NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

How can a private letter from the Editor be forwarded to " L. de R.?" Meantime he will see in the Reviews in this Number a work noticed which seems likely to prove very convenient to him as a work of reference.

Á second letter from "Rathmicus" was received after the letter it referred to was in print; and the Editor is rather glad it happened so. Temperate discussion is anything but useless, and there are points connected with this subject which require consideration and the views of different persons.

THE

BRITISH MAGAZINE.

MAY 1, 1845.

ORIGINAL PAPERS.

MODERN HAGIOLOGY.*

NO. VII.

A

If the laws laid down by the advocates of what they are pleased to call Meditation be acted on, one must not be surprised to find something like discrepancy in their accounts of the same transaction. very simple instance will suffice to illustrate one's meaning. From the narrative in the Gospel of St. Luke, nothing can be gathered as to the scene of the Annunciation, except that the angel seems to have appeared to Mary when she was in the house. Bonaventure, according to his manner, determines the point somewhat more precisely.

"When the fulness of time was now come, the Ever-blessed Trinity having decreed to redeem mankind by the Incarnation of the WORD, it pleased ALMIGHTY Gon to summon to him the Archangel Gabriel, and send him to Nazareth, to a Virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, and the Virgin's name was Mary. Gabriel, with a calm and beaming countenance, reverently and devoutly prostrate before the throne of God, listens to the gracious message, and accepts the embassy. Then rising on the wings of joy, he quits the heavenly courts, and is instantly present, in human shape, before the Virgin Mary, whom he discovers in the innermost retreat of her lowly dwelling."-Bonaventura's Life of Christ, p. 9.

Other persons, however, have thought themselves equally free to meditate. And the meditators of ancient times seemed to have preferred assigning some other situation. The Latins of Palestine will have it that the Annunciation took place in a cave under ground, and will show the traveller the very spot where the angel and the blessed Virgin stood at the precise moment of the Incarnation, marked by two pillars erected by the Empress Helena, who, according to their account, was divinely informed of the exact places. But if the Greeks are to be the guides of our meditations, they will tell us that we must leave the city of Nazareth; for the angel, according to their meditation, not finding the Virgin at home, followed her to a fountain, whither she had gone to fetch water, and there delivered

* Numbers I.-VI. have been reprinted as tracts for distribution. VOL. XXVII.-May, 1845. 2 K

his message. And this is the form into which Mr. Newman's meditations appear to develop themselves; for in the second volume of the Lives of the English Saints, the editorial preface to which is written by Mr. Newman himself, we find the following passage:—

"In the time of St. Willibald, tradition showed the spot where the Annunciation was made to Mary, as she returned from drawing water at the Fountain of the Virgin. The church dedicated to the archangel Gabriel, was built over the same source, 'That church,' says the narrative, has often been redeemed for a sum of money from the violence of the neighbouring populace, who have desired to destroy it; as though heathen hate were ever hemming in, and pressing hard, in fiendish malice, upon Christian love. It is interesting, if not more than that, to learn, that after a lapse of eleven hundred years, the fountain still flows with a feeble stream, and a church stands over its source.' ""-St. Willibald, pp. 33, 34.

So that the meditations of the Greeks and Mr. Newman will teach us to reverence a church over a fountain some distance from the town as the scene of the Annunciation, while those of St. Bonaventure, Mr. Oakely take another direction, and the monks of Nazareth will fix on a chamber in a subterannean grotto in the church of their convent within the city. Why everything sacred should have happened under ground they do not say; but, as it must have happened somewhere or another, and, according to Mr. Oakely's canon of Meditation, "Why may I not please to imagine ?""You cannot prove me wrong, nor suggest any alternative which is not equally unauthorized, and more improbable"-the Meditators of old time chose to let their meditations take a subterranean direction. But others might meditate in another line. And the saints in Italy might say-Do you suppose that the holy house could have been left in Palestine exposed to the insults of the infidels? Of course they must have known exactly whereabouts to look for it or at least they might. "You cannot prove me wrong, nor suggest any alternative which is not equally unauthorized, and more improbable,"-as Mr. Oakely would say " And,” as he adds, "what great harm though I be mistaken?" And so, as we cannot disprove that the infidels would know the precise spot where the Annunciation took place, or that they would somehow or another come to discover it, and, having discovered it, would infallibly set about profaning it, or at all events, would prevent Christians from approaching it with reverence and acts of devotion, do you think, asks the meditator, that it is likely the sacred house should be left exposed to their profaneness, or suffered to remain in such sacrilegious hands? You may reply, that I am not bound to suppose they would ever have discovered it, or have treated it with indecency if they had. But is not one supposition at the least as probable as the other? and so, why may not I, in the exercise of the divine act of Meditation, "please to imagine" whichever alternative is most agreeable to my fancy. "And, at last, what great harm, though I be mistaken ?" Well, I do "please to imagine" that the infidels would have found it out, and would have profaned it, and excluded the feet of the pilgrim from visiting the sacred shrine ;-and, having got so far in my meditations, why may I not go a little further?-why may I not suppose that the profanation of the infidels may have been guarded against and prevented. You may suppose that they were supernaturally

sent

prevented from discovering the holy house. Why may I not piously suppose that it was carried away from them; and if so, and remember, as Mr. Oakely says, "you cannot prove me wrong,"-it must have been miraculously removed to some other place, by some supernatural means. We may suppose that angels were to transport it through the air-and then we may suppose that they carried it all the way to Dalmatia, to a mountain near the Gulf of Venice they must have carried it to some one place-why not to this? as Mr. Oakely would argue. So we will suppose that they did set it down on this particular mountain-and then the people of the place would take notice of so strange a circumstance-perhaps they saw the angels carrying it; we may suppose that they did, or that some hermit dreamt about it, and told them how it came there; for. you cannot prove that there might not be a hermit there, and that he might not have a remarkable dream or vision to explain the history of the house which had so suddenly arrived, nobody knew how or whence; and then we may also suppose the people of the place were rather inclined to be too Protestant to credit the story, and so they did not express a due veneration for the relic-and we may conceive how grieved the hermit was, and what a quantity of ashes and muddy water he ate and drank, and how he repeated the entire Psalter nine times a day, standing up to his neck in an uncommonly cold well for exactly three years and seven months, until at last we may suppose that the angels returned, and carried the house over the Gulf of Venice, to a wood, as the legend piously relates, about three miles from Loretto-as there must have been a noble lady named Loretto there, from whom the place was afterwards called-at least you cannot prove that there was not, or that the place came by its name in any other way. However unfortunately, we are obliged to suppose that there may be wicked people in Italy as well as elsewhere-at least there were formerly; and so we may conceive that, on account of the wickedness of the natives, the holy house was removed from the place near Loretto, where it had been deposited; but, unfortunately, it was not yet destined to find a resting place—at least, we may suppose that there were two brothers there who had a quarrel about the ground on which it was placed-when we may piously suppose that it was moved once more, and that it is now to be seen in a very magnificent church, and that the walls are made of a stone which is found only in the neighbourhood of Nazareth, though it is plain they are built of bricks; but then we may piously suppose them to be stone from Nazareth, and also, (as we cannot prove the contrary) that a certain image in the chamber was carved by St. Luke himself. And we may also suppose, that at first nobody knew where the house came from, till a vision appeared to a devout man in his sleep-and then we may suppose that sixteen persons were sent to Nazareth to measure the foundations which had been left behind, who found them exactly of the right dimensions, and found also an inscription on a wall adjoining, stating that the house belonging to the foundations had been removed, which may well be taken as a demonstration.

Now, why may not the Italians meditate in this fashion? May not

they claim the right of supposing that the house was really transported from Nazareth to Loretto, just as fairly as the monks of Naza reth suppose they have it still in its original subterranean grotto. And why may not the Greek exercise his right of meditation in his own way, and suppose that the Annunciation could not have taken place in a house at all, but beside a fountain, which the legend Mr. Newman adopts will tell is still to be seen, with a church standing over its source. The Italian has thought proper to meditate as his imagination led the way, and so he has concocted the legend, and he can show to this day the very chamber and the very window through which the angel entered. But then, says Mr. Oakeley, and the defence will hold good for the monks of Nazareth as well as for the canons at Loretto, whatever may be said of the Greek, " I do no violence to the sacred text." Yet, surely, one who had any just notion of what revelation is, would feel that it is nothing short of a sinful irreverence to add anything to the narrative which the Holy Spirit has thought fit to dictate, under the notion that something must have happened; and if so, why not one thing as likely as another? It is violence to any text of history to insert events and conversations after one's own taste. It is the sure way to destroy the whole value of historical testimony, and to involve truth in impenetrable obscurity. And when such violence is done to the sacred text, it is not only violence, but profane and irreverent violence, and tends at once and directly to undermine the certainty and stability of the foundations of the Christian faith. But, besides this, such tampering with truth leads people to go further, and to give a colour to the language of scripture, or even to imagine circumstances, such as may help to prop up the peculiar doctrines which they incline to; and from that the step is easy to the last stage of contradicting the statements of the text itself.

For example: in the chapter already quoted from the Life of Christ which Mr. Oakeley has translated from Bonaventure for the use of members of the Church of England, the meditation is so constructed as to favour the peculiar notions of the advocates of monasticism. And so a statement is made regarding the angelic salutation, and an explanation given of the words of Mary, to which the text gives not the slightest countenance.

"Not till she had heard the Angel twice deliver his wondrous message, could she prevail on herself to make any answer; so odious a thing in a virgin is talkativeness. Then the Angel, understanding the reason of her trouble, said, Fear not Mary, be not abashed by the praises I utter; they are but truth: for thou art not only full of grace thyself, but art to be the means of restoring all mankind to the grace of God, which they have lost. For behold thou shalt conceive, and bring forth the Son of the Highest. He, who has chosen thee to be His Mother, shall save all who put their trust in Him.' Then the blessed Virgin, waiving the subject of her praises, was desirous of knowing how all this could come to pass, without the loss of her virgin purity. She, therefore, inquired of the Angel the manner of the Conception. How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? I have dedicated myself to my Lord by a vow of perpetual virginity."-Bonaventura's Life of Christ, p. 11.

Of course, the statement that the angel spoke twice, and that Mary used the words here ascribed to her, are pure fiction and falsehood; and at this rate of proceeding, it is perfectly plain, anything whatever may be made out of the holy Scriptures. In the account of the