Perseveremus, peractis quæ rem continebant, scrutari etiam ea quæ, si vis verum connexa sunt, non cohærentia; quæ quisquis diligenter inspicit, nec facit operæ prætium, nec tamen perdit operam.
SENECA.
For what use were our tongues given us? To speak with, to be sure, will be the immediate reply of many a reader. But Master, Mistress, Miss or Master Speaker (whichever you may happen to be), I beg leave to observe that this is only one of the uses for which that member was formed, and that for this alone it has deserved to be called an unruly member, it is not its primary, nor by any means its most important use. For what use was it given to thy labourer the ox, thy servant the horse, thy friend,—if thou deservest to have such a friend,—the dog,—thy playfellow the kitten,—and thy cousin the monkey?1
1 Simia quam similis, turpissima bestia notis.
ENNIUS.
In another place I shall answer my own question, which was asked in this place, because it is for my present purpose to make it appear that the tongue although a very convenient instrument of speech, is not necessary for it.
It is related in Gibbon's great history, a work which can never be too highly praised for its ability, nor too severely condemned for the false philosophy which pervades it, that the Catholics, inhabitants of Tipasa, a maritime colony of Mauritania, were by command of the Arian King, Hunneric, Genseric's detestable son and successor, assembled on the forum, and there deprived of their right hands and their tongues. “But the holy confessors,” he proceeds to say, “continued to speak without tongues; and this miracle is attested by Victor, an African bishop, who published an history of the persecution within two years after the event. ‘If any one,’ says Victor, ‘should doubt of the truth, let him repair to Constantinople, and listen to the clear and perfect language of Restitutus, the subdeacon, one of these glorious sufferers, who is now lodged in the palace of the Emperor Zeno, and is respected by the devout Empress.’ At Constantinople we are astonished to find a cool, a learned, an unexceptionable witness, without interest and without passion. Æneas of Gaza, a Platonic philosopher, has accurately described his own observations on these African sufferers. ‘I saw them myself: I heard them speak: I diligently enquired by what means such an articulate voice could be formed without any organ of speech: I used my eyes to examine the report of my ears: I opened their mouth, and saw that the whole tongue had been completely torn away by the roots; an operation which the physicians generally suppose to be mortal.’ The testimony of Æneas of Gaza might be confirmed by the superfluous evidence of the Emperor Justinian, in a perpetual edict; of Count Marcellinus in his Chronicles of the times; and of Pope Gregory the first, who had resided at Constantinople as the minister of the Roman Pontiff. They all lived within the compass of a century, and they all appeal to their personal knowledge, or the public notoriety, for the truth of a miracle, which was repeated in several instances, displayed on the greatest theatre of the world, and submitted during a series of years, to the calm examination of the senses.” He adds in a note that “the miracle is enhanced by the singular instance of a boy who had never spoken before his tongue was cut out.”
Now comes the unbelieving historian's comment. He says, “this supernatural gift of the African confessors, who spoke without tongues, will command the assent of those, and of those only, who already believe, that their language was pure and orthodox. But the stubborn mind of an infidel is guarded by secret, incurable suspicion; and the Arian, or Socinian, who has seriously rejected the doctrines of the Trinity, will not be shaken by the most plausible evidence of an Athanasian miracle.”
Well has the sceptical historian applied the epithet stubborn to a mind affected with the same disease as his own,