"What wonder that such a one should throw himself more entirely upon the
comforts of the religion that his village priest holds out to him than
one more contented with his earthly lot, or that, superstitious as he is
ignorant, he should daily hope for some miracle to be wrought for his
own special benefit? Is it too much to infer that a mind in which faith
reigns supreme and reason is hushed to sleep may be deluded by its
senses--that it may imagine it sees or hears anything that it desires to
see or hear? "Is this an irrational solution of the stories so common of pictures of
the Virgin or other saints moving their eyes or speaking? Then just
consider when the average intelligence of a scanty population is at this
ebb, what temptation this holds out to the priest of the parish whose
office it is to rule his little flock by maintaining order and
restraining crime, to strike awe into his congregation and keep alive
their fanatical faith by some pious fraud in the shape of a crucifix
that bleeds by an easy mechanical contrivance, an image of the Madonna
that sheds tears, or a picture that rolls its eyes! "These tricks were known to the heathen priests of antiquity long before
the introduction of Christianity, and have been repeatedly carried out
since by the priests of Rome. It is to the successful delusion of these
poor benighted wretches that the Church of Rome owes her vaunted
laurels. These are your miracle seers! To these alone do the saints
vouchsafe to perform their wonders! As for the intelligent and wise, if
they go to a church on purpose to see a miracle, and come away without
seeing it, they are told by the priest that it is because they lack
faith, that they do not go in the proper spirit, that their natures are
too material, that such sights are reserved only for the faithful, and
that few are sufficiently spiritualised to behold them. "So you see there is no way of catching a priest napping. He will always
find some hole to creep out of. Like an eel, he will slip through your
fingers at the very moment that you may think you have got him. Should
any individual be bold enough to force his way through the wonder-gazing
crowd, and publicly demolish the miracle-working image or picture and
reveal to the devout bystanders the paltry mechanism by which they have
been deluded, people's eyes would at length be opened, all miracles be
liable to suspicion, and reason at length admitted into some share of
man's being. "But there are difficulties that beset so bold an expedient. In the
first place, a man must be possessed of more than an ordinary amount of
courage to face the fury of a fanatical mob whom he knows to be ready to
tear him in pieces should he attempt to rob them of their darling
prejudices, or dare to break one chip off their sacred wood or stone. "Secondly, the wonder-working image or picture is generally in an
inaccessible place, high up on the wall or surrounded by railings, to
prevent a too close scrutiny. Thirdly, the miracle often exists merely
in the imaginations of devout believers, without any aid of mechanism on
the part of the priest. In this case, if any man were daring enough to
step forward and openly to break in pieces the supposed miraculous image
or picture, and, having done so, was unable to detect in the fragments
any trace of machinery or means of imposture whatever, the fame of the
miracle would then gain ground, and the daring unbeliever be guilty of
sacrilege." When I had got thus far, my friend the arch-priest drew himself up and
was about to reply in a lengthy rejoinder, when he was suddenly
interrupted by the servant girl of his household bursting hurriedly into
the room and crying out at the top of her voice, "Oh, Signor Arciprete,
have you heard the news? The _vetturino_ of the mail has just arrived. He says that the night before last the mail was stopped on its way to
Rome by a band of brigands, who robbed the passengers, consisting of six
English gentlemen and others, of everything they had about them. Gold,
silver, and paper money--quite a heap--besides some gold and silver
watches, and, among other things, a diamond ring of great value,
belonging to one of the English gentlemen. The soldiers are on the track
of the brigands already, and a heavy reward is offered to whosoever
shall give such information as shall lead to their discovery. "Poor Luigi! He says that he himself was robbed of his silver watch and
paper money, amounting to forty pauls, all he possessed in the world. I
do hope they'll catch the nasty wretches. I myself would see them
executed. _Gesu Maria!_ What hungry wolves! But I must be off now to
tell all the people in the village, or else that horrid gossip Maria
Giovanna will be before me, and I always like to be first." So saying, she bounced out of the room, slamming the door after her, and
we were left once more alone. There was a pause, and my friend was the first to break silence. The
thread of his ideas had been broken by the girl's sudden entry into the
room with the startling news, so he did not resume his discourse, but
after a while observed:--

"I suppose you see in the wild tale of this girl a corroboration of the
prisoner's statement, and a link in the chain of evidence." "Well," said I, "it looks like it, does it not? The heaps of gold and
silver, the paper money, the gold and silver watches, and, moreover, the
diamond ring. It certainly looks as if the mystery were beginning to
clear up." "Softly, my friend, softly," rejoined the priest, who still grudged the
event to natural causes. "Do not be rash in jumping at conclusions, for
the evidence is not yet complete. Let us first satisfy ourselves that
the girl's tale is true, for reports get wind about our village--one
hardly knows how--without the least vestige of truth in them. I will
speak to the _vetturino_ myself, and if the tale prove true, or partly
true--for, depend upon it, the story will have lost nothing in the
telling--need it do away entirely with the miracle? "For instance, suppose instead of being a band of a dozen brigands, it
should have been only one brigand, and that brigand your friend Antonio
himself. That he alone, laden with his treasure, and being attracted by
the light of a candle that he descried through the chinks of the church
door, forced his way into the church to count over his booty. Supposing
this to have been the case, the miracle may, nevertheless, have occurred
precisely as related to me by the sacristan." "You are very ingenious," said I, "in suggesting an improbability in
order to support your miracle, but, if you recollect, the sacristan
declared that he caught Antonio in the act of breaking open the
alms-box." "That may have been a mistake caused by the excited state of his mind
on the occasion. However, I will see Luigi at once, and learn from his
own lips the true state of the case, for I am as anxious to get at the
truth as you are." "Then let us lose no time in speaking to him at once," said I.