“Trust to my caution,” said the Friar. “A rat once escaped from a trap does not put its head in a second time. Now, adeos, senhor!—By the way, if you could lend me a few crowns, I should find them useful, and shall then be able to purchase another friar’s gown, under which I shall be safer than in these gay habiliments. There is nothing like the outward garment of sanctity, when a man’s character has been slightly blown upon.”
Luis gave him a few crowns, which he could, however, but ill spare, for which the ci-devant Friar expressed himself very grateful, and then hurried away as fast as he could.
In the course of his walk, Luis reached a hill, on which had stood the church of Santa Catarina, now a heap of ruins. A crowd of persons, of all ranks and ages, and of each sex, were assembled there, collected round a tall figure, who had mounted to the summit of a heap of stones, and was haranguing them in a stentorian voice, throwing his arms aloft with the wildest gestures, and rolling his eyes around in a delirium of enthusiasm.
Luis inquired of one of the bystanders who the preacher was who was addressing them.
“Know you not,” exclaimed the man, with a look of disdain at his culpable ignorance, “that he is one of the greatest prophets that has ever lived,—one to whom the gift of tongues has been vouchsafed, as to the apostles of old,—one in whose presence the kingdom of Portugal has been peculiarly blessed, and who, in these times of horror, pours balm into our hearts from his copious fountain of eloquence?—he is the great and pious Father Malagrida.”
When Luis had asked the question, the preacher had just ceased speaking for a moment, coughing, and blowing his nose, in which the greater part of his congregation imitated him.
“Hark!” said the person to whom Luis had spoken; “he again commences.”
The congregation now fixed their eyes with an intent gaze on the preacher as he began; and we are fortunate in being able to give an exact translation of his discourse, it having been printed in January, 1756; and a copy having, by a fortunate chance, fallen into our possession; and it serves to prove that some congregations, a hundred years ago, were not much wiser than they are at the present day, and that some preachers were able to convert the Scriptures to their own purposes with equal facility and talent.
See Note.
“Few are there among those who hear me, who do not wish to know the origin of these terrific convulsions of the earth; but this is not the first time that God has confided to the ignorant, and hidden from the wise, a knowledge of his profound secrets. ‘Abscondisti haec à sapientibus et prudentibus, et revelati ea parvulis.’ (Matt. xi. 25).