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his published statements. But behold, the day before we left Dublin, we received a Cork Tory paper containing the following correspondence which we lay before our readers in extenso ;"

[Here follow the documents given, page 13 and 19, with an introductory letter to the Editor of the Cork Constitution.]

"Now, observe the position of this affair. We three visitors had been -so Father Foley told uss-appealed to by Heaven itself, which worked a miracle to remove our individual incredulity. We had, without a tittle of provocation, been publicly denounced by Father Foley, as scandalous for our incredulity. We saw a Catholic Priest publicly appealing to the press and the public, and offering to prove upon oath the truth of his miracles. We saw this clergyman taken at his word by his Protestant neighbours, who tax his miracles with fraud, denounce the Church as an agent in the fraud, and openly challenge him to a rigorous and impartial investigation.

"Will any man tell us that we had so much as an option to keep silence under these circumstances, when we were in possession of facts known to no others but ourselves, and almost proving to demonstration the existence of the grossest and most abominable deception? Leave the matter to the Bishop! Leave the matter to the proper authorities! That is, leave to the Bishop the odium of entering upon an investigation to which he has been dared by the malignants around him, with the positive certainty that the investigation will lead to a detection, and the detection be made the foundation of every species of calumny against the Bishop, and the proper authorities to boot. Leave the matter to the Bishop! Would to God it had been left to the Bishop. We did not meddle or make in the affair until it had first of all been deliberately taken from the Bishop, handed over to the public at large, and at length a formal appeal made by the clergyman himself, to "the press," and the "judgment of an enlightened public.' We beg respectfully to reply to those who blame us for interfering, that we have no apology to offer for so doing, but rather humbly conceive that we have done good service to the Church.

"Another charge, indeed, has been made against us with more appear→ ance of reason. We are blamed for having spoken of Father Foley with too little respect, and having treated him with too much harshness and irreverence. We are not sure that what we wrote last week may not be open to some such exception. We wrote certainly, as we felt, with warmth, and with the less caution, because (be it remembered,) we were defending two clergymen from attacks which, to say the truth, were not a little provoking. We wished certainly, and we do not regret the wish, utterly to demolish the whole miserable edifice of imposture, and the entire credit of it. This we meant to do, this was within our province, and this we mean to uphold. But if in doing this we are supposed to have overstepped the limits of the respect due to a clergyman, we have no anxiety to defend ourselves in this respect. We are content to imagine that we have erred, and to express publicly to Father Foley our regret that to this extent he should have 'cause of complaint against us."

And now, my Lord, I have brought the statement of facts, and the combination of documents bearing on this wicked and

blasphemous assault upon the honour of the SAVIOUR to a close. If I have been rather diffuse, it is from the desire to furnish abundant, and I think overwhelming evidence, in a combined and permanent form to crush this iniquity; and with it, permit me to say also The impostures of Maria Morl, Domenica Lazzari, and Domenica Barbagli, together with St. Francis of Assisium, and the forty or fifty worthies who, according to your Lordship, have been favoured with the Stigmata.

For may I be allowed to institute a comparison between the cases? The appearances are as nearly as possible similar in the Youghal miracles and in those adduced and vouched for by your Lordship. The ecstacies,-the marks,-the attitudes, -the pretended unconsciousness to surrounding objects,* the consciousness of the voice of the church, the abstinence,the periods of the manifestations,-the regard to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the clique of priests, monks, or friars surrounding the unhappy subjects,-the caution observed as to admission, (see page 66 of letter to A. Phillipps, Esq.),—the evident attempts at effect in the exhibition, varying in success according to the frame and character of the visitants,-the number of the subjects,—and the similarity of phases in the appearances as distinguishing them one from the other, the report of rhapsody, of being caught up into the air, but witnessed by no one here except Father Foley, are sufficient points of resemblance to connect these cases with the Tyrolese Virgins in close assimilation, and place them on the same foundation.

But it may be said,-It is true these are imitations, and clumsy ones, of real miracles; and as spurious coin being put into circulation only proves the value of the genuine metal; so the attempt at Youghal only vindicates the glorious character of the true wonders of the stigmata.-It proves, my Lord, that you have given them currency, but it proves no more.

But to try this matter further, let us mark some points of dissimilarity between the cases. Those of the Tyrol occurred in the midst of a people fully prepared by education in the belief of the monkish legends and fictitious miracles, which are of continual occurrence, to credit any tale, however preposterous;

* There is a striking inconsistency in your Lordship's account of Maria Morl (in page 14, second Edition); in which although the rapt being is supposed unconscious of surrounding objects, yet she is represented as distressed, if the bye-standers should join their unworthy prayers with her seraphic ecstacies, reminding one of some passages in Mr. Lucas's narrative, page 35.

a people taught to substitute blind credulity for Divine faith, confidence in the dictum of a priest for knowledge and trust in the Inspired Word, mysticism for devotion, fanaticism for zeal, and asceticism and voluntary suffering for sanctification of heart and life. Among such a people, confident assertion from their priesthood, passes for proof and assurance; and the sensibilities being touched and feelings wrought on, by all the romantic circumstances and associations wherewith the Estatica and Addolorata are surrounded, and which your Lordship has so touchingly and eloquently portrayed, the unenquiring readiness with which the claim to a Divine origin for these appearances is acquiesced in should excite no wonder.

On the other hand. The miracles of Youghal were attempted to be practiced in a land where, through the blessing of God, Revelation and right reason go hand in hand, knowledge has been diffused, the Bible has been circulated, the Gospel has been made known, the character of true religion, which is a reasonable service,"* is appreciated, and Protestant freedom of thought and of expression has diffused itself, not only among the Protestant population, but the more intelligent and enlightened of the Roman Catholic people too, (as admitted by your Lordship, page 63). It may be said,-The Youghal miracles were detected and exposed chiefly by Roman Catholic instrumentality and in Roman Catholic publications. True-but when? and why? when silence was no longer safe, and because necessity has no lawt Besides, if report speaks true, the Editor of the Tablet was educated in a communion as far as possible removed from the superstition of Rome.

But again, it may be alleged,-Your Lordship, a Peer of England, possessing all the advantages that I have attributed to the associations of a Protestant Country, and every facility from the respect due to your rank, and the confidence inspired by your creed, after investigation of the cases in the Tyrol, has given them the sanction of your approval. May I express my conviction, after a careful perusal of your work in the second Edition, that your Lordship made no investigation at all.

*Rom. xii. 1.

A reference to Doctor Milner's end of Religious Controversy, page 97 (Seventh Edition, Dublin 1827), will show how expert Rome is in deriving credit from rejected as well as from authenticated Miracles, and may illustrate the readiness to become prominent in the exposure of this

case.

The contrary is evident from page 82, where you state

"During this period her right arm hung down partly beyond the bed; I touched her hand, having first been desired to do so by the Chaplain, for the sensation which I experienced at the sight before me, would certainly have prevented my doing so."

It is evident therefore that your Lordship's visits were rather those of credulous admiration, than rational and impartial investigation. Indeed, throughout the whole of your Pamphlet the feeling is conspicuous, that doubt of the reality of the supernatural influences would have bordered on impiety; and as for the suspicion of fraud and collusion between the Reverend exhibiters and their subordinates, such seems, if even it entered your mind, to have been rejected, as little less than treason against the Majesty of Heaven in the persons of his most accredited ambassadors.*

Thus, my Lord, I think it will appear evident, from a comparison of the Youghal Miracles with the Tyrolese, in points of resemblance and of dissimilitude, that the appearances and manifestations exhibited in the one are close copies of those presented in the other; that either were sufficient to impose on prejudiced or credulous observers; that either might have flourished undisturbed, without let or hindrance from Ecclesiastical authority for a like unlimited period, namely the life time of the subjects, did not a providential coincidence of circumstances, and fearless independence of that authority in the former lead to a withering exposure; which, it is in accordance with all the principles of sound reason to believe, would be the result from the application of a similar test in the latter. And to such a test, I challenge the authorities of Rome to bring your Lordship's miracles. Their credit is at stake for freedom from participation and sanction, or at least connivance with fraud, aggravated by blasphemy; and your position, as a leading Peer of England, to which land the regards and hopes of Rome are avowedly directed, and your connexion with the affair, places you in a position that would seem to enable you to effect that, which no other lay authority could have the same influence in demanding. I call on you then, in the name of the Protestants of the empire, in the name of the blinded and deluded victims of superstition, whose chains you have helped to rivet; in the name of Truth, Religion, common sense, and

*See page 38 of Letter to A. Phillipps, Esq.

honesty, come forward, and with all the weight of your rank, influence, name, and character: demand from those in whose power it lies, to grant a full, fair, free, and impartial examination into those cases which your Lordship has sanctioned. Tell those authorities that they have been made a mark for ridicule, that they have been associated in the public prints with instances of detected imposture, said to be founded on the imitation of the Wonders of the Tyrol, that the brand which has been inflicted on the perpetrators of the one, more or less attaches to the vindicators of the other, and that your character, as well as their cause, demands an inquiry into the facts, circumstances, and nature, whether miraculous or artificial, of the phenomena you have been induced to bring before the British public.

Obtain a safe conduct for scientific Protestants. Offer to co-operate with Protestants in such an inquiry, and you will win the approbation of all candid and well-judging persons, and rescue yourself at least, from the unpleasant position in which you stand, if not your Church from the charge of postponing all investigation into the miraculous character of such transactions, until the death of the subject renders investigation ridiculous and absurd.*

But your Lordship has specified other besides living instances of Raptures, Estatics, and Stigmata; and has referred, among several, to St. Francis of Assisium, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Philip Neri, St. Dominick of benevolent and merciful memory, and St. Veronica Giuliani. Of miraculous passages in the lives of some of these, I happen to possess notices; to

* In the introduction to the Lives of the five Saints canonized on Trinity Sunday, 1839, we have an account of the authoritative proceedings at Rome in Canonizing Saints. In that we find that a previous" reputation for Sanctity and Miracles" is essential; that the signing of the Commission for enquiry by the Pope's authority requires ten years to have elapsed since the delivery of the ordinary process to the Congregation of Rites; that on proof that the deceased possessed a reputation for sanctity and miracles in general, other remissorials are sent, ordering the delegates to receive evidence on " each virtue and miracle in particular," the examination of which evidence by the Congregation subsequently takes place; "provided fifty years have elapsed since the death of the servant of God." "Two miracles are required before beatification, and two more, which have taken place since that time, before Canonization."

How far this system of postponement connected with Canonization, extends to the investigation of Miracles, in any case except a Candidate Saint, does not here appear; nor, how far any provision at all is made for authenticating Miracles independent of Canonization.

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