succeeding ages, grew up gradually into a large and beautiful church, as its grey ruins survived to testify, after the blight of evil doctrine passed over the land, and the reverence for holy things faded and died away.

The Church of S. Victor, which was situated without the walls of Mayence, was commenced in the lifetime of S. Boniface, carried on by succeeding bishops, and finished between the years 917 and 1011 by Willigisus, who attached to it a monastery for twenty canons. The Emperor Otho III. was present at its consecration, and by deed of gift assigned to it a tract of land in Thuringia.

Fifteen years after the death of Winibald, his brother Willibald resolved to rebuild the church and abbey of Heidenheim, which before had probably been chiefly a wooden building. Two years the work had been carried on, when they assembled to translate the relics of the holy abbot to the chapel and shrine called by his name. They opened his sepulchre, and there, we are told, lay the body fresh and fair, as though he had departed but yesterday. Once more the people gazed on the still cold face of their former teacher and friend; and, after mass was sung, Willibald drew nigh, and, stooping down, gave his brother the kiss of peace, and the rest did likewise afterwards; and in succeeding ages many mercies were at his shrine vouchsafed to the sick and afflicted. The abbey continued to flourish, but was finally dissolved at the

change of religion in the province of Brandenburg Anspach, where it was situated.2

1 Lives of the English Saints: Family of S. Richard, 110. * Alban Butler, in S. Winibald.

And thus, in the fair countries of Northern Europe, till the weak love of a cold age began to think little of such things, was embalmed in the reverence and gratitude of the Church the memory of those blessed Saints whom in their lives no word might overcome, and whose deaths were right dear in the sight of Him Who liveth for evermore.

APPENDIX I.

THE MIRACLES OF S. BONIFACE.

"He did wonders in his life, and at his death were his works marvellous."

AMONG the consequences entailed upon us by the divided state of Christendom, the most lamentable, perhaps, is a cold and unconcerned scepticism which prevails to a far greater extent with almost all of us than ever enters into our thoughts. The very idea of division almost implies this as its result, for if the Churches of CHRIST be rent asunder, it must be for corruption either of teaching or of discipline : and when either is assailed, it must convey a shock to the faith and devoutness of many. The loss is our own; but so long as we strive, with the grace of GOD, neither to add to it ourselves, nor to be brought under the dominion of this incredulous spirit, the guilt of it lies with those by whom the offence came. We are not now writing for men to whom the Divine claims of the Church and her supernatural powers are but as empty words and idle tales, but for those who believe that the Church is now what she has ever been, that the Church of this land is the same which S. Augustine renewed or planted, and in spirit now (as in fact then) in communion with Catholic Christendom. And therefore, while it would be both out of place and unbecoming to approach the subject of the miracles of Saints controversially, and to enter

on the battle-ground which has already been so triumphantly contested with the enemies of the Church, the sceptic, the scoffer, and the infidel,-still it may not be without use to speak briefly of the mode in which the devout Christian mind will handle the question.

It is not happily necessary for us to adopt here any tone of apology or defence. It may well be a grief of mind to such as have to argue with the unbelieving critic, that for them it is needful to speak as champions of holy and blessed Saints, whose prayers are being continually offered up for the Church on earth, until the number of the elect be accomplished. Each word of apology may well seem an injury done to their names and memories, and the need of bringing forth their deeds as evidences, instead of for the purposes of devotion, the token of a most miserable departure from the fervent love of more faithful ages. Time was when the biographers of Saints' were called upon to account, not for the number, but for the paucity of miraculous works wrought by their hands, as though such manifestations were a more fitting evidence of their holiness and their power with GOD than the far higher miracle of bringing those who sat in the valley of the shadow of death to the true light, and the living stream, and the heavenly Bread which nourishes the re-created man. But with some unhappily, in these later ages, the mention of but one miraculous work goes far to call into question the verity of their whole history; and the justification of this heartless unbelief is as paltry as the spirit itself is perilous and deadening. But it is only necessary here to show that the plea is plainly untenable which urges that the narration of false miracles deservedly throws a shade over all; and that there is nothing contrary to reason or the truth of the Gospel in believing that the manifestation of miraculous power may be vouchsafed in any age of the Church.

1 See the second life of S. Boniface in the Bollandist Acta.

There was a time when the exhibition of such power was an innovation upon all known laws which governed the world. The sun had risen and set at its stated and, as might seem, unalterably fixed hours, until the day was lengthened at the bidding of Joshua,-the brute creation had continued without articulate speech until the serpent spoke to tempt man to his destruction,-every substance prepared by the hand of man for his own use remained in its own size and form, without any increase, until the Prophet's word kept the barrel of meal and the cruise of oil from failing. No subsequent reversal, therefore, of the laws of nature was any longer an innovation in the same sense in which the first manifestation of such power had been; and at once there existed a probability that such reversals of natural laws might be continued even to the end of the world. But, at the same time, we may discern a method (if we may so speak) even in these miraculous manifestations, although it is most perilous to attempt to place our own limits on any of the works of Divine power; we can only say that, as they have been displayed, they appear to have been so under a certain order.

First, then, the introduction of a new dispensation appears to be always accompanied with such supernatural evidences to attest its origin. The giving of the Law, and the setting forth the old covenant under Moses, was attended with miracles, and, far more abundantly, the opening of the new and living way by Him Who led captivity captive. But, as under the Mosaic dispensation supernatural providences never wholly ceased, and were manifested (after a long interval) with far greater frequency under the prophets, so, with the Christian Church, the miracles of the fourth and fifth centuries were multiplied far beyond those of the period which intervened between them and the Apostolic age; and as the prophetical miracles were in great measure confined to, and wrought by, the schools of Elijah and Elisha, so the