“Le trois du mois de Mai, à huit heures, je dirai, conformément à votre demande, pour votre guérison, mes prières. Joignez-y à la même heure, après avoir confessé et communié, les votres, avec cette ferveur angélique et cette confiance plénière que nous devons à notre Rédempteur J. C.: excitez au fond de votre cœur les vertus divines d’un vrai repentir, d’un amour Chrétien, d’une croyance sans bornes d’être exaucé, et d’une résolution inébranlable de mener une vie exemplaire, afin de vous maintenir en état de grace. Agréez l’assurance de ma considération.
“Prince Alexandre Hohenlohe.
“Bamberg, Mars 16, 1822.”
It is to be regretted that this letter, which was no doubt a circular to his proselytes, with necessary blanks to be filled up pro re natâ, as the doctors have it, was not drawn out in better French. Howbeit, on the appointed day, asserts Dr. Baddely (the lady’s unsuccessful medical attendant), Miss O’Connor went through the religious process prescribed by her princely physician. Mass being said, Miss O. not finding the immediate relief she expected from her faith, or faithfully expected, exclaimed somewhat impatiently, not having the fear of Job before her eyes, “Thy will be done, O Lord, since thou hast not thought me worthy of this cure;” when behold! immediately after she felt an extraordinary sensation throughout the whole arm to the end of the fingers. The pain instantly left her, the swelling gradually subsided, and Dr. B., who no doubt was the pet physician of the nuns, declares that the hand shortly resumed its natural size and shape.
Now, Miss O’Connor was most likely a young lady from Ireland, where this miraculous cure was re-echoed in every chapel. The protestants were naturally offended by a report which seemed to impugn the sanctity of the reformed religion, and they thought it incumbent on them, for the welfare of church and state, to get up a miracle of their own which would cast Prince H., Nun O., and Dr. B. in the shade. The following statement was therefore published and certified upon oath by sundry most respectable and most worthy Orangemen:
“I pledge you the word and honour of an Orangeman that the following facts, sworn to by all present, occurred yesterday evening. A party of gentlemen dined with me, and after dinner a vase, containing some orange lilies, was placed upon the table by my directions. We drank several toasts; but on the glorious and immortal memory being given, an unblown lily, which the party had remarked, expanded its leaves and bloomed before us in all its splendour!” How appropriate are the lines of Otway when applied to the propagators of such absurdities, who dare to call upon our faith to give credence to their impostures.
You want to lead
My reason blindfold like a hamper’d lion
Check’d of its noble vigour; then, when baited
Down to obedient tameness, make it crouch
And show strange tricks, which you call signs of faith:
So silly souls are gull’d, and you get money.
A curious anecdote is related of Lord Chief Justice Holt. When a young man, he happened, with some of his merry companions, to run up a score at a country inn, which they were not able to pay. In this dilemma they appealed to Holt, to get them out of the scrape. Our young lawyer had observed that the inn-keeper’s daughter looked very ill, and, passing himself for a medical student, asked her father what ailed her, when he was informed that she suffered from an ague. Holt immediately gathered various plants, mixed them up with great ceremony, and after rolling them up in parchment, scrawled upon the ball some cabalistic characters. The amulet, thus prepared, he suspended round the neck of the young woman, and, strange to say, the ague did not return. After this cure the doctor offered to pay the bill, to which the grateful landlord would not consent, allowing Holt and his party to leave the house.
Many years after, when on the bench, a woman was brought before him, accused of witchcraft—the very last person tried upon such a charge. Her only defence was, that she possessed a ball invariably efficacious in the cure of agues. The charm was produced, handed to the judge, who recognised the identical ball which he had prepared in his youthful frolics.
Not only did these victims of superstition firmly believe that evil spirits had the power of inflicting disease, and afterwards salve the mischief, but they were also invested with the privilege of killing and subsequently restoring to life. The story related of the truly learned Agrippa, who was falsely represented as a necromancer, is curious.