Chapter IV. Fraud:—Relics.

THE coming of the mystery of iniquity, Paul predicted, should be not merely with “all power,” but with “signs and lying wonders.” Could language more accurately describe the countless relics which Rome’s votaries venerate?—Lying wonders. Without attempting to furnish a complete list—the bare catalogue would make a large octavo volume—we present a few, enough to determine the character of all.

The early Christians, it would seem, must have been particularly careful to preserve the bones of their dead. In the Cathedral of St. Peter, at Rome, they have an arm of St. Lazarus; a finger and arm of St. Ann, the Holy Virgin’s Mother; and the head of St. Dennis, which he caught up and carried the distance of two miles after it had been cut off. In France they have four heads of John the Baptist. In Spain, France, and Flanders they have eight arms of St. Matthew! and three of St. Luke! In the Lateran Church, in Rome, they have the entire heads of St. Peter and St. Paul; and in the convent of the St. Augustines, at Bilboa, the holy monks have a large part of Peter’s head, and the Franciscans a large part of Paul’s. At Burgos they have the tail of Balaam’s ass, a part of the body of St. Mark, and an arm and finger of St. Ann. At Aixla-Chapelle they have two teeth of St. Thomas; part of an arm of St. Simeon; a tooth of St. Catherine; a rib of St. Stephen; a shoulder blade and leg bone of St. Mary Magdalene; oil from the bones of St. Elizabeth; bones of Sts. Andrew, James, Matthias, Luke, Mark, Timotheus and John the Baptist. Perhaps it is for the purpose of carrying all these sacred relics that Rome has five legs of the ass upon which our Saviour rode into Jerusalem.

Nor are bones their only precious mementoes. In almost every chapel in Europe may be found pieces of the cross on which our Lord was crucified. If these were all collected, no doubt they would furnish an amount of material equal to that contained in one of the largest dwellings in America. In Rome they have also the cross of the good thief; also the entire table on which our Lord celebrated the Paschal Supper. And a recent publication, “The Living Eucharist manifested by Miracles,” assures us, “this is the true table of the Lord, that on which the world’s Redeemer and God, Jesus, offered the first Eucharistic sacrifice.” And on the same authority we learn that at the cathedral of Valencia, in Spain, they have “the cup in which His blood was first laid, the chalice elevated from the table by his divine hands.” “At St. Mark’s, in Venice,” says the same author, “the knife used by our Lord in touching, not cutting, the bread, is exposed each year, on Holy Thursday for the veneration of the faithful.” Even the old room, that very upper chamber in Jerusalem, in which our Lord wrought that miracle of miracles, transubstantiating the bread into his actual flesh and blood, is even now “retained in a tolerable state.” Fearing that no Protestant can possibly believe men so credulous, and that my honesty in reporting these “Lying wonders” may be called in question, I refer the reader to the little tract published in London, AD 1869, written by George Keating, “The Living Eucharist manifested by Miracles.” Here he will find what is enough to make one shudder with horror as he contemplates the abyss of superstition into which Papists have fallen.

And they have yet more wonderful mementoes than bones and wood. In more than one cathedral they have specimens of the manna of the wilderness, and a few blossoms of Aaron’s rod. In Rome they have the very ark that Moses made, and the rod by which he wrought his miracles. At Gastonbury they have the identical stones which the devil tempted our Lord to turn into bread. In another of their chapels they have the dice employed by the soldiers in casting lots for the Saviour’s garments.

They have St. Joseph’s axe and saw; St. Anthony’s millstone, on which he crossed the sea; St. Patrick’s staff, by which he drove out the toads and snakes from Ireland; St. Francis’ cowl; St. Ann’s comb; St. Joseph’s breeches; St. Mark’s boots; “a piece of the Virgin’s green petticoat;” St. Anthony’s toenails, and “the parings of St. Edmund’s toes.”

Then, also, there are in their convents, all carefully suspended from the walls, most precious relics preserved in hermetically sealed bottles. There is a vial of St. Joseph’s breath, caught as he was exercising himself with the very axe and saw now in their possession. There are several vials of the Holy Virgin’s milk; and—will you doubt it, poor deluded Protestants? —a small roll of butter and a little piece of cheese made from her milk. They have also hair from the heads of most of their saints, and twelve combs, one from each of the Apostles, with which to dress it. And what is a little marvelous, these combs are declared to be “nearly as good as new.”

To end our enumeration of her sacred relies; they have a small piece of the rope with which Judas hanged himself; “a bit of the finger of the Holy Ghost;” the nose of an angel; “a rib of the Word made flesh;” “a quantity of the identical rays of the star which led the wise men to our infant Saviour;” Christ’s seamless coat; two original impressions of his face on two pocket-handkerchiefs ; a wing of the archangel Gabriel, obtained by the prayers of Pope Gregory VII.; the beard of Noah; a piece of the very same porphyry pillar, on which the cock perched when he crowed after Peter’s denial, and even the comb of the cock; and then the pearl of the entire collection, “one of the steps of the ladder on which Jacob, in his dream, saw the heavenly host ascending and descending.” A recent traveller to Rome not merely saw these wonders, but was considerately and affectionately told that inasmuch as he was a “devout man,” he could obtain a small portion of these precious relics at a moderate price. He was offered a feather from Gabriel’s wing for twenty-five cents.

If we add to the above idolatries, their adoration of statues and images and the consecrated wafer, we have a system of superstition, such as no Pagan in his wildest vagaries ever dreamed of. And that they do worship these relies is, alas, too evident. We speak not merely of the ignorant masses, perhaps for their debasing idolatries the Church is not entirely responsible (although this may be fairly questioned, since her whole system is, in its very nature, adapted to produce the grossest superstition), but we charge this idol worship upon the most highly educated of their clergy.

A noted Catholic historian tells us that when St. Ambrose needed relics with which to consecrate a church at Milan, “immediately his heart burned within him, in presage as he felt of what was to happen.” By a dream he was directed to the spot where he would find the bones of St. Gervasius and St. Prostasius. “Having discovered their skeletons, all their bones entire, a quantity of blood about, and their heads separated from their bodies, . . . they arranged them, covered them with cloths and laid them on litters. In this manner they were carried towards evening to the Basilica of St. Fausta, where vigils were celebrated all night, and several that were possessed received imposition of hands. That day and the next there was a great concourse of people, and then the old men recollected that they had formerly heard the names of these martyrs.” “Profane and old wives? fables.”

Thomas Aquinas says, “If we speak of the very cross on which Christ was crucified, it is to be worshiped with divine worship.” And the prayers which are to be said in the adoration of these sacred bits of wood are given in the “Roman Missal.”

“Oh, judgment! thou hast fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.”

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