall they make merchandise of you." 2 Ep. ii. 1-3. This prediction, and the history of the church of Rome, will be found to agree in every particular. The mystery of iniquity, as described by the apostle Paul, was to come, "after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness." 2 Thess. ii. 8-10. And the church of Rome has proved herself to be this mystery of iniquity, by her thousands of pretended miracles, by which she deceives the world.

If

After all, Dr. Milner, in narrating what he calls miracles, intends to prove merely that his church is holy. He calls them the divine attestations of her sanctity. Now I do not recollect that any of the miracles recorded in scripture were wrought for such a purpose. persons, or churches, are really holy, they can make this appear without a miracle; and I would most seriously suspect the character of any church that told me it required a miracle to prove that they were holy. Genuiue holiness, like the sun in the firmament, makes itself manifest by its own light. All men can observe and mark those who are humble, and self-denied, and benevolent; and who are living soberly and righteously in the world. It requires no miracle to prove that these are holy persons; but Dr. Milner, perfectly aware that his