[246] This man is famous for working miracles. He is said to have restored to life his dear companion, a pig, which had been stolen from him, after it had been killed and eaten, and its bones thrown into a furnace; just as Thor, the great Scandinavian god, restored to life his ram. Another great miracle is recorded of him by his panegyrist. Having been forbidden by his superior (St Antony was a monk) to work too many miracles, he one day found himself in a great perplexity. As he was passing through a street, he heard a poor mason, in the act of falling from a lofty building, call upon him by name for a miracle. The poor saint, not knowing what to do, had recourse to an expedient. “Stop a moment,” said he, to the falling man, “till I go for the permission of the Father Superior;” and the man waited suspended in the air till he returned with permission to work the miracle!
[247] This was the case with many, and, to mention one, with Father Zaccheria, the founder of the Barnabites, who had been a beatifice for eighty-four years, had mass and prayers offered to him, but is at present merely Father Zaccheria.
[248] This congregation, as well as all the others, such as those of indulgences, of inquisition, &c., is composed of cardinals, bishops, prelates, and some few advocates. They form a sort of committee. There is a prefect and secretary; the others are called consultori, counsellors—the Pope is de jure prefect of them all. Those of the Congregation of Rites are very glad when there is a canonisation. They are entitled, besides, to a portrait of the saint, which, if the saint take, they sell very dear, and to I know not how many pounds of chocolate.
[249] For Loyola’s sake we should have liked that one of the three first-class miracles, recorded in the bull of canonisation, should have been a little more supernatural, and a little more decent, perhaps. It is said in the bull, that a woman of Gandia, being dropsical, applied to the part affected the image of the saint, and was cured, imagine dicti beati ventri admota, &c.
[250] The saying of one of the descendants of Charles Borromeo has remained famous in Italy. After having paid all the expenses of the canonisation, he turned to his family and said, “Be always good Christians, my dear children, but never saints; one other saint, and we are ruined for ever.”
[251] Vol. iii. p. 471.
[252] S. i. c. iii. p. 64.
[253] S. iii. p. 401.
[254] Ibid. 402.
[255] Roman Catholics consider it their duty to send children to the confessional at the early age of seven years; and nine out of ten hear for the first time, from the confessor, words which awaken in their young and innocent minds lascivious and till then unknown desires.