FOOTNOTE:
[15] In Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Iceland, clerical celibacy was never enforced before the Reformation. Now and then a formal prohibition was issued by the bishops, but it was generally ignored. The clergy were married, openly and undisguisedly.
The Wonder-Working Prince Hohenlohe.
In the year 1821, much interest was excited in Germany and, indeed, throughout Europe by the report that miracles of healing were being wrought by Prince Leopold Alexander of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst at Würzburg, Bamberg, and elsewhere. The wonders soon came to an end, for, after the ensuing year, no more was heard of his extraordinary powers.
At the time, as might be expected, his claims to be a miracle-worker were hotly disputed, and as hotly asserted. Evidence was produced that some of his miracles were genuine; counter evidence was brought forward reducing them to nothing.
The whole story of Prince Hohenlohe's sudden blaze into fame, and speedy extinction, is both curious and instructive. In the Baden village of Wittighausen, at the beginning of this century, lived a peasant named Martin Michel, owning a farm, and in fairly prosperous circumstances. His age, according to one authority, was fifty, according to another sixty-seven, when he became acquainted with Prince Hohenlohe. This peasant was unquestionably a devout, guileless man. He had been afflicted in youth with a rupture, but, in answer to continuous and earnest prayer, he asserted that he had been completely healed. Then, for some while he prayed over other afflicted persons, and it was rumoured that he had effected several miraculous cures. He emphatically and earnestly repudiated every claim to superior sanctity. The cures, he declared, depended on the faith of the patient, and on the power of the Almighty. The most solemn promises had been made in the gospel to those who asked in faith, and all he did was to act upon these evangelical promises.
The Government speedily interfered, and Michel was forbidden by the police to work any more miracles by prayer or faith, or any other means except the recognised pharmacopœia.
He had received no payment for his cures in money or in kind, but he took occasion through them to impress on his patients the duty of prayer, and the efficacy of faith.