Perhaps he partially himself believed in her, but he was more anxious to ensure the belief of others, and he therefore set himself to assist her inspiration towards more effective utterance.  Conversing with her in her intervals of quiet, he discovered that she was wholly ignorant, and unprovided with any stock of mental or imaginative furniture; and that consequently her prophecies were without body, and too indefinite to be theologically available.  This defect he remedied by instructing her in the Catholic legends, and by acquainting her with the revelations of St. Brigitt and St. Catherine of Sienna.[318] In these women she found an enlarged reflection of herself; the details of their visions enriched her imagery; and being provided with these fair examples, she was able to shape herself into fuller resemblance with the traditionary model of the saints.

As she became more proficient, Father Bocking extended his lessons to the Protestant controversy, initiating his pupil into the mysteries of justification, sacramental grace, and the power of the keys.  The ready damsel redelivered his instructions to the world in her moments of possession; and the world discovered a fresh miracle in the inspired wisdom of the untaught peasant.  Lists of these pregnant sayings were forwarded[319] regularly to the archbishop, which still possibly lie mouldering in the Lambeth library, to be discovered by curious antiquaries.  It is idle to inquire how far she was yet conscious of her falsehood.  Conscious wilful deception lies far down the road in a course of this kind; and supported by the assurance of an archbishop, she was in all likelihood deep in lying before she actually knew it.  Fanaticism and deceit are strangely near relations to each other, and the deceiver is often the person first deceived, and the last who is aware of the imposture.

The instructions of the Father had made her acquainted with many stories of miraculous cures.  The Catholic saints followed the type of the apostles, and to heal diseases by supernatural means was a more orthodox form of credential than clairvoyance or second sight.  Being now cured of her real disorder, yet able to counterfeit the appearance of it, she could find no difficulty in arranging in her own case a miracle of the established kind, and so striking an incident would answer a further end.  In the parish was a chapel of the Virgin, which was a place of pilgrimage; the pilgrims added something to the income of the priest; and if, by a fresh demonstration of the Virgin’s presence at the favoured spot, the number of these pilgrims could be increased, they would add more.  For both reasons, therefore, the miracle was desired; and the priest and the monk were agreed that any means were justifiable which would encourage the devotion of the people.[320] Accordingly, the girl announced, in one of her trances, that “she would never take health of her body till such time as she had visited the image of our Lady” in that chapel.