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when compared with the achievements of that he was among a brotherhood of devils.

the Inquisition.

The few traits of character which can be gleaned from the lying volumes of his biographers are all of the darkest colours. He never looked a woman in the face, or spoke to one; on his preaching expeditions he usually slept in the churches or upon a grave; he wore an iron chain round his body, and his fastings and flagellations were excessive.

But if his disciples have preserved few personal facts concerning their master, they have made ample amends in the catalogue of his miracles, for Domingo is the Orlando Furioso of Saints Errant, the Hercules Furens of the Romish Demi-gods.

The dream of his mother is well known, that she whelped a dog, holding a burning torch in his mouth, wherewith he fired the world. Earthquakes and meteors announced his nativity to earth and air, and two or three suns and moons extraordinary were hung out for an illumination in heaven. The Virgin Mary received him in her arms as he sprung to birth. When a sucking babe he regularly observed fast-days, and would get out of bed and lie upon the ground for mortification.

Nine women, whom his preaching had reclaimed from heresy, came into the church to him to recant and be absolved. As he was praying before them, a cat appeared at their feet, as big as a mastiff, black, fiery of eye, with a short and indecent tail, and a long tongue, black and bloody, lolling and licking the dust. This monster jumped about, and stunk at every motion, at last ran up the bell rope and vanished. He fed multitudes miraculously, and performed the miracle of Cana with great success. Once, when he fell in with a troop of foreign pilgrims, the Babel curse was suspended for him, and all were enabled to speak one language. Travelling with a single companion, he entered a monastery in a lonely place, to pass the night. He awoke at matins, and hearing yells and lamentations instead of prayers, went out and discovered

Domingo punished them upon the spot with a cruel sermon, and then returned to rest. At morning the convent had disappeared, and he and his comrade found themselves in a wilderness.

Domingo had once an obstinate battle with the flesh. The quarrel took place in a wood, and he found it necessary to call in help. He stript himself, lay down, and commanded the ants and the wasps to come to his assistance. Even against these auxiliaries, the flesh warmly maintained the contest for three hours before the saint could win the victory. He used to be red hot with divine love; sometimes blazing like a sun, sometimes glowing like a furnace; at times it blanched his garments and imbued them with white glory, like Christ in his transfiguration; once it sprouted out in six wings, like a seraph; and once the fervour of piety made him sweat blood.

These are a sample of the miscellaneous miracles of St. Domingo. There remain two distinct and important classes to be noticed; those relating to the Rosary, which are the original stock in trade of the order; and those which refer to the Virgin Mary, having been invented to play off against the Franciscans.

When the Rosary was borrowed by Domingo from the Moslem, who had themselves learnt it from the Hindoos, the Romish Church had established an opinion that prayer was a thing of actual, not of relative value, that it was a coin current in heaven, and paid into the treasury of heaven, a due account being there kept, and due credit given to every soul for all which he has himself placed there, or which has been received for his use, for the stock was transferable by gift or purchase. The Rosary was an admirable device upon this principle, as it abridged the arithmetic. It had also its peculiar earthly advantages; if the Ave Maria were repeated successively one hundred and fifty times, the words would necessarily become mere sounds, unconnected with thought, confused and confus

ST. DOMINGO.

ing, but by this invention, when ten beads have been dropt, the larger one comes opportunely in to jog the memory; sufficient attention is thus excited to satisfy the conscience of the devotee, and yet no effort, no feeling, no fervour are required; the heart may be asleep, the understanding may go wander; only the lips and the fingers are needed for this act of most acceptable and most efficient devotion. Nor can the beauty of this religious utensil, or tool, have been without its effect; nothing can be conceived more beautiful than the bead string with its appendant cross or crucifix, around the neck of the young, or in the trembling hands of the aged.

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When Domingo was on his first preaching expedition, he and his companion Bernardo fell into the hands of certain Moorish rovers, who immediately carried them to sea. A storm arose, a leak was sprung, and the water gushed in so fast, and in such quantities, that the sailors were obliged to swim in the ship. Domingo exhorted them to pray to the Virgin, who could save; but at this they only blasphemed, and the danger grew worse and worse till the dawn of the Annunciation. Then Mary the great goddess appeared to him, and bade him in her name offer the misbelievers their choice, either to be drowned and damned, or to recite her Rosary and form a fraternity in its honour and for its use. If they accepted these terms, Domingo had only to make a cross in the air, and the winds and the sea should be still. The Moors joyfully accepted their proffered safety, and no sooner had they begun the beads, than the devil was heard exclaiming, "O that Domingo, he kills us with the Rosary-he scourges us -he chains us-he releases our captives with that bead string." The ship was driven to the coast of Britain, and there they found all the goods that had been thrown overboard to lighten her, lying safe upon the strand. The Moors were baptized, and became the founders of the brotherhood of the Rosary.

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After an interview with the Virgin, as Domingo entered Toulouse, the bells all rang to welcome him without human hands, but the heretics neither heeded the miracle nor his earnest exhortation that they should use the Rosary. In consequence of their obstinacy a dreadful tempest began, of wind and of thunder and of lightning, that made the whole firmament a blaze, and the very earth shook, and the howling of affrighted animals was mingled with the shrieks and groans of the terrified multitude. "Citizens of Toulouse,” said he, “it is the voice of the right hand of God! I see before me one hundred and fifty angels, sent by Christ and his mother to punish you." There was an image of Our Lady in the church, who raised her arm into a threatening attitude as he spoke. "Take notice," he continued, "while you persist in your wickedness, yea, till you supplicate her by reciting her Rosary, that arm will not be withdrawn." The devils meantime were yelling for the torment which this inflicted upon them; the congregation praying and disciplining themselves and dropping their beads, till the storm at length abated; the Saint gave the word, and down went the arm of the puppet.

A more prodigious miracle to the same purport was transacted in the city. There dwelt there a heretic so active and mischievous, that at Domingo's prayer the Virgin sent into him a whole army of devils, whereby he was grievously tormented. In this plight he was brought before Domingo, who in the name of the Trinity, the Virgin and the Rosary, asked the evil spirits how many they were, and why they had taken possession of that miserable sinner. For his irreverence to the Virgin and his incredulity in the Rosary they answered; and that they were just fifteen thousand in number to a devil, because of the fifteen decades of the beads. Was what he preached of the Rosary then true? At that they roared and yelled and cursed its tremendous powers. Whom did the Devil hate most?

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ST. DOMINGO-FRAN. DE POSADAS.

whom but Domingo himself! He then strung his own string round the demoniac's neck, and demanded of the spirit what saint in heaven they dreaded most, and to whom ought the chief revenue to be paid? To this, after screams of hideous agony, they requested that they might be permitted to answer him in private. No, he would have a public answer. With that they struggled till fire issued from eyes, nostrils, and mouth of the poor devil-hive, and Domingo in compassion prayed to the Virgin and adjured her by the Rosary to have pity upon him. Heaven opened, she came down, surrounded by angels, and with a golden rod smote the possessed, and bade the fiends answer. They exclaimed, Alas, our enemy and our confusion, why dost thou come to torment

us? By thee we are compelled to publish the fear that confounds us. Hear, O ye Christians, that Mary the Mother of God is powerful to deliver her servants from hell,

&c.-1. 2. 3.

It is painful to dwell upon the horrible blasphemies which follow. If we recollect that they have proceeded from Dominicans, from the immediate agents of the Inquisition, the depravity and consummate wickedness of their invention is as prodigious as it is shocking.

They say that the Virgin appeared to Domingo in a cave near Toulouse; that she called him her son and her husband; that she took him in her arms and bared her breast to him, that he might drink their nectar! She told him, that was she a mortal she could not live without him, so excessive was her love; even now, she should die for him, did not Almighty God himself support her as he had done at the crucifixion. At another visit she espoused him, and the saint. Christ came down from heaven to witness the espousals. It is impossible to transcribe these atrocious lies without shuddering at the wickedness of those who devised them. Blessed be the day of Martin Luther's birth-it should be a festival almost as sacred as the Nativity!

*

[Notes.] Domingo.

WAS the Rosary stolen from the Mohammedans?

The Inquisition. Christ, say these dogs, was the first Inquisitor-every tree that beareth not good fruit, &c. Then came the Apostles, then the Bishops-the Adam they, from whose side this rib was taken out for an helpmate. FRAN. DE POSADAS, 101. 102.

Never was commodity advertised so well as the Rosaries!

THE enmity between the Franciscans and Dominicans is well known. A friar of each order came at the same time to a brook side, minican requested the Franciscan to carry which it was necessary to ford, and the Dohim across, as he was barefooted, and the Dominican must else undress; the Fran

ciscan took him on his shoulders and carried him to the middle-then suddenly stopt, and asked if he had any money with him? Only two reales, replied the Dominican. Excuse me then, father, said the Franciscan, you know my vow, I cannot carry money—and in he dropt him.-FLORESTA ESPANOLA, p. 42.

THE Gentoos have the Rosary.-HASTING'S Letter Pref. to B. Geeta. Quarles was right in saying,

"God takes his goods by weight and not by measure."

Albigenses.

THEY dealt with the devil.-Life of Domingo, p. 60. Walked on the water; affected sanctity; denied hell and purgatory; believed transmigration; two principlesGod, who created soul, the devil, who made the bodies. Rejected the Scriptures, and the confession of sins, and baptism, and marriage.

The Waldenses denied that any miracles

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had been wrought since those of the Scrip- | And what in the room where conversation tures. "They will have us believe that either is allowed? Nich. Oh, that is my own they have quite perished, or els have been room; there I make them talk about the wrought in hugger mugger and in great news, and joke, and laugh, and grumble. secret." M. ROBERT CHAMBERS, Priest, Dom. And in the chapter-house (where Dedication to a Trans. of Miracles of the confession is made and penance done)? Virgin at Mont-Aigu. Antwerp, 1606. Nich. That is my hell; there all that I do is undone! half an hour loses me the labour of years. And so Nicholas disappeared.”— 235.1

What passed between the Devil and Domingo.

"ONE night the Saint found old Nicholas in the dormitory, reading a written paper by lamp light with great glee. The following dialogue took place. Domingo. Beast, what are you doing? Nicholas. I am doing my business, or labouring in my vocation, in which I always gain. Dom. Cursed be thy gain! What can you gain in the dormitory? Are not the religious asleep? Is there a will in sleep that can aid thy malice? Nich. I gain much. I always disturb them by all manner of means; some I keep awake, that they may lie abed and sleep when it is choir time, or go there so sleepy as to yawn over the service, and then, if they let me, I do worse then. Dom. What mischief dost thou do in the church? Nich. More than in the dormitory: I make them go late and against their inclination, and with a wish the job was over. Dom. And in the refectory? Nich. Oh, there are few whom I do not get

at there; some I make eat too little, so that they weaken themselves till they are unable to do their duty; others too much. Dom.

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[Hindoo Notion of Vicarious Atonement.] HE Hindoos hold that "a child may obviate the evil consequences of his parents' sins by practising virtue expressly on their account."-KINDERSLEY'S Specimens, p. 70.

[Arafat, Kufa, and Mecca.]

"ADAM and Eve met for the first time on Mount Aarafat near Mecca, so called because Adam, beholding her first from this mountain, cried out, Aarafat-I know her! There they built the first house, and the second they built at Kufa. There they dwelt seventy years, and Eve was delivered there of Seth, Cain and Abel. Then the Lord sent to Adam a praying-house, or chapel, of white pearl excavated, called Beiti Maamoor, which was let down from heaven upon the spot where the Caaba now stands, and Adam changed his abode, on the Lord's command, to Mecca. So the house on Mount Aarafat was the first abode of Adam, Kufa the second, and Mecca the third."-EVLIA, vol. 4.

briel's mediation, to sow corn in the earth during his lifetime, and all the prophets received a similar art for keeping up this life. Adam was, as we are told, a husbandman; Seth a weaver: Edris (Enoch) a tailor; Noah, a joiner; Houd, a merchant: Saleh, a camel-driver: Abraham, a dairyman at Haleb, and afterwards when he built the Caaba, a mason; Ishmael, a hunter; Isaac, before he grew blind, a shepherd: Jacob, a speculative man; Joseph, in the prison, a watchmaker, and then a King; Job, a patient beggar; Shoaib (Jethro) a devotee; Moses, a shepherd; Aaron, a Vizir; Zilkefel, a baker; Djerdjish (George) a Sheik; Lot, a chronographer; Kaffauh, a gardener; Azeer (Esdras) an ass-driver; Samuel, the companion of the 72 translators, an interpreter; Elias, a weaver; David, an armourer; Solomon, a basket-maker of the leaves of palm trees; Zacharias, a hermit; John, a Sheik; Jeremiah, a surgeon; Daniel, a fortune-teller by the art Reml; Lokman, a philosopher; Jonah, a fisherman; Jesus, a traveller; and six hundred years after him, Mahommed, the last of the prophets, a merchant and soldier in God's ways, who according to the text, Militate in the ways of God, witnessed himself twentyeight victories. All these Prophets, having been taught the aforesaid arts by Gabriel, communicated them to mankind, and became the Sheiks and Patrons of those arts."

[Occupations of Scripture Characters.] "GOD having created man in Paradise, from whence he was seduced by the insinuations of Satan, Adam was taught, by Ga--Ibid.

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