interested, even by the horrid relics in Madame
Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors? No
wonder that the Romish church, speculating
on all emotions and weaknesses of the
human mind, should have availed itself of
this predilection.

The old Romans and Greeks had their
holy relics, and some were almost Roman
Catholic; for instance, the egg of Leda.
The Indians carried on bloody wars about
a monstrous supernatural tooth of Buddha.
The Mahometans preserve the standard,
arms, clothes, beard, and two teeth, of their
prophet. In the Christian church, however,
we find no trace of this relic-culture before
the Emperor Constantine. According to the
legend, he saw a cross with a victory-promising
inscription in the sky, and adopted
it as a standard. He conquered, and
became a Christian. From that time the cross
became the symbol of the Christians.

The mother of the emperor, Helena,
discovered the true cross; so at least we are
told by late papal authors. Contemporary
historians, however, do not say one word
about this remarkable discovery. According
to the legend, not only was the true cross
discovered, but also the crosses of the two
thieves who were crucified with Our Saviour.
They were all found together; but as the
inscription affixed by Pilate was not
forthcoming, the finders were at a loss how to
discover the true cross. The priests, however,
found a way to solve this difficulty.
They laid a sick man on one of the crosses,
and, behold! he became worse; from which
they concluded that they had struck on
the cross of the thief who taunted Christ.
When the sick man was laid on another of
the crosses, he became much better; but
when he was laid on the third, he jumped
up quite well. There could not be any
doubt which was the true cross after this.

The graves of the apostles were likewise
discovered, and the bodies of some of them
too. Very pious people even succeeded in
entering into direct communication with the
saints. A woman at St. Maurin, for instance,
who had chosen St. John the Baptist for her
patron, invoked him for three years every
day! imploring him to let her have only a
little bit of his body, for which he had no
further use. The saint would not listen to
her prayers. At last the woman got desperate
—as even pious women will sometimes,
if they cannot have their own way—
and vowed that she would not touch
food until the saint fulfilled her prayer.
She kept her vow for seven days, and was
nearly at her last gasp, when she found on
the altar the thumb of the saint! Three
bishops wrapped this holy relic very
reverentially in linen, and three drops of blood
fell from it; one drop per bishop.

Some saints have had several skeletons.
That of St. Denis, for instance, exists in
duplicate at the present time; besides a
third head in Prague, and a fourth head
in Bamberg, while Munich can boast of a
hand of his. This remarkable saint, therefore,
had two perfect bodies, four heads, and
five hands; it cannot possibly be otherwise;
for each of these relics has to show for its
genuineness, a document of authenticity
from an infallible Pope.

Albertus Magnus, Bishop of Regensburg,
devoted a great deal of learning to investigations
about the bodily appearance of the
Holy Virgin, and to trying to find out
what kind of eyes and hair she had. As
the present compiler does not feel inclined
to read the eight hundred books left to us
of this gentleman's writings, he does not
know the result of his researches; but,
according to the specimens of her hair,
testified to by popes as genuine, it must
have been piebald; for the infallible relics
of it are fair, red, brown, and black.

The most ponderous relic left of the
Virgin Mary is her house, now in Loretto.
This house stood once, of course, in
Palestine; but, according to the legend, angels
carried it to Italy. They placed it first at
Tersatto, near Fiume; but in the year 1297
they transported it to Loretto. It is a
wonderful circumstance that the houses of
Palestine of the time of Our Saviour should
have so exactly resembled the peasants'
houses in the neighbourhood of Loretto.
It is enshrined now in a magnificent church,
and thousands and thousands of pilgrims
flock there, to stir their rosaries in the mug
of the infant Christ, and to depose a more
or less considerable sum on the altar.

The credulity of people in the matter of
relics really surpasses belief. One monk,
by name Eiselin, travelled in 1500 in
Wurtemburg, exhibiting to the faithful a pinion
of the wing of the Archangel Gabriel. Who
kissed it (and of course paid for it) could
not be seized by the plague. When staying
in the little town of Aldingen, this precious
relic was stolen from him. Eiselin, however,
was not at a loss; before the very
eyes of his hostess, he filled his empty
casket with hay, and exhibited it as hay
from the manger in Bethlehem. All the
faithful thronged to kiss it, and the hostess
among them; so that the monk whispered,
full of astonishment, into her ear: "Even
you, sweetheart?"

At the time of the crusades, the world