It was now quite dark, so I thought I would make the best of my way home, where my supper awaited me. The following morning was rainy, and not being able to work out of doors, I resolved to call again upon the arch-priest, and finding him at home, I related to him my interview with the prisoner and the statement he gave of the case.
My reverend friend looked thoughtful for a time, shook his head, and hinted that the prisoner's veracity might not be depended on.
"However," he added, "the tale seems feasible, and I desire nothing more than that the prisoner should have justice. I will probe the matter to the bottom, and if he has spoken the truth I will get him liberated as soon as possible, and will moreover give out publicly in the church that what we had erroneously taken for a miracle was nothing more than a curious combination of circumstances perfectly natural, though strange, and that I had been imposed upon by the villainous and profane lies of my sacristan. It will require time to prove all this; meanwhile, Antonio must take his trial at Gennazzano. He left here at five o'clock this morning."
"So early!" I exclaimed. "I wanted, if possible, to prevent his going."
"You take great interest in his case," said my friend.
"I like to see mysteries cleared up as soon as possible," I replied. "I know that the love of the marvellous is so great among the ignorant in these parts, that they prefer persisting to believe in a miracle, even in the face of facts which explain it away in the most natural manner possible. This proneness to attribute to supernatural causes everything that we are unable to account for on the first glance, and to yield ourselves up implicitly to the belief of what is irrational, absurd, improbable, without first weighing thoroughly the pros and cons of the case, is one of the unmistakable signs of a barbarous and uncultivated intellect, and ought to be discouraged as a trait unworthy the dignity of human nature by everyone who has the improvement and well-being of his fellow creatures at heart."
The arch-priest smiled drily, as if he had taken my last speech to himself; then, after a pause, he began:
"No Christian man will deny that miracles have been wrought, or will dare to call in question those of our blessed Lord or of His saints. If, then, he acknowledges these, why should he try to combat the existence of modern miracles, seeing that everything is possible to the Almighty? What! Shall we limit the power of the Omnipotent, or dare to measure things infinite by our finite faculties? It would be the height of presumption for anyone to maintain that these things cannot be, or that our Heavenly Father cares less for His creatures now than he did in the days of yore."
"No wise man, Christian or otherwise," I replied, "would deny that any wonder were possible to the Divine author of the universe, the Great Source of all things wonderful. Yet science, the gift of God Himself, mind you, since He in the first place created us with intellect to see into, in some measure, however darkly, His wonderful workings, in order that we might be taught to admire them and thereby come to a more perfect knowledge of His unspeakable greatness—science, I say, reveals to us that our universal Father rules all nature by means of certain fixed laws, from which we have no reason to believe that He would turn aside for a trifle—to excite mere wonderment among an ignorant multitude by performing such a conjuring trick as a bleeding crucifix or weeping Madonna. Our Lord Himself was chary of His miracles, and when asked for a sign would often refuse; yet when He did perform miracles, they were invariably to do good, and not to excite wonderment. If many intelligent people disbelieve in modern miracles, it is because they have not come within their experience, or that many seeming miracles they have been able to explain by natural causes.
"They have been made, moreover, doubly cautious in receiving hearsay miracles for gospel from the numerous cases of imposture that have been discovered among the priesthood in all countries where the Roman Catholic religion has prevailed. Then, why should miracles only be wrought in little sequestered villages, among the ignorant and superstitious, and not in large towns, in the presence of an intelligent and investigating population? Why, moreover, should they be more prevalent in mountainous districts than in any others? Why? Save that from the topographical configuration of the country, the inhabitants of mountain villages are necessarily more shut out from intercommunication with their kind than the dwellers in more accessible regions, and consequently cut off from that interchange of ideas so necessary to the development of the human intellect.