“The aspect of the old is full of majesty:
Their words are laden with the secrets of existence.”
[66] An old soldier of the olden time.
[67] “Hush, I beg of you.”
THE LIQUEFACTION OF THE BLOOD OF ST. JANUARIUS.
NO. III.
But this is far from being the general rule. In 1543, the diary mentions the presence of Muleasses, Bey of Tunis, a Mohammedan, and records his expression of astonishment at what he beheld. On several other occasions, Mohammedans were witnesses of it; some became Christians. Protestant travellers from England, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany have written accounts of what they themselves saw. On four of the six occasions when the writer of these lines was present, he can bear personal testimony to the presence of Protestants.
It is narrated that the liquid blood has been known to solidify instantly, whenever the reliquary passed into the hands of a particular canon, in his turn of office, to be presented by him to the people, or when certain persons approached to venerate and kiss it, and would as quickly liquefy again when they withdrew. A notorious case is mentioned by the Bollandists, and by other authorities, of a prince, whose name, for family reasons, was not given—for the matter was published in his lifetime. At his approach the liquid blood used to become solid. His personal character left no doubt on the minds of the Neapolitans why this happened.
We have already spoken of the notable differences of color, on various days, or parts of the same day. The diary registers them as bright, beautiful, vermilion, rubicund, or as dense or dark, or blackish, or ash-colored, or, again, pale or yellowish. Sometimes the whole mass was of