There is also a good deal said about a very questionable blind man—­one Albricus (Alberich?)—­who, having been cured, not of his blindness, but of another disease under which he laboured, took up his quarters at Seligenstadt, and came out as a prophet, inspired by the Archangel Gabriel.  Eginhard intimates that his prophecies were fulfilled; but as he does not state exactly what they were, or how they were accomplished, the statement must be accepted with much caution.  It is obvious that he was not the man to hesitate to “ease” a prophecy until it fitted, if the credit of the shrine of his favourite saints could be increased by such a procedure.  There is no impeachment of his honour in the supposition.  The logic of the matter is quite simple, if somewhat sophistical.  The holiness of the church of the martyrs guarantees the reality of the appearance of the Archangel Gabriel there; and what the archangel says must be true.  Therefore, if anything seem to be wrong, that must be the mistake of the transmitter; and, in justice to the archangel, it must be suppressed or set right.  This sort of “reconciliation” is not unknown in quite modern times, and among people who would be very much shocked to be compared with a “benighted papist” of the ninth century.

The readers of this essay are, I imagine, very largely composed of people who would be shocked to be regarded as anything but enlightened Protestants.  It is not unlikely that those of them who have accompanied me thus far may be disposed to say, “Well, this is all very amusing as a story, but what is the practical interest of it?  We are not likely to believe in the miracles worked by the spolia of SS.  Marcellinus and Petrus, or by those of any other saints in the Roman Calendar.”

The practical interest is this:  if you do not believe in these miracles recounted by a witness whose character and competency are firmly established, whose sincerity cannot be doubted, and who appeals to his sovereign and other contemporaries as witnesses of the truth of what he says, in a document of which a MS. copy exists, probably dating within a century of the author’s death, why do you profess to believe in stories of a like character, which are found in documents of the dates and of the authorship of which nothing is certainly determined, and no known copies of which come within two or three centuries of the events they record?  If it be true that the four Gospels and the Acts were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all that we know of these persons comes to nothing in comparison with our knowledge of Eginhard; and not only is there no proof that the traditional authors of these works wrote them, but very strong reasons to the contrary may be alleged.  If, therefore, you refuse to believe that “Wiggo” was cast out of the possessed girl on Eginhard’s authority, with what justice can you profess to believe that the legion of devils were cast out of the man among the tombs of the Gadarenes?  And if, on