He then says that it has been asked why women are greater chatterboxes than men. And the reason he gives is certainly original, if perhaps not conclusive.
Man is made of clay, woman of bone—the rib of Adam. Now if you move a sack of clay, it makes no noise; but, only touch a bag of bones, and rattle, rattle, rattle, is what you hear.
This remark is also made by Gratian de Drusac in his Controverses des Sexes masculin et féminin, 1538, p. 25.
A story told by Raulin, with which I shall conclude, is not without beauty.
A hermit supplicating God that he might know the way of safety, beheld the Devil transformed into an angel of light, who said, “Your prayer is heard, and I am sent to tell you what you must do to be saved; you must give God three things united—the new moon, the disc of the sun, and the head of a rose.” The hermit was nearly driven to despair, thinking that this was an impossibility, but a real angel appeared to him, and told him the solution. “The new moon is a crescent, that is to say a C; the disc of the sun is an O; and the head of a rose is R. Unite these three letters, and offer to God COR, your heart, then the way of salvation is open before you.”
MEFFRETH.
According to a mediæval legend, an evil spirit once entered a monastery, passed his novitiate, and became a full brother. In preaching one Advent to the assembled friars, he spoke of the terrors of hell, and depicted them most graphically, being, of course, eminently qualified for so doing. His discourse produced a profound sensation among his audience, their blood curdled with horror, and some of the weaker brethren fainted away. When the true character of the friar was discovered, the Superior expressed to him surprise at his want of judgment in preaching a powerful sermon, calculated to terrify the hearers from ever venturing on the road which leads to the place described by the preacher with such fidelity: but the devil replied with a hideous sneer, “Think you that my discourse would prevent a single soul from seeking eternal damnation? Not so; the most finished eloquence and the profoundest learning are worthless beside one drop of unction,—there was no unction in my sermon.”