“The surgeon gave little or no hopes of the girl ever again having the use of her hand; which, together with the arm, seemed withered and somewhat contracted; only saying [that] in some years Nature might give her some little use of it, which was considered by her superior as a mere delusive comfort. Despairing of further human assistance toward her cure, she determined, with the approbation of her said superiors, to have recourse to God, through the intercession of S. Winifred by a Novena.[62] Accordingly on the 6th of August she put a piece of moss from the Saint’s Well on her arm, continuing recollected and praying, &c., when, to her great surprise, the next morning she found that she could dress herself, put her arm behind her, and to her head, having regained the free use and full strength of it. In short, she was perfectly cured.”
So much for this portion of Miss Hornyold’s narrative. Now, reverting to Bishop Milner, his testimony to the fact of the cure having been effected is here set forth:
“In this state I myself saw her a few years afterwards, when I examined her hand; and in the same state she still continues, at the above-named place, with many other highly credible vouchers, who are ready respectively to attest these particulars.”
The conclusion of Miss Hornyold’s Letter is as follows:
“On the 16th of the month the surgeon was sent for, and being asked his opinion concerning Mary Wood’s arm, he gave no hope of a perfect cure, and little of her ever having even the least use of it; when she, being introduced to him and showing him the arm, which he thoroughly examined and tried, he was so affected at the sight and the recital of the manner of the cure, as to shed tears, and exclaim, ‘It is a special interposition of Divine Providence.’”
The case of Winifred White, a young woman of Wolverhampton, suddenly and miraculously cured, is not less important and interesting:—“The disease from which she was suffering,” writes Bishop Milner, “was one of the most alarming of a topical nature of any that is known, namely a curvature of the spine, as the physician and surgeon ascertained, who treated it accordingly, by making two great issues, one on each side of the spine, of which the marks are still imprinted on the patient’s back. Secondly, that besides the most acute pains throughout the whole nervous system, and particularly in the brain, this disease of the spine produced a hemiplegia, or palsy of one side of the patient, so that when she could feebly crawl, with the help of a crutch under her right arm, she was forced to drag her left leg and arm after her, just as if they constituted no part of her body. Thirdly, that her disorder was of long continuance, namely, of three years’ standing, though not in the same degree till the latter part of that time, and that it was publicly known to all her neighbours and a great many others. Fourthly, that having performed the acts of devotion which she felt herself called upon to undertake, and having bathed in the fountain [at Holywell in Flintshire], she, in one instant of time, on the 28th of June, 1805, found herself freed from all pains and disabilities, so as to be able to walk, run, and jump like any other young person, and to carry a greater weight with the left arm than with the right. Fifthly, that she has continued in this state these thirteen years, down to the present time; and that all the above-mentioned circumstances have been ascertained by me in the regular examination of the several witnesses of them, in the places of their respective residences, namely in Staffordshire, Lancashire, and Wales, they being persons of different counties, no less than of different religions and situation of life.”[63]
The result of a solemn Curse, made in the Name of Almighty God, by one who had been greatly and grievously wronged, is recorded and not unsuitably here, it is hoped, in the following remarkable narrative—one fresh evidence of the existence of the Supernatural amongst us, had we only eyes to see and ears to hear.
The younger son of a Nova Scotia baronet, under promise of marriage, betrayed the only surviving daughter of a Northumbrian yeoman of ancient and respectable family, nearly allied to a peer, so created in William the Fourth’s reign. She was a person of rare beauty and of considerable accomplishments, having received an education of a very superior character in Edinburgh. After her betrayal she was deserted by her lover, who fled abroad. The night before he left, however, at her earnest request, he met her in company with a friend with the avowed intention of promising marriage in the future, when his family (as he declared) might be less averse to it. After-events show that this was merely an empty promise, and that he had no intention of fulfilling it. A long discussion took place between the girl and her betrayer, in the presence of the female friend in question, a first cousin of her father. High words, strong phrases, and sharp upbraidings were uttered on both sides; until at last the young man in cruel and harsh language, turning upon her fiercely, declared that he would never marry her at all, and held himself, as he maintained, perfectly free to wed whom he should choose. “You will be my certain death,” she exclaimed, “but death will be more welcome than life.” “Die and be ——,” he replied. At this the girl, with a wail of agony, swooned away. On her recovery she seemed to gather up her strength to pronounce a Curse upon him and his. It was spoken in the Name of the One Living and True God. She uttered it with deliberation, yet with wildness and bitterness, maintaining that she was his wife, and would haunt him to the day of his death; declaring at the same time to her relation present, “And you shall be the witness.” He left the place of meeting without any reconciliation or kind word, and, it was believed, went abroad. In less than five months, in giving birth to her child, she died, away from her home, and was buried with it (for the child, soon after its baptism, died likewise) in a village churchyard near Ambleside. Neither stone nor memorial marks the grave. Her father, a widower, wounded to the quick by the loss of his only daughter, pined away and soon followed her to his last resting-place.
Five years had passed and the female cousin of the old yeoman, being possessed of a competency, had gone to live in London, when, on a certain morning in the spring of the year 1842, she was passing by a church in the west end, where, from the number of carriages waiting, she saw that a marriage was being solemnized. She felt mysteriously and instinctively drawn to look in. On doing so, and pressing forwards towards the altar, she beheld to her astonishment, the very man, somewhat altered and weather-worn, who had caused so much misery to her relations, being married (as on inquiring she discovered) to the daughter of a rich city merchant. This affected her deeply, bringing back the saddest memories of the past. But, as the bridal party were passing out of the church, and she pushed forward to look, and be quite sure that she had made no mistake, both herself and the bridegroom at one moment saw an apparition of her relation, the poor girl whom he had ruined, dressed in white, with flowing hair and a wild look, holding up in both hands her little infant. Both seemed perfectly natural in appearance and to be of ordinary flesh and blood. There was no mistaking her certain identity. This occurred in the full sunshine of noon and under a heavy Palladian Porch in the presence of a crowd. The bridegroom turned deathly pale in a moment, trembled violently, and then, staggering, fell forward down the steps. This occasioned a vast stir and sensation amongst the crowd. It seemed incomprehensible. The bridegroom, said the church officials in answer to inquiries, was in a fit. He was carried down the steps and taken in the bridal carriage to his father-in-law’s house. But it was reported that he never spoke again; and this fact is mentioned in a contemporary newspaper-account of the event. Anyhow his marriage and death appeared in the same number of one of the daily papers. And although the family of the city merchant knew nothing of the apparition, what is thus set forth was put on record by the lady in question, who knew the mysterious circumstances in all their details; which record is reasonably believed by her to afford at once a signal example of retributive justice and a marked piece of evidence of the Supernatural. Names, for obvious reasons, are not mentioned here. The truth of this narrative, however, was affirmed on oath by the lady in question, before two justices of the peace, at Windsor, on October 3, 1848, one of whom was a beneficed clergyman in the diocese of Oxford, well known to the Editor of this volume,—to whom this record was given, in the year 1857 (when he was assistant-minister of Berkeley Chapel), by a lady of rank who worshipped there.
Here, accounts of two cases of miraculous cure through and by the Blessed Sacrament will be suitably and fittingly introduced. The first is from the pen of a well-known mission-preacher of the Church of England, and occurred in the diocese of London: the second, equally remarkable, took place in the diocese of Metz.