changes in September, filled the ampulla, and was so locked up at the end of the novena. It was found full and hard in December following, and, not liquefying at all, was again locked up in the same condition. It was found in precisely the same state when the reliquary was again taken out in the May following. Here, on three occasions, the contents of the vial, solid and completely filling it, must have remained unextracted from September to May, seven months. Yet in the May octaves that followed, the liquefactions went on as usual. No freshly inserted compound was necessary for the liquefaction. The same reasoning applies in a measure to the numerous cases in which such a fulness went over, four months and a half, from May to September, or nearly three months, from September to December.
Again, in quite a number of instances, as the same tables show, the condition of the blood, when locked up, is noted as liquid with a floating hard lump, as was the case on the 16th of December, 1870. When it was taken out, the next day, or after several months, though often found entirely hardened, yet not unfrequently—as on the 6th of May, 1871—it was found in precisely the same state in which it had been put up: liquid with a floating hard lump. In all these cases, the condition of the contents of the ampulla is a new and insuperable objection to the supposition that a newly prepared amount of matter had been inserted for the subsequent liquefactions. Did other circumstances allow it, we might conceive a liquid to be poured out of the ampulla, and a fresh liquid to be poured in. But how is the solid hard lump, that would not liquefy, to be got out? And if got out, how is another hard lump to be put in to replace it? Are the constituents of
this new hard lump poured into the ampulla separately, as liquids or powders that can pass through the neck? Then their character must be such that, instead of uniting with the liquid already there, or the constituents of the liquid portion, they will, on the contrary, combine apart to form the hard mass. But if so antagonistic to the liquid portion, how is it that, when the lump does liquefy during the ensuing exposition, these constituents at once intimately unite with the liquid, the whole forming a homogeneous mass, which without the least indication of any antagonism between its component parts will henceforth solidify and liquefy as a single mass?
The more carefully the facts of the case are studied, the more imperatively do they exclude every hypothesis save the simple one which so many other facts corroborate, that no attempt has been made to change the contents of the ampulla. Every- thing about the ampulla excludes the idea that it is regularly tampered with privately between the expositions.
There is still another light in which we must view this charge of fraud. Ever since the opening of the new Tesoro, in 1646, there have been attached to that chapel twelve chaplains and a custos, with inferior attendants as needed. In the cathedral itself, at least from 1496, there have been twenty canons and beneficiaries, besides minor attendants. When the liquefaction takes place in the Tesoro, the reliquary is in the hands of the chaplains, who act in turn, or relieve each other as convenient. When it occurs in the procession or in the cathedral, or in some other church, the reliquary is in the charge of the canons, who similarly relieve each other. Hence, canons and chaplains, all alike, must
be cognizant of the fraud, if any there be, and must participate in it. Add to these the archbishops and their vicars-general in Naples since 1496. Add also those clergymen who, having been canons or chaplains, have passed to other dignities, or have retired from their office, but must of course still retain the knowledge of this fraud, if they once possessed it. We may say that there have been on an average, at all times, forty ecclesiastics, if not more, who had cognizance of the fraud, if there were any. The dignity of canon of the cathedral or chaplain of the Tesoro is ordinarily reached only after years of meritorious service in the lower grades of the ministry. Hence the canons and chaplains are usually men of mature and advanced age. We can scarcely give them more than fifteen years of average life. We have thus about a thousand clergymen since A.D. 1500, all charged with being cognizant of and participators in the fraud.
Now, what was the character of those men? Those among whom they lived, and who knew them, respected them as a body of men devoted to the service of God, pure and exemplary ecclesiastics, proved by years spent in the zealous works of the ministry. Some were men of honorable and noble families; others were men distinguished in the walks of literature and science; some had sacrificed all the world promised them, in order to spend their lives in the sanctuary. Some were revered in life, and remembered after death, as pre-eminently true servants of God, men of prayer, of strong faith, and of singularly pure and saintly lives. Of course, individuals here or there may indeed have been wicked or hypocritical. But this testimony of the people to their character must have been true of the great body.
Now, could such men have all united in this fraud? On their own principles and convictions, and according to the doctrines they taught and should themselves practise, there could scarcely be a more heinous sin against God and his holy religion, than to palm off a trick of crafty men as a miracle of God’s working. Could they bring themselves to it?
Is it possible that no one of them ever repented, even in the presence of death, and sought to save his soul, and to make reparation, by disclosing the fraud and arresting the evil? Could all have chosen to die impenitent, with the certainty of everlasting damnation before them, rather than reveal the blasphemous and, to them, henceforth useless trick? The thing is impossible.
Again, men, even though good and pious, may be garrulous. All men have their unguarded moments. How came it that the secret never leaked out from any one of them during all these years?