either of these limbs, and which recovery he piously attributes to the Virgin, or his favourite Saint, and takes this cheap method of commemorating it. Sometimes it is a doll of wax, such as would be sold in England for sixpence, and which is placed there in gratitude for a child restored and sometimes a picture, in which the sick person is represented in bed, and a vision appearing promising recovery. These pictures and little images are either vowed during the time of illnes, when the hanging them up becomes an indispensable duty, or they are the mere offerings of a mistaken but pious gratitude. At all events this is evidently not the remains, but the continuation, of the custom to which Horace alludes, when he talks of hanging garments or pictures in the temple of Neptune, like one escaped from shipwreck : Me tabula sacer Votiva paries indicat uvida Vestimenta maris Deo. CARM. lib. i. 5. Another mode in which Christianity has been corrupted must be as ancient as its first establishment in Spain. The Virgin Mary, under various denominations has usurped the places of ancient Deities. Sometimes it is the Virgin Pastora, or the Shepherdess; but the most general and most obvious adaptation is where the mother of God is represented with the moon under her feet. In Sevilla, in Cordoba, in Granada, Malaga, and Cadiz, are numerous Churches, where we behold Diana, with her principal attributes, worshipped under the name of the mother of God. With these representations before our eyes, it is impossible for us to doubt that in heathen times the moon was * the great object of adoration in all the tract of country through which we have lately passed; and that the first introducers of Christianity skilfully seized the most admirable mode of overcoming, or rather of deceiving popular prejudices. The image of a beautiful woman standing on a crescent, surrounded with lamps and blazing with jewels, is still Astarte the Queen of Heaven. The name may be changed, but under what other form could the heathens have represented the object of their worship? But it has been thus in all ages. The gods of Egypt were transferred under various names to Greece, and Rome, and Osoris, from the banks of the Nile under the name of Jupiter, was seated on the Tarpeian rock, and worshipped by the conquerors of the world. It would be easy to trace this adaptation of Christianity and pre-existing superstitions, through a thousand instances. The Virgin was always ready to take the shape of any goddess, and thus piously cheat the multitude into salvation. And was the idol a male deity of war or peace, it was christened St. Jago, or St. Michael, armed with the sword of God; Saint Anthony, or Saint Andrew, opening the book of the law. We have thus something like a rational excuse, a probable origin for so many and such various Saints and Virgins but in all the Catholic Churches there are absurdities, so gross, so impious, so indelicate, that we are equally puzzled to account for their adoption or their object. I have some hesitation in mentioning one, but that one will be sufficient. A very singular event is recorded to have happened to Saint Domingo, to Saint Fran *May not this representation have arisen from a perversion of Rev. xii. 1?-Editor. cisco, and perhaps to several others. When exhausted by solitary prayer and penitential stripes, they sunk before the altar; the Virgin once appeared to each of them, and squeezing a few drops of milk from her breast into their mouths, restored them to life and transporting devotion. The fact cannot be doubted, for I have seen at least ten different pictures, and some of considerable merit, representing the mother of God in a position that no modest earthly woman could assume before a lonely monk. The Saint was comforted with milk from her virgin breastspectorales Virgines,' say the legends and the inscriptions. Can monstrous absurdity be carried farther?-Listen. On the walls of a church near the gate of Carmona, at Sevilla, is a picture representing Christ on the cross, on one side, and the Virgin in the clouds on the other: between them is a Bishop, or Saint, kneeling, with his mouth open; into one corner of which descends a stream of blood from the wounded side of Christ, and into the other a stream of milk from the bosom of the Virgin. This would be ludicrous, were it not disgusting; we might smile, did we not feel excessive pity to see such deplorable weakness in human nature!-Semple. NIEWEZYDS KAPEL. In the annals of legendary superstition, the niewezyds kapel, at Amsterdam, holds a distinguished place. About the year 1345, a sick woman received the sacrament. Her stomach rejected the wafer; which fell into the fire, and remained there for sometime, unconsumed. It was carried to the rector of the parish; but, that not being its proper place, it three times returned to the coffer of the woman, by whose indigestion it had been refused. The rector, at length, was obliged to go to her house, in procession; solemnly accompanied by all the ecclesiastics of the city: who determined to publish the miracle and bear this consecrated host with all due pomp to the parish church; where a case was prepared for its conservation. It was afterwards resolved to build a chapel on the place where the house stood, in which the miracle had happened; and on the very spot of the fire-place an altar was erected. The chapel being finished, the host again performed miracles. It happened on one occasion that the city was entirely inundated, except that not a drop of water approached this holy place. Fire, however, was less respectful of its sanctity: for, in 1452 it was burned down; but, being rebuilt, miracles were performed at it, with the same certainty as ever. The Archduke Maximilian, attacked by a dangerous fever at the Hague, was cured, in consequence of making a vow to visit the holy place; in gratitude for which, he presented a chalice of gold, and other ornaments to the chapel. There were no less than six magnificent altars here to which devout pilgrims from all parts repaired. Even to this day on Trinity Sunday, the Catholics privately go there on pilgrimage, barefooted, and in woollen garments. The annual procession was held on the second Thursday in March. The case, or coffer, in which this wafer was formerly preserved, is still to be seen, at the burgerweeshuis. It has three locks in front; which front has several wafers painted on it, before one of which are two kneeling angels. Each of these wafers represented a god, but only one of the gods could work miracles. This miraculous gift it had acquired in the disordered entrails of a sick woman.-Holcroft's Travels. FETE DIEU. In the year 1783, I witnessed the processions that were then annually held, on the Fete Dieu. They were made from every parish, and consisted of the Clergy, dressed in their grandest ornaments, bearing the host under a canopy, their assistants, the parochial officers, the principal inhabitants, the lower orders whom devotion or curiosity assembled, and a military guard. It was this guard that surprised me: their fixed bayonets were seen among the wands of men who professed piety and peace; their drums and military music were heard in turn with the solemn church chaunt. There was such discord, such incoherency, between the things, the fierce and whiskered musqueteers appeared so contrary, so inimical to the white surplice of sanctity, that I eagerly demanded, Why was it so? What could it mean?' 'It is to preserve the peace.' The peace! by whom is it in danger of being disturbed?' It would be, whenever the clergy of one parish meet the clergy of another, were not the soldiers present; for so it frequently has been in former times.' By the clergy! impossible! break the peace?' In the most shameless manner, by fighting.' • For what should they fight?' For precedency, which priests, in the name of their parishes, claim over each other. This |