The continual temp

such extravagant absurdities. tation is to allow the impiety and fanaticism of the author to divert our attention from that which is the only point deserving serious notice, the character and object of the movement which these books are written for the purpose of advancing.

In the monastery of Glastonbury he had learnt the mode of self-discipline by which St. Patrick had attained his saintly eminence, and now in his hermitage he almost rivalled him in austerities. Every morning St. Patrick repeated the Psalter through from end to end, with the hymns and canticles, and two hundred prayers. Every day he celebrated mass, and every hour he drew the holy sign across his breast one hundred times; in the first watch of the night he sung a hundred psalms, and knelt two hundred times upon the ground; and at cockcrow he stood in water, until he had said his prayers. Similarly each morning went St. Neot's orisons to heaven from out of his holy well; alike in summer and in the deep winter's cold, bare to his waist, he too each day repeated the Psalter through. p. 101.

This passage I have referred to already; but I am obliged to transcribe it here again, as it explains the following tale:

One day when he was thus engaged in the depth of winter, he was disturbed by suddenly hearing the noise of a hunting party riding rapidly down the glen. Unwilling that any earthly being should know of his austerities, but only the One who is over all, he sprung hastily from the water and was retiring to his home, when he dropped one of his shoes. He did not wait to pick it up, but hurried off and completed his devotions in secret.

And when he had finished his psalms, and his reading,

and his prayers, with all diligence and care, he remembered his shoe and sent his servant to fetch it. In the meantime a fox, wandering over hill and vale, and curiously prying into every nook and corner, had chanced to come to the place where the holy man had been standing, and had lighted upon the shoe and thought to carry it off. And an angel who loved to hover in hallowed places, and to breathe an atmosphere which was sanctified by the devotions of God's Saints, was present there invisibly and saw this thing, and he would not that such an one as St. Neot should be molested even in so small a matter, so that he had sent the sleep of death upon the fox, and Barius when he came there found him dead, arrested at the instant of his theft, yet holding the thongs of his shoe in his mouth. Then he approached in fear and wonder, and took the shoe and brought it to the holy man, and told him all that had happened.—pp. 101, 102.

Now, I hope I need not say, I have no desire to treat any miraculous story whatever with ridicule. The subject is too serious. The absurdity and grotesque character of these stories might provoke a smile, were it not that there is a miracle pretended, and that these miracles, whatever their character may be, are alleged for a purpose,—namely, to convey the impression, that monastic austerities are pleasing to God, and that there is some peculiar and heroic degree of sanctity in a man's banishing himself from the society of his fellow-christians, and all the year round, winter and summer, standing in a well or fish-pond every day, until he has repeated the Psalter through. This, we are now taught, is piety; and when to this one adds the picture given

of St. Patrick, that " every hour he drew the holy sign across his breast one hundred times" (nearly twice every minute in the day); "in the first watch of the night he sung a hundred psalms, (which few persons who know anything of music will deem much short of a miracle in itself,) and knelt two hundred times upon the ground; and at cock-crow he stood in water, until he had said his prayers;" we have a portraiture and ideal of the practical piety which Mr. Newman's party are presenting to the public for the benefit of "most erring and most unfortunate England." Truly, the miracles and the piety are worthy of each other; and if men believe that such piety can be acceptable to their Creator, it is no wonder, that they should see nothing extraordinary or incongruous in the miracles by which its acceptance is said to have been signified to the world.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

MR. NEWMAN'S NOTION OF TRUTH.

BUT some will ask, why persist in making Mr. Newman responsible for the follies and impieties of these pernicious books? To this I need give no other answer than that which has been given already.

Every word of the articles on Hagiology was written, as these lines are, under a full and conscientious belief that for these Lives of the English Saints Mr. Newman, and Mr. Newman alone, is responsible. There may be anonymous persons, whose responsibility is devolved on him; but this is done by his permission, and with a full consciousness on his part, that while he thus voluntarily places himself between them and the public, all the praise or blame is exclusively his own.

Nor am I aware of any doctrine advocated in these books, which may not be fully justified by passages to be found in works to which Mr. Newman has put his name,-to say nothing of the articles in the British Critic, which he has recommended to the public. And, on this point, of primary and eternal moment, namely, the right these authors claim of trifling with truth, the words I have already quoted from Mr. Newman's sermon on Development, are a distinct avowal, that he considers the use of falsehood in religion may be justified by circumstances. I quote the words

again, lest any one should think I am misrepresenting Mr. Newman's meaning:

It is not more than an hyperbole to say that, IN CER

TAIN

CASES A LIE IS THE NEAREST APPROACH ΤΟ

TRUTH. This seems the meaning for instance of St. Clement, when he says "He [the Christian] both thinks and speaks the truth, unless when at any time, in the way of treatment, as a physician towards his patients, so for the welfare of the sick he will be false, or will tell a falsehood, as the sophists speak. For instance, the noble apostle circumcised Timothy, yet cried out and wrote circumcision availed not, &c.'"-Strom. vii. 9. We are told that "God is not the son of man that he should repent," yet, It repented the Lord that he had made man. -Univ. Sermons, p. 343.

This is Mr. Newman's own statement of his views regarding the lawfulness of tampering with truth. And, with regard also to the particular species of falsehood which forms the subject of our consideration at present,—namely, the falsification of history and the manufacturing of legends and miracles to serve a pious purpose, Mr. Newman has thus expressed himself in this same sermon on Develop

ment:

Mythical representations, at least in their better form, may be considered facts or narratives, untrue, but like the truth, intended to bring out the action of some principle, point of character, and the like. For instance, the tradition that St. Ignatius was the child whom our Lord took in his arms, may be unfounded; but it realizes to us His special relation to Christ and His apostles, with a keenness peculiar to itself. The same remark may be made upon certain narratives of martyrdoms, or of the details of such