ST. ANTHONY.

ST. ANTHONY.St. Anthony’s father was accused of murder, and as facts seemed against him, he was condemned to be executed.St. Anthony was preaching in the pulpit as his father was taken to the scaffold. ‘Allow me to stop for a minute to take breath,’ he said, and he made a minute’s pause in the midst of his discourse, and then went on again.But in that minute’s pause, though no one in church had lost sight of him, he had gone on to the scaffold.‘What are you doing to that man?’ he asked.‘He has committed a murder, and is going to be executed.’‘He has murdered no one. Bring hither the dead man.’No one knew who it was that spoke, but they felt impelled to obey him nevertheless.When the dead man’s body was brought, St. Anthony said to him:—‘Is this the man who killed you? say!’The dead man opened his eyes and looked at the accused.‘Oh, no; that’s not the man at all!’ he said.‘And you, where are you?’ continued St. Anthony.‘I should be in Paradise, but that there is a ground of excommunication on me, therefore am I in Purgatory,’ answered the dead man. Then St. Anthony put his ear down,and bid him tell him the matter of the excommunication; and, when he had confessed it, he released him from the bond, and he went straight to Paradise. The father of St. Anthony, too, was pronounced innocent, and set free.And all the while no one had missed St. Anthony from the pulpit!2SANT’ ANTONIO E SORA1CASTITRE.I too know a story about St. Anthony.St. Anthony was a fair youth, as you will always see in his portraits. As he went about preaching there was a young woman who began to admire him very much, and her name was Sora Castitre. Whenever she could find out in which direction he was going she would put herself in his way and try to speak to him. St. Anthony at first kept his eyes fixed on the ground, and took no notice of her; then he tried to make her desist by rebuking her, but she ceased not to follow him.Then he thought to himself, with all a saint’s compunction, ‘It is not she who is to blame, and who is worthy of rebuke, but I, who have been the occasion of sin to her. God grant that sin be not imputed to her through loving me.’The next time she met him, it was in a deserted part of the Campagna.‘Brother Antonio, come along with me down this path. No one will see us there,’ said Sora Castitre.Much to her surprise, instead of pursuing the severe tone he had always adopted towards her, St. Anthony greeted her and smiled with a smile which filled her with a joy different from anything she had known before. What was more, he seemed to follow her, and she led on.But as she went the way seemed quite changed. She knew well the retired path by which she had meant to lead him, but now everything around looked different; not onelandmark was the same. Yet ‘how could it be different?’ she said within herself; and she led on.What was her astonishment, when, instead of finding it terminate in a rocky gorge as she had found before, there rose before her presently an austere building surrounded with walls and gates!St. Anthony stepped forward as they reached the gate. A nun opened to them, and St. Anthony asked for the mother abbess. ‘I have brought you a maiden,’ he said, ‘whom I recommend to your affectionate and tender care.’ The mother abbess promised to make her her special charge, and St. Anthony went his way, first calling the maiden aside and charging her with this one petition he would have her make:‘I have sinned; have mercy on me.’Then St. Anthony went back to his convent and called all the brethren together, and asked them all to pray very earnestly all through the night, and in the morning tell him what manifestation they had had.The brethren promised to comply; and in the morning they all told him they had seen a little spark of light shining in the darkness.‘It suffices not, my brethren!’ said St. Anthony; ‘continue your charity and pray on instantly this night also.’The brethren promised compliance; and in the morning they all told him they had seen a pale streak of light stealing away towards heaven.‘It suffices not, my brethren!’ said St. Anthony; ‘of your charity pray on yet again this night also.’The brethren promised compliance; and in the morning they told him they had all seen a blaze of light, and in the midst of it a bed on which lay a most beautiful maiden, white2as a lily, carried up to heaven, borne by four shining angels.‘It is well, my brethren!’ replied St. Anthony; ‘your prayers have rendered a soul to the celestial quires.’Afterwards he went to the convent where he had left Sora Castitre, and learnt from the mother abbess that, spending three penitential days saying only, ‘I have sinned; have mercy on me,’ she had rendered up her soul to God in simplicity and fervour.3The legend of St. Anthony preaching to the fishes is well known from paintings, and I do not reproduce it because it was told me with no variation from the usual form. But another legend, which early pictures have rendered equally familiar, I received with an anachronistic addition which is worth putting down.4ST. ANTHONY AND THE HOLY CHILD.3St. Anthony had been sent a long way off to preach;4by the way fatigue overtook him, and he found hospitality for a few days in a monastery by the way. Later in the evening came a Protestant5and asked hospitality, and he also was received, because you know there are many Protestants who are very good; and, besides that, if the man needed hospitality the monks would give it, whoever he might be.The monks were all in their cells by an early hour in the evening, but the Protestant walked up and down the corridors smoking.Suddenly through the cracks and the keyhole and all round the lintel of the door he saw a bright light issue where anon all was dark; it seemed as if the cell was on fire. ‘One of the good monks has set fire to his bedclothes!’ he said, and looked through the keyhole. What did he see? on the open book from which a father who was kneeling before it had been taking his meditationsstood a beautiful Child whom it filled you with love to look at, and from Whom shone a light too bright to bear.Anxious to obtain a better view of the glorious sight the Protestant knocked at the door; St. Anthony, for it was he, called to him to come in; but instantly the vision vanished.‘Who was that Child who was talking to you?’ asked the Protestant.‘The Divine Infant!’ answered St. Anthony with the greatest simplicity.The next night the Protestant, curious to know if the Child would appear again, again walked up and down the corridor smoking, keeping his eye on the door of St. Anthony’s cell; nor was it long before the same sight met his eye, but this time he was led to prolong his converse with the saint. The next night there was the same prodigy, and that night they sat up all night talking.When morning came he told the father abbot he wished to make his adjuration and join the order, and he finally took the habit in that monastery.5They say there was once a poor man who had paid what he owed for his ground. You know the way is, that when a man has gathered in his harvest and turned a little money then he pays off what he owes. This man paid for his ground as soon as he had made something by his harvest, but the seller did not give him any receipt. Soon after the owner died, and his son came to ask for the money over again. ‘But I paid your father,’ said the poor man. ‘Then show your receipt,’ said the son. ‘But he didn’t give me one,’ answered the poor man. ‘Then you must pay me,’ insisted the new proprietor.‘What shall I do! what shall I do!’ exclaimed the poor man in despair. ‘St. Anthony, help me!’ He hadhardly said the words when he saw a friar6coming towards him.‘What’s the matter, good man?’ said the friar, ‘that you are so distressed: tell me.’ And the poor man told him all the story of his distress.‘Shall I tell you how to get the receipt?’ asked the friar.‘Indeed, indeed!’7exclaimed the poor man, ‘that would be the making of me; but it’s more than you can do—the man is dead!’‘Never mind that. You do what I tell you,’ said the monk. ‘Go straight along that path;’ and the man saw that where he pointed was a path that had never been there before. ‘Follow that path,’ said the monk, ‘and you will come to a casino with great iron gates which shut and open of themselves continually. You must watch the moment when they are open and go boldly in. Inside you will see a big room and a man sitting at a table writing ceaselessly and casting accounts. That is your landlord; ask him for the receipt and he won’t dare withhold it now. But mind one thing. Don’t touch a single article in the room, whatever you do.’The poor man went along the path, and found all as the monk had told him.‘How did you get here?’ exclaimed the landlord, as soon as he recognised him; and the poor man told him how he had been sent and why he was come. The landlord sat at his desk writing with the greatest expedition, as if some one was whipping him on, and knitting his brows over his sums as if they were more than his brain could calculate; nevertheless, he took a piece of paper and wrote the receipt, and moreover he wrote two or three lines more on another piece of paper, which he bade him give to his son.The poor man promised to deliver it, and turned to go; but as he went could not forbear putting his hand over the polished surface of a table he had to pass, unmindful of the charge the monk had given him not totouch anything. His hand was no sooner in contact with the table than the whole skin was burnt off, and he understood that he was in Hell. With all expedition he watched the turn of the door opening, and hastened out.‘What have you got about your hand?’ asked St. Anthony when the man came back, for the friar was none other than St. Anthony.‘I touched one of the tables in that house,’ he answered, ‘forgetting what you told me, and burnt my hand so badly I had to dip this cloth in a river as I came by and tie it up. But I have the receipt, thanks to you.’ So St. Anthony touched his hand and healed it, and he saw him no more.Then the man took the letter to the old lord’s son. ‘Why, this is my father’s writing!’ he exclaimed; ‘and my father is dead. How did you come by it?’ And he told him. And the letter said: ‘Behold, I am in Hell! But you, mend your ways; give money to the poor; compensate this man for the trouble he has had; and be just to all, lest you also come hither.’Then the old landlord’s son gave the man a large sum of money to compensate him for his anxieties, and sent him away consoled.1‘Sora’ in this place does not mean ‘sister’; it is an expression in Roman vernacular for which we have no equivalent, and is applied to respectable persons of the lower class who do not aspire to be called ‘Signora,’ ‘Mrs.,’ or ‘Miss,’ as with us. ‘Sor’ or ‘Ser’ is the masculine equivalent; we had it in use at p. 194.↑2The word used was ‘candida,’ and not ‘bianca,’ as expressive of purest white.↑3‘Sant’ Antonio ed il Santo Bambino.’↑4I believe St. Anthony was never in Rome; but his genial winning character made him so popular that the people speak of him as one of themselves.↑5St. Anthony’s date is 1195–1231; so the idea of making his observer a Protestant, and a smoker to boot, is very quaint, and is an instance of how chronological order gets confused by tradition.↑6‘Fraticello’; ‘good little friar.’ An affectionate way of speaking of Franciscans often used.↑7‘Magàri!’ a very strong form of ‘indeed.’↑ST. MARGARET OF CORTONA.St. Margaret wasn’t always a saint, you must know: in her youth she was very much the reverse. She had a very cruel stepmother, who worried her to death,1and gave her work she was unequal to do.One day her stepmother had sent her out to tie up bundles of hay. As she was so engaged a Count came by, and he stopped to look at her, for she was rarely beautiful.2‘What hard work for such pretty little hands,’ he began by saying; and after many tender words had been exchanged he proposed that she should go home with him, where her life would be the reverse of the suffering existence she had now to endure.Margaret consented at once, for her stepmother, besides working her hard, had neglected to form her to proper sentiments of virtue.The count took her to his villa at a place called Monte Porciana, a good way from Cortona. Here her life was indeed a contrast to what it had been at home at Cortona. Instead of having to work, she had plenty of servants to wait upon her; her dress and her food were all in the greatest luxury, and she was supplied with everything she wished for. Sometimes as she went to the theatre, decked out in her gay attire, and knowing that she was a scandal to all, she would say in mirth and wantonness, ‘Who knows whether one day I may not be stuck up there on high in the churches, like some of those saints? As strange things have happened ere now!’ But she only said it in wantonness. So she went on enjoying life, and when their son was born there was nothing more she desired.In the midst of this gay existence, word was brought her one evening that the Count, who had gone out that morning full of health and spirits to the hunt, had beenovertaken and assassinated, and as all had been afraid to pursue the murderers, they knew not where his body was.Margaret was thrown into a frenzy3at the news; her fine clothing and her rich fare gave her little pleasure now. All amusement and frivolity were put out of sight; and she sat on her sofa and stared before her, for she had no heart to turn to anything that could distract her thoughts from her great loss. Then one day—it might have been three days after—a favourite dog belonging to the count came limping and whining up to her. Margaret rose immediately; she knew that the dog would take her to the count’s body, and she rose up and motioned to him to go: and the dog, all glad to return to his master, ran on before. All the household were too much afraid of the assassins to venture in their way, so Margaret went forth alone. It was a long rough way; but the dog ran on, and Margaret kept on as well as her broken strength would admit. At last they came to a brake where the dog stopped, and now whined no longer but howled piteously.Margaret knew that they had reached the object of their search, and it was indeed here the assassins had hidden the body. Moving away with her own hands the leaves and branches with which they had covered it over, the fearful sight of her lover’s mangled body lay before her. The condition into which the wounds and the lapse of time had brought it was more than she could bear to look at, and she swooned away on the spot.When she came to herself all the course of her thoughts was changed. She saw what her life had been; the sense of the scandal she had given was more to her even than her own distracting grief. As the most terrible penance she could think of, she resolved to go back to her stepmother and endure her hard treatment, sharpened by the invectives with which she knew it would now be seasoned.Taking with her her son, she went to her, therefore, and with the greatest submission of manner entreated to be readmitted. But not even this would the stepmother grant her, but drove her away from the door. She then turned to her father, but he was bound to say the same as his wife. She now saw there was one misery worse than harsh treatment, and that was penury—starvation, not only for herself, but her child.Little she cared what became of her, but for the child something must be done. What did she do? She went and put on a sackcloth dress,4tied about the waist with a rope, and she went to the church at the high mass time; and when mass was over she stood on the altar step, and told all the people she was Margaret of Cortona, who had given so much scandal, and now was come to show her contrition for it.Her sufferings had gone up before God. As she spoke her confession so humbly before all the people, the count’s mother rose from her seat, and, coming up to her, threw her handkerchief over her head5—for she was bareheaded—and led her away to her home.She would only accept her hospitality on condition of being allowed to live in a little room apart, with no more furniture than a nun’s cell. Here she lived twelve years of penance, till her boy was old enough to choose his state in life. He elected to be a Dominican, and afterwards became a Preacher of the Apostolic Palace; and she entered a Franciscan convent, where she spent ten more years of penance, till God took her to Himself.She cut off all her long hair when she went to live in her cell at the house of the count’s mother, that she might not again be an occasion of sin to anyone. And after that, when she found she was still a subject of human admiration, she cut off her lips, that no one might admire her again.61‘La strapazzava,’ a word particularly applied to overworking a horse.↑2‘Di una rara bellezza.’↑3‘Era disperata.’↑4‘Un sacco crudo,’ a loose garment made of harsh sackcloth that had not been dressed.↑5Handkerchiefs are used so habitually for tying up parcels in Rome, that the narrator thought it worth while to specify that this one was a ‘fazzaletto di naso.’↑6The life is thus given in Butler:—‘Margaret was a native of Alviano in Tuscany. The harshness of a stepmother and her own indulged propension to vice cast her headlong into the greatest disorders. The sight of the carcase of a man, half-putrefied, who had been her gallant, struck her with so great a fear of the Divine judgments, and with so deep a sense of the treachery of the world, that she in a moment became a perfect penitent. The first thing she did was to throw herself at her father’s feet, bathed in tears, to beg his pardon for her contempt of his authority and fatherly admonitions. She spent the days and nights in tears; and to repair the scandal she had given by her crimes, she went to the parish church of Alviano with a rope about her neck, and there asked public pardon for them. After this she repaired to Cortona and made her most penitent confession to a father of the Order of S. Francis, who admired the great sentiments of compunction with which she was filled, and prescribed her austerities and practices suitable to her fervour. Her conversion happened in the year 1274, the twenty-fifth of her age.... This model of true penitents, after twenty-three years spent in severe penance, twenty of them in the religious habit, being worn out by austerities and consumed by the fire of divine love, died on the 22nd of February 1297.’↑ST. THEODORA.When Santa Teodora was young she was married, and lived very happily with her husband, for they were both very fond of each other.But there was a count who saw her and fell in love with her, and tried his utmost to get an opportunity of telling her his affection, but she was so prudent that he could not approach her. So what did he do? he went to a bad old woman1and told her that he would give her ever so much money if she would get him the opportunity of meeting her. The old wretch acceptedthe commission willingly, and put all her bad arts in requisition to make Theodora forget her duty. For a long time Theodora refused to listen to her and sent her away, but she went on finding excuses to come to her, and again and again urged her persuasions and excited her curiosity so that finally she consented that he might just come and see her, and the witch woman assured her that was all he asked. But what he wanted was the opportunity of speaking his own story into her ear, and when that was given him he pushed his suit so successfully that it wasn’t only once he came, but many times.Yet it was not a very long time before a day came when Theodora saw how wrong she had been, and then, seized with compunction, she determined to go away and hide herself where she would never be heard of more. Before her husband came home she cut off all her hair, and putting on a coarse dress she went to a Capuchin monastery and asked admission.‘What is your name?’ asked the Superior.‘Theodore,’ she replied.‘You seem too young for our severe rule,’ he continued; ‘you seem a mere boy;’ but she expressed such sincere sentiments of contrition as showed him she was worthy to embrace their life of penance.The Devil was very much vexed to see what a perfect penitent she made, and he stirred up the other monks to suspect her of all manner of things; but they could find no fault against her, nor did they ever suspect that she was a woman.One day when she was sent with another brother to beg for the convent a storm overtook them in a wood, and they were obliged to seek the shelter of a cottage there was on the borders of the wood where they were belated. ‘There is room in the stable for one of you,’ said the peasant who lived there; ‘but that other one who looks so young and so delicate’ (he meant Theodora) ‘must sleepindoors, and the only place is the loft where my daughter sleeps; but it can’t be helped.’ Theodora, therefore, slept in the loft and the monk in the stable, and in the morning when the weather was fair they went back to their convent. Months passed away, and the incident was almost forgotten, when one day the peasant came to the monastery and rang the bell in a great fury, and he laid down at the entrance a bundle in which was a baby. ‘That young monk of yours is the father of this child,’ he said, ‘and you ought to turn him out of the convent.’ Then the Superior sent for ‘Theodore,’ and repeated what the peasant had said.‘Surely God has sent me this new penance because the life I lead here is not severe enough,’ she said. ‘He has sent me this further punishment that all the community should think me guilty.’ Therefore she would not justify herself, but accepted the accusation and took the baby and went away. Her only way of living now was to get a night’s lodging how she could, and come every day to the convent gate with the child and live on the dole that was distributed there to the poor. What a life for her who had been brought up delicately in her own palace!She was not allowed to rest, however, even so, for people took offence because she was permitted to remain so near the monastery, and the monks had to send her away. So she went to seek the shelter of a wood, and to labour to find the means of living for herself and the child in the roots and herbs she could pick up. But one of the monks one day found her there, and saw her so emaciated that he told the Superior, and he let her come back to receive the dole.At last she died, and when they came to bury her they found she had in one hand a written paper so tightly clasped that no one had the strength to unclose it; and there she lay on her bier in the church looking so sad andworn, yet as sweetly fair as she had looked in life, and with the written paper tightly grasped in her closed hand.Now when her husband found that she had left his palace the night she went away he left no means untried to discover where she was; and when he had made inquiries and sent everywhere, and could learn no tidings whatever, he put on pilgrim’s weeds and went out to seek for her everywhere himself.It so happened that he came into the city where she died just as she was thus laid on her bier in the church. In spite of her male attire he knew her; in the midst of his grief he noticed the written paper she held. Tohistouch her hand opened instantly, and in the scroll was found recorded all she had done and all she had suffered.1‘Vecchiaccia’; the additionacciaimplies that she was bad: probably a witch was intended.↑NUN BEATRICE.1Nun Beatrice had not altogether the true spirit of a religious: she was somewhat given to vanity;2though but for this she was a good nun, and full of excellent dispositions. She held the office of portress;3and, as she determined to go away out of her convent and return into the world, this seemed to afford her a favourable opportunity for carrying out her design. Accordingly, one day when the house was very quiet, and there seemed no danger of being observed, having previously contrived to secrete some secular clothes such as passed through her hands to keep in store for giving to the poor, she let herself out and went away.In the parlour was a kneeling-desk with a picture of Our Lady hanging over it, where she had been wont to kneel and hold converse with Our Lady in prayer whenever she had a moment to spare. On this desk she laidthe keys before she went, thinking it was a safe place for the Superior to find them; and she commended them to the care of Our Lady, whose picture hung above, and said, ‘Keep thou the keys, and let no harm come to this good house and my dear sisters.’As she said the words Our Lady looked at her with a glance of reproach, enough to have melted her heart and made her return to a better mood had she seen it; but she was too full of her own thoughts and the excitement of her undertaking to notice anything. No sooner was she gone out, however, than Our Lady, walking out of the canvas, assumed the dress that she had laid aside, and, tying the keys to her girdle, assumed the office of portress.With the habit of the portress Our Lady also assumed her semblance; so that no one noticed the exchange, except that all remarked how humble, how modest, how edifying Beatrice had become.After a time the nuns began to say it was a pity so perfect a nun should be left in so subordinate a position, and they made her therefore Mistress of the Novices. This office she exercised with as great perfection, according to its requirements, as she had the other; and so sweetly did she train the young nuns entrusted to her direction that all the novices became saints.Beatrice meantime had gone to live in the world as a secular; and though she often repented of what she had done, she had not the courage to go back and tell all. She prayed for courage, but she went on delaying. While she was in this mind it so happened one day that the factor4of the convent came to the house where she was living. What strange and moving memories of her peaceful home filled her mind as she saw his well-known form, though he did not recognise her in her secular dress! What an opportunity too, she thought, to learn what was the feeling of the community towards her, and what had been said of her escape!‘I hope all your nuns are well,’ she said. ‘I used to live in their neighbourhood once, and there was one of them I used to know, Suora5Beatrice. How is she now?’‘Sister Beatrice!’ said the factor. ‘She is the model of perfection, the example of the whole house. Everybody is ready to worship her. With all respect to the Church, which never canonizes the living, no one doubts she is a saint indeed.’‘It cannot be the same,’ answered Beatrice. ‘The one I knew was anything but a saint, though I loved her well, and should like to have news of her.’ And she hardly knew how to conceal the astonishment with which she was seized at hearing him speak thus; for the event on which she expected him to enlarge at once was the extraordinary fact of her escape. But he pursued in the same quiet way as before. ‘Oh yes, it must be the same. There has never been but one of the name since I have known the convent. She was portress some time ago; but latterly she has been made Mistress of the Novices.’There was nothing more to be learnt from him; so she pursued her inquiries no further. But he had no sooner had start enough to put him at a safe distance, than she set out to go to the convent and see this Sister Beatrice who so strangely represented her.Arrived at the convent door, she asked to see Sister Beatrice, and in a very few minutes the Mistress of the Novices entered the parlour.The presence of the new Mistress of the Novices filled Beatrice with an awe she could not account for; and, without waiting to ask herself why, she fell on her knees before her.‘It is well you have come back, my child,’ said Our Lady; ‘resume your dress, which I have worn for you; go in to the convent again, and do penance, and keep up the good name I have earned for you.’With that Our Lady returned to the canvas; Beatriceresumed her habit, and strove so earnestly to form herself by the model of perfection Our Lady had set while wearing it, that in a few months she became a saint.[Mr. Ralston gives a Russian story (pp. 249–50), in which St. Nicholas comes in person and serves a man who has been devout to his picture.]1‘La Monica Beatrice.’‘Monica,’ provincialism or vulgarism for ‘monaca,’ a nun.↑2‘Albagia,’ self-esteem, vanity.↑3‘Rotara,’ equivalent to portress; it alludes to her having charge of the ‘ruota,’ or ‘turniquet,’ through which things are passed in and out and messages conveyed through a convent-wall, without the nun having to present herself at the door.↑4‘Fattore,’ an agent employed by most convents to attend to their secular affairs.↑5‘Suora’ is the received word for a ‘Sister’ in a convent. ‘Sister,’ the natural relationship, is ‘Sorella.’↑PADRE FILIPPO.[St. Philip Neri is a giant indeed in the household memories of the Roman poor. His acts have become travestied and magnified among them in the most portentous way, and they always talk of him with the most patriotic enthusiasm. ‘He was a Roman!—a Roman indeed!’ they will say. And yet he was not a born Roman, but was made ‘Protector of Rome’ by the Church.‘Padre Filippo’ is their favourite way of naming him, and sometimes ‘il buon Filippo’ and ‘Pippo buono.’]1There was in Padre Filippo’s time a cardinal who was Prefect of the provisions,1who let everything go wrong and attended to nothing, and the poor were all suffering because provisions got so dear.Padre Filippo went to the Pope—Papa Medici2it was—and told him how badly off the poor were; so the Pope called the Cardinal to account, and went on making him attend to it till Padre Filippo told him that things were on a better footing.But the Cardinal came to Padre Filippo and said:‘Why do you vex me by going and making mischief to the Pope?’But Padre Filippo, instead of being frightened at his anger, rose up and said:‘Come here and I will show you what is the fate of those who oppress and neglect the poor. Come here Eminentissimo, and look,’ and he took him to the window and asked him what he saw.The Cardinal looked, and he saw a great fire of Hell, and the souls writhing in it. The Cardinal said no more and went away, but not long after he gave up being a cardinal and became a simple brother under Padre Filippo.[Who this cardinal may have been I do not know, but the story was told me another time in this form:—]1AThere was a cardinal—Gastaldi was his name—who went a good deal into society to the neglect of more important duties. One evening, when he was at a conversazione, Padre Filippo came to the house where he was and had him called out to him in an empty room.‘Your Eminence! come to this window, I have something to show you.’The Cardinal came to the window and looked out, and instead of the houses he saw Hell opened and all the souls3in the flames; a great serpent was wriggling in and out among them and biting them, and in the midst was a gilt cardinalitial chair.‘Who is that seat for?’ inquired the Cardinal.‘It is placed there for your Eminence,’ replied St. Philip.‘What must I do to escape it?’ exclaimed the Cardinal, horrified and self-convicted.Padre Filippo read him a lecture on penitence and amendment of life, and for the practical part of his advice warned him to devote to good works moneys he had been too fond of heaping up. The Cardinal after this became very devout, and the poor were great gainers by St. Philip’s instructions to him, and the two churches you see at the end of the Corso and Babbuino in Piazza del Popolo were also built by him with the money Padre Filippo had warned him to spend aright, and you may see his arms up there any day for yourself.42Some of their stories of him are jocose. There was a young married lady who was a friend of the Order, and had done it much good. She was very much afraid of the idea of her confinement as the time approached and said she could never endure it. Padre Filippo knew how good she was and felt great compassion for her.‘Never mind, my child,’ said the ‘good Philip’; ‘I will take all your pain on myself.’Time passed away, and one night the community was very much surprised to hear ‘good Philip’ raving and shouting with pain; he who voluntarily submitted to every penance without a word, and whom they had often seen so patient in illness. That same night the lady’s child was born and she felt no pain at all.Early next morning she sent to tell him that her child was born, and to ask how he was.‘Tell her I am getting a little better now,’ said ‘good Philip,’ ‘but I never suffered anything like it before. Next time, mind, she must manage her affairs for herself. For never willIinterfere5with anything ofthatsort again.’3Another who had no child was very anxious to have one, and came to Padre Filippo to ask him to pray for her that she might have one. Padre Filippo promised to pray for her; but instead of a child there was only a shapeless thing. She sent for Padre Filippo once more, therefore, and said:‘There! that’s all your prayers have brought!’‘Oh never mind!’ said Padre Filippo; and he took it and shaped it (the narrator twisted up a large towel and showed how he formed first one leg then the other, then the arms, then the head, as if she had seen him do it). Then he knelt down by the side and prayed while he told them to keep silence, and it opened its eyes and cried, and the mother was content.[His winning and practical ways of dealing with his penitents afford an endless theme of anecdote, but some have grown to most extravagant proportions. The following shows how, as in all legends, mysteries are made to wear a material form. The fact that on some occasions he satisfied some, whom no one else could satisfy, of the boundless mercy of God, is brought to proof in such a tangible way as to provoke the denial it was invented to silence.]4There was a man who was dying, and would not have a priest near him. He said he had so many sins on him it was impossible God could forgive him, so it was no use bothering himself about confessing. His wife and his children begged and entreated him to let them send for a priest, but he would not listen to them.So they sent for Padre Filippo, and as he was a friend he said:‘If he comes as a visitor he may come in, but not as a priest.’Good Philip sat down by his side and said:‘A visitor may ask a question. Why won’t you let me come as a priest?’The sick man gave the same answer as before.‘Now you’re quite mistaken,’ said St. Philip, ‘and I’ll show you something.’Then he called for paper and pen and wrote a note.‘Padre Eterne!’ he wrote. ‘Can a man’s sins be forgiven?’ and he folded it, and away it went of itself right up to heaven.An hour later, as they were all sitting there, another note came back all by itself, written in shining letters of gold, and it said:—‘Padre Eterne forgives and receives everyone who is penitent.’The sick man resisted no longer after that; he made his confession and received the sacrament, and died consoled in ‘good Philip’s’ arms.5Padre Filippo was walking one day through the streets of Rome when he saw a great crowd very much excited. ‘What’s the matter?’ asked ‘good Philip.’‘There’s a man in that house up there beating his wife fit to kill her, and for nothing at all, for she’s an angel of goodness. Nothing at all, but because she’s so ugly.’Padre Filippo waited till the husband was tired of beating her and had gone out, and all the crowd had dispersed. Then he went up to the room where the poor woman lived, and knocked at the door. ‘Who’s there?’ said the woman.‘Padre Filippo!’ answered ‘good Philip,’ and the woman opened quickly enough when she heard it was Padre Filippo who knocked.But good Philip himself started back with horror when he saw her, she was so ugly. However, he said nothing,but made the sign of the cross over her, and prayed, and immediately she became as beautiful as she had been ugly; but she knew nothing, of course, of the change.‘Your husband won’t beat you any more,’ said good Philip, as he turned to go; ‘only if he asks you who has been here send him to me.’When the husband came home and found his wife had become so beautiful, he kissed her, and was beside himself for joy; and she could not imagine what had made him so different towards her. ‘Who has been here?’ he asked.‘Only Padre Filippo,’ answered the wife; ‘and he said that if you asked I was to tell you to go to him;’ the husband ran off to him to thank him, and to say how sorry he was for having beaten her.But there lived opposite a woman who was also in everything the opposite of this one. She was very handsome, but as bad in conduct as the other was good. However, when she saw the ugly wife become so handsome, she said to herself, ‘If good Philip would only make me a little handsomer than I am, it would be a good thing for me;’ and she went to Padre Filippo and asked him to make her handsomer.Padre Filippo looked at her, and he knew what sort of woman she was, and he raised his hand and made the sign of the cross over her, and prayed, and she became ugly; uglier even than the other woman had been!‘Why have you treated me differently from the other woman?’ exclaimed the woman, for she had brought a glass with her to be able to contemplate the improvement she expected him to make in her appearance.‘Because beauty was of use to her in her state of life,’ answered PadreFilippo. ‘But you have only used the beauty God gave you as an occasion of sin; therefore a stumbling-block have I now removed out of your way.’And he said well, didn’t he?One Easter there came to him a young man of good family to confession, and Padre Filippo knew that every one had tried in vain to make him give up his mistress, and that to argue with him about it was quite useless. So he tried another tack. ‘I know it is such a habit with you to go to see her youcan’tgive it up, so I’m not going to ask you to. You shall go and see her as often as you like, only will you do something to please me?’The young man was very fond of good Philip, and there was nothing he would have not done for him except to give up his mistress; so as he knew that was not in question, he answered ‘yes’ very readily.‘You promise me to do what I say, punctually?’ asked the saint.‘Oh, yes, father, punctually.’‘Very well, then; all I ask is that though you go to her as often as you like, you just pass by this way and come up and pull my bell every time you go; nothing more than that.’The young man did not think it was a very hard injunction, but when it came to performing it he felt its effect. At first he used to go three times a day, but he was so ashamed of ringing the saint’s bell so often, that very soon he went no more than once a day. That dropped to two or three times a week, then once a week, and long before next Easter he had given her up and had become all his parents could wish him to be.7‘There was another such case; just such another, only this man had a wife too, but he was so infatuated with the other, he would have it she loved him the better of the two.’‘Yes; and the other was a miniature-painter,’ broke incorroboratively a kind of charwoman who had come in to tidy the place while we were talking.‘Yes, she was a miniature-painter,’ continued the narrator; ‘but it’s I who am telling the story.’‘Padre Filippo said, “How much do you allow her?”’‘Twenty pauls a day,’ broke in the charwoman.‘Forty scudi a month,’ said the narrator positively.‘There’s not much difference,’ interposed I, fearing I should lose the story between them. ‘Twenty pauls a day is sixty scudi a month. It doesn’t matter.’‘Well, then, Padre Filippo said,’ continued the narrator,‘“Now just to try whether she cares so much about you, you give her thirty scudi a month.”’‘Fifteen pauls a day,’ interposed the charwoman.‘Thirty scudi a month!’ reiterated the narrator.‘Never mind,’ said I. ‘Whatever it was, it was to be reduced.’‘Yes; that’s it,’ pursued the narrator; ‘and he made him go on and on diminishing it. She took it very well at first, suspecting he was trying her, and thinking he would make it up to her afterwards.’‘But when she found he didn’t,’ said the charwoman,‘She turned him out,’ said the narrator, putting her down with a frown. ‘He was so infatuated, however, that even now he was not satisfied, and said that in stopping the money he had been unfair, and she was in the right. So good Philip, who was patience itself, said, “Go and pay her up, and we’ll try her another way. You go and kill a dog, and put it in a bag, and go to her with your hands covered with blood, and let her think you have got into trouble for hurting some one, and ask her to hide you.” So the man went and killed a dog.’‘It was a cat he killed, because he couldn’t find a dog handy,’ said the irrepressible charwoman.‘Nonsense; of course it was a dog,’ asseverated the narrator. ‘But when he went to her house and pretendedto be in a bad way, and asked her to have pity on him, she only answered: “Not I, indeed! I’m not going to get myself into a scrape6with the law, forhim!” and drove him away. And he came and told Padre Filippo.‘“Now,” said good Philip, “go to your wife whom you have abandoned so long. Go to her with the same story, and see what she does for you.”‘The man took the dead dog in the bag, and ran to the lodging where his wife was, and knocked stealthily at her door. “It is I,” he whispered.‘“Come in, husband,” exclaimed the wife, throwing open the door.‘“Stop! hush! take care! don’t touch me!” said the husband. “There’s blood upon me. Save me! hide me! put me somewhere!”‘“It’s so long since you’ve been here, no one will think of coming after you here, so you will be quite safe. Sit down and be composed,” said the wife soothingly; and she poured him out wine to drink.‘But the police were nearer than he fancied. He had thought to finish up the affair in five minutes by explaining all to her. But “the other,” not satisfied with refusing him shelter, had gone and set the police on his track; and here they were after him.‘The wife’s quick ears heard them on the stairs. “Get into this cupboard quick, and leave me to manage them,” she said.‘The husband safely stowed away, she opened the door without hesitation, as if she had nothing to hide. “How can you think he is here?” she said when they asked for him. “Ask any of the neighbours how long it is since he has been here.”‘“Oh, three years,” “four years,” “five,” said various voices of people who had come round at hearing the police arrive.‘“You see you must have come to the wrong place,”she said. And the husband smiled as he heard her standing out for him so bravely.‘Her determined manner had satisfied the police; and they were just turning to go when one of them saw tell-tale spots of blood on the floor that had dropped from the dead dog. The track was followed to the cupboard, and the man dragged to prison. It was in vain that he assured them he had killed nothing but a dog.‘“Ha! that will be the faithful dog of the murdered man,” said the police. “We shan’t be long before we find the body of the man himself!”‘The wife was distracted at finding her husband, who had but so lately come back to her, was to be taken away again; and he could discern how real was her distress.‘“Go to Padre Filippo, and he will set all right,” said the husband as they carried him away. The woman went to Padre Filippo, and he explained all, amid the laughter of the Court. But the husband went back to his wife, and never left her any more after that.’[The story was told me another time with this variation, that the penitent was a peasant7who came up to Rome with his ass, and tied it to a pillar set up for the purpose outside the church, while he went in to confess. The first time he went, St. Philip told him he must have nothing more to do with the occasion of sin, who in this case was a spinner instead of a miniature-painter. The peasant was so angry with the advice that he stayed away from confession a whole year. At the end of the year he came back. St. Philip received him with open arms, saying he had been praying ever since for his return to a better mind. The sum that formed the sliding-scale that was to open his eyes to the mercenary nature of the affection he had so much prized, was calculated at a lower rate than the other; but the rest of the story was the same.]8‘Ah, there’s plenty to be said about Padre Filippo,’ said the charwoman; and I should have liked to put herunder examination, but that it would have been a breach of hospitality, as the other evidently did not like the interruption; so I was obliged to be satisfied with the testimony she had already afforded of the popularity of the saint. ‘Ha, good Padre Filippo, he was content to eat “black bread” like us’; and she took a hunch out of her pocket to show me; (it was only like our ‘brown bread.’)‘There was no lack where he was. Once I know, with half a rubbio8of corn, he made enough to last all the community ten years,’ she, however, ran on to say before she could be dismissed.9One day Padre Filippo was going over Ponte S. Angelo, when he met two little boys who seemed to attract his notice. ‘Forty-two years hence you will be made a cardinal,’ he said to one, as he gave him a friendly tap with his walking-stick. ‘And that other one,’ he added, turning to his companion, ‘will be dead in two years.’And so it came true exactly.10There was another peasant who, when he came into Rome on a Sunday morning, always went to the church where St. Philip was.9‘You quite weary10one with your continual preaching about the Blessed Sacrament. I’m so tired of hearing about it, that I declare to you I don’t care so much about it as my mule does about a sack of corn.’ Padre Filippo preferred convincing people in some practical way to going into angry discussions with them; so he did not say very much in answer to the countryman’s remarks, but asked him the name of his village. Not long after he went down to this village to preach; and had a pretty little altar erected on a hill-side, and set up the Blessed Sacrament in Exposition. Then he went and found out the same countryman, and said, ‘Now bringa sack of corn near where the altar is, and let’s see what the mule does.’ The countryman placed a sack of corn near the altar, and drove the mule by to see what it would do.The mule kicked aside the sack of corn, and fell down on its knees before the altar; and the man, seeing the token, went to confession to St. Philip, and never said anything profane any more.11There were two other fellows11who were more profane still, and who said one to the other, ‘They make such a fuss about Padre Filippo and his miracles, I warrant it’s all nonsense. Let’s watch till he passes, and one of us pretend to be dead and see if he finds it out.’So said so done. ‘What is your companion lying on the ground for?’ said St. Philip as he passed. ‘He’s dead! Father,’ replied the other. ‘Dead, is he?’ said Padre Filippo; ‘then you must go for a bier for him.’ He had no sooner passed on than the man burst out laughing, expecting his companion to join his mirth. But his companion didn’t move. ‘Why don’t you get up?’ he said, and gave him a kick; but he made no sign. When he bent down to look at him he found he was really dead; and he had to go for the bier.[Cancellieri has collected some curious incidents (‘Morcato,’ p. 210–12, Appendix N. xxii.) concerning an attempt which was made by Princess Anne Colonna to obtain from Urban VIII. the authority to remove a part of the Saint’s body to her chapel at Naples. The Fathers of the Oratory and the people were greatly averse to dividing it, as it was very well preserved in its entirety. By a fatality, which the people readily believed to be providential, Monsig. Moraldo, who was charged to bring the matter under the Pope’s notice, forgot it every time he was in attendance on the Pope, though it was the most important thing he had to say. At last he put the Bull concerning it out on his desk that he might be sure to remember it, though otherwise he would have kept it concealed, for it bore the endorsement, ‘Per levare (to remove) parte del corpo di S. Filippo Neri.’ While he was talking about it to one of the papal secretaries standing near the window, a priest, who had come about other matters, was shown in, and thus happened to pass by the side of the table when the endorsement of the Bull caught his eye. With all a Roman’s desire to preserve the body to Rome intact, he immediately gave notice at the Oratory, and two courageous young fathers took upon themselves to hide the body. When the prelates, therefore, came shortly after to claim the fulfilment of the Bull, the Rector opened the shrine in good faith, but the body was not there, and the report ran among the vulgar that it had been miraculously removed. Subsequently the Rector gave themthe heart, and drew a tooth of the Saint, which was a verbal compliance with the terms of the Bull, being certainly ‘a part of the body.’ Some years after, the body was restored to its shrine, and in 1743 Prince Chigi provided it with velvets and brocades to the value of 1,000 scudi.]1‘Grascia e annòna’ are two old words meaning all kinds of meat and vegetable (including grain) food. It was the title of one department of the local administration. There was a great dearth in Rome in the year 1590–1, mentioned in the histories of the times. It is probable the people would ascribe to the head of the department the fault of the calamity.↑2These people generally call the popes by their family names. This ‘Papa Medici’ would be Pius IV., who reigned from 1559 to 1566.↑3‘Brutte anime,’ ‘ugly souls.’↑4All legends have doubtless some foundation in fact; but unfortunately for the detail of this one, the arms up in the façade of the said Churches, ‘Dei Miracoli’ and ‘di Monte Santo’—are the arms of a Cardinal Gastaldi or Castaldi, who rebuilt them about a hundred years later than St. Philip’s time. Alexander VII. having rebuilt the Flaminian Gate, or Porta del Popolo, the insignificance of these two churches became more noticeable than before; buthe did not survive to carry out his intention of rebuilding them. This was subsequently performed by Cardinal Gastaldi.—Maroni, xii. 147, xxviii. 185; Panciroli, 169; Melchiorri, 254 and 420.↑5‘Impicciare,’ ‘entangle myself with,’ ‘interfere with’—a very favourite Romanism.↑6‘Impicciare,’ again here.↑7‘Campagnola,’ a peasant of the Campagna near Rome.↑8Arubbiois between four and five acres.↑9St. Philip lived and taught for thirty-three years at the Church of S. Girolamo della Carità, not very far from the vegetable market in Campo de’ Fiori, all the streets about containing shops much frequented by the country people when they come up to Rome with their vegetables.↑10‘Scocciare,’ to persevere to weariness; to din.↑11‘Vassalli,’ in the older dictionaries ‘vassallo’ is only defined as a vassal; but in modern Roman parlance it means a scamp, a vagabond.↑

ST. ANTHONY.St. Anthony’s father was accused of murder, and as facts seemed against him, he was condemned to be executed.St. Anthony was preaching in the pulpit as his father was taken to the scaffold. ‘Allow me to stop for a minute to take breath,’ he said, and he made a minute’s pause in the midst of his discourse, and then went on again.But in that minute’s pause, though no one in church had lost sight of him, he had gone on to the scaffold.‘What are you doing to that man?’ he asked.‘He has committed a murder, and is going to be executed.’‘He has murdered no one. Bring hither the dead man.’No one knew who it was that spoke, but they felt impelled to obey him nevertheless.When the dead man’s body was brought, St. Anthony said to him:—‘Is this the man who killed you? say!’The dead man opened his eyes and looked at the accused.‘Oh, no; that’s not the man at all!’ he said.‘And you, where are you?’ continued St. Anthony.‘I should be in Paradise, but that there is a ground of excommunication on me, therefore am I in Purgatory,’ answered the dead man. Then St. Anthony put his ear down,and bid him tell him the matter of the excommunication; and, when he had confessed it, he released him from the bond, and he went straight to Paradise. The father of St. Anthony, too, was pronounced innocent, and set free.And all the while no one had missed St. Anthony from the pulpit!2SANT’ ANTONIO E SORA1CASTITRE.I too know a story about St. Anthony.St. Anthony was a fair youth, as you will always see in his portraits. As he went about preaching there was a young woman who began to admire him very much, and her name was Sora Castitre. Whenever she could find out in which direction he was going she would put herself in his way and try to speak to him. St. Anthony at first kept his eyes fixed on the ground, and took no notice of her; then he tried to make her desist by rebuking her, but she ceased not to follow him.Then he thought to himself, with all a saint’s compunction, ‘It is not she who is to blame, and who is worthy of rebuke, but I, who have been the occasion of sin to her. God grant that sin be not imputed to her through loving me.’The next time she met him, it was in a deserted part of the Campagna.‘Brother Antonio, come along with me down this path. No one will see us there,’ said Sora Castitre.Much to her surprise, instead of pursuing the severe tone he had always adopted towards her, St. Anthony greeted her and smiled with a smile which filled her with a joy different from anything she had known before. What was more, he seemed to follow her, and she led on.But as she went the way seemed quite changed. She knew well the retired path by which she had meant to lead him, but now everything around looked different; not onelandmark was the same. Yet ‘how could it be different?’ she said within herself; and she led on.What was her astonishment, when, instead of finding it terminate in a rocky gorge as she had found before, there rose before her presently an austere building surrounded with walls and gates!St. Anthony stepped forward as they reached the gate. A nun opened to them, and St. Anthony asked for the mother abbess. ‘I have brought you a maiden,’ he said, ‘whom I recommend to your affectionate and tender care.’ The mother abbess promised to make her her special charge, and St. Anthony went his way, first calling the maiden aside and charging her with this one petition he would have her make:‘I have sinned; have mercy on me.’Then St. Anthony went back to his convent and called all the brethren together, and asked them all to pray very earnestly all through the night, and in the morning tell him what manifestation they had had.The brethren promised to comply; and in the morning they all told him they had seen a little spark of light shining in the darkness.‘It suffices not, my brethren!’ said St. Anthony; ‘continue your charity and pray on instantly this night also.’The brethren promised compliance; and in the morning they all told him they had seen a pale streak of light stealing away towards heaven.‘It suffices not, my brethren!’ said St. Anthony; ‘of your charity pray on yet again this night also.’The brethren promised compliance; and in the morning they told him they had all seen a blaze of light, and in the midst of it a bed on which lay a most beautiful maiden, white2as a lily, carried up to heaven, borne by four shining angels.‘It is well, my brethren!’ replied St. Anthony; ‘your prayers have rendered a soul to the celestial quires.’Afterwards he went to the convent where he had left Sora Castitre, and learnt from the mother abbess that, spending three penitential days saying only, ‘I have sinned; have mercy on me,’ she had rendered up her soul to God in simplicity and fervour.3The legend of St. Anthony preaching to the fishes is well known from paintings, and I do not reproduce it because it was told me with no variation from the usual form. But another legend, which early pictures have rendered equally familiar, I received with an anachronistic addition which is worth putting down.4ST. ANTHONY AND THE HOLY CHILD.3St. Anthony had been sent a long way off to preach;4by the way fatigue overtook him, and he found hospitality for a few days in a monastery by the way. Later in the evening came a Protestant5and asked hospitality, and he also was received, because you know there are many Protestants who are very good; and, besides that, if the man needed hospitality the monks would give it, whoever he might be.The monks were all in their cells by an early hour in the evening, but the Protestant walked up and down the corridors smoking.Suddenly through the cracks and the keyhole and all round the lintel of the door he saw a bright light issue where anon all was dark; it seemed as if the cell was on fire. ‘One of the good monks has set fire to his bedclothes!’ he said, and looked through the keyhole. What did he see? on the open book from which a father who was kneeling before it had been taking his meditationsstood a beautiful Child whom it filled you with love to look at, and from Whom shone a light too bright to bear.Anxious to obtain a better view of the glorious sight the Protestant knocked at the door; St. Anthony, for it was he, called to him to come in; but instantly the vision vanished.‘Who was that Child who was talking to you?’ asked the Protestant.‘The Divine Infant!’ answered St. Anthony with the greatest simplicity.The next night the Protestant, curious to know if the Child would appear again, again walked up and down the corridor smoking, keeping his eye on the door of St. Anthony’s cell; nor was it long before the same sight met his eye, but this time he was led to prolong his converse with the saint. The next night there was the same prodigy, and that night they sat up all night talking.When morning came he told the father abbot he wished to make his adjuration and join the order, and he finally took the habit in that monastery.5They say there was once a poor man who had paid what he owed for his ground. You know the way is, that when a man has gathered in his harvest and turned a little money then he pays off what he owes. This man paid for his ground as soon as he had made something by his harvest, but the seller did not give him any receipt. Soon after the owner died, and his son came to ask for the money over again. ‘But I paid your father,’ said the poor man. ‘Then show your receipt,’ said the son. ‘But he didn’t give me one,’ answered the poor man. ‘Then you must pay me,’ insisted the new proprietor.‘What shall I do! what shall I do!’ exclaimed the poor man in despair. ‘St. Anthony, help me!’ He hadhardly said the words when he saw a friar6coming towards him.‘What’s the matter, good man?’ said the friar, ‘that you are so distressed: tell me.’ And the poor man told him all the story of his distress.‘Shall I tell you how to get the receipt?’ asked the friar.‘Indeed, indeed!’7exclaimed the poor man, ‘that would be the making of me; but it’s more than you can do—the man is dead!’‘Never mind that. You do what I tell you,’ said the monk. ‘Go straight along that path;’ and the man saw that where he pointed was a path that had never been there before. ‘Follow that path,’ said the monk, ‘and you will come to a casino with great iron gates which shut and open of themselves continually. You must watch the moment when they are open and go boldly in. Inside you will see a big room and a man sitting at a table writing ceaselessly and casting accounts. That is your landlord; ask him for the receipt and he won’t dare withhold it now. But mind one thing. Don’t touch a single article in the room, whatever you do.’The poor man went along the path, and found all as the monk had told him.‘How did you get here?’ exclaimed the landlord, as soon as he recognised him; and the poor man told him how he had been sent and why he was come. The landlord sat at his desk writing with the greatest expedition, as if some one was whipping him on, and knitting his brows over his sums as if they were more than his brain could calculate; nevertheless, he took a piece of paper and wrote the receipt, and moreover he wrote two or three lines more on another piece of paper, which he bade him give to his son.The poor man promised to deliver it, and turned to go; but as he went could not forbear putting his hand over the polished surface of a table he had to pass, unmindful of the charge the monk had given him not totouch anything. His hand was no sooner in contact with the table than the whole skin was burnt off, and he understood that he was in Hell. With all expedition he watched the turn of the door opening, and hastened out.‘What have you got about your hand?’ asked St. Anthony when the man came back, for the friar was none other than St. Anthony.‘I touched one of the tables in that house,’ he answered, ‘forgetting what you told me, and burnt my hand so badly I had to dip this cloth in a river as I came by and tie it up. But I have the receipt, thanks to you.’ So St. Anthony touched his hand and healed it, and he saw him no more.Then the man took the letter to the old lord’s son. ‘Why, this is my father’s writing!’ he exclaimed; ‘and my father is dead. How did you come by it?’ And he told him. And the letter said: ‘Behold, I am in Hell! But you, mend your ways; give money to the poor; compensate this man for the trouble he has had; and be just to all, lest you also come hither.’Then the old landlord’s son gave the man a large sum of money to compensate him for his anxieties, and sent him away consoled.1‘Sora’ in this place does not mean ‘sister’; it is an expression in Roman vernacular for which we have no equivalent, and is applied to respectable persons of the lower class who do not aspire to be called ‘Signora,’ ‘Mrs.,’ or ‘Miss,’ as with us. ‘Sor’ or ‘Ser’ is the masculine equivalent; we had it in use at p. 194.↑2The word used was ‘candida,’ and not ‘bianca,’ as expressive of purest white.↑3‘Sant’ Antonio ed il Santo Bambino.’↑4I believe St. Anthony was never in Rome; but his genial winning character made him so popular that the people speak of him as one of themselves.↑5St. Anthony’s date is 1195–1231; so the idea of making his observer a Protestant, and a smoker to boot, is very quaint, and is an instance of how chronological order gets confused by tradition.↑6‘Fraticello’; ‘good little friar.’ An affectionate way of speaking of Franciscans often used.↑7‘Magàri!’ a very strong form of ‘indeed.’↑ST. MARGARET OF CORTONA.St. Margaret wasn’t always a saint, you must know: in her youth she was very much the reverse. She had a very cruel stepmother, who worried her to death,1and gave her work she was unequal to do.One day her stepmother had sent her out to tie up bundles of hay. As she was so engaged a Count came by, and he stopped to look at her, for she was rarely beautiful.2‘What hard work for such pretty little hands,’ he began by saying; and after many tender words had been exchanged he proposed that she should go home with him, where her life would be the reverse of the suffering existence she had now to endure.Margaret consented at once, for her stepmother, besides working her hard, had neglected to form her to proper sentiments of virtue.The count took her to his villa at a place called Monte Porciana, a good way from Cortona. Here her life was indeed a contrast to what it had been at home at Cortona. Instead of having to work, she had plenty of servants to wait upon her; her dress and her food were all in the greatest luxury, and she was supplied with everything she wished for. Sometimes as she went to the theatre, decked out in her gay attire, and knowing that she was a scandal to all, she would say in mirth and wantonness, ‘Who knows whether one day I may not be stuck up there on high in the churches, like some of those saints? As strange things have happened ere now!’ But she only said it in wantonness. So she went on enjoying life, and when their son was born there was nothing more she desired.In the midst of this gay existence, word was brought her one evening that the Count, who had gone out that morning full of health and spirits to the hunt, had beenovertaken and assassinated, and as all had been afraid to pursue the murderers, they knew not where his body was.Margaret was thrown into a frenzy3at the news; her fine clothing and her rich fare gave her little pleasure now. All amusement and frivolity were put out of sight; and she sat on her sofa and stared before her, for she had no heart to turn to anything that could distract her thoughts from her great loss. Then one day—it might have been three days after—a favourite dog belonging to the count came limping and whining up to her. Margaret rose immediately; she knew that the dog would take her to the count’s body, and she rose up and motioned to him to go: and the dog, all glad to return to his master, ran on before. All the household were too much afraid of the assassins to venture in their way, so Margaret went forth alone. It was a long rough way; but the dog ran on, and Margaret kept on as well as her broken strength would admit. At last they came to a brake where the dog stopped, and now whined no longer but howled piteously.Margaret knew that they had reached the object of their search, and it was indeed here the assassins had hidden the body. Moving away with her own hands the leaves and branches with which they had covered it over, the fearful sight of her lover’s mangled body lay before her. The condition into which the wounds and the lapse of time had brought it was more than she could bear to look at, and she swooned away on the spot.When she came to herself all the course of her thoughts was changed. She saw what her life had been; the sense of the scandal she had given was more to her even than her own distracting grief. As the most terrible penance she could think of, she resolved to go back to her stepmother and endure her hard treatment, sharpened by the invectives with which she knew it would now be seasoned.Taking with her her son, she went to her, therefore, and with the greatest submission of manner entreated to be readmitted. But not even this would the stepmother grant her, but drove her away from the door. She then turned to her father, but he was bound to say the same as his wife. She now saw there was one misery worse than harsh treatment, and that was penury—starvation, not only for herself, but her child.Little she cared what became of her, but for the child something must be done. What did she do? She went and put on a sackcloth dress,4tied about the waist with a rope, and she went to the church at the high mass time; and when mass was over she stood on the altar step, and told all the people she was Margaret of Cortona, who had given so much scandal, and now was come to show her contrition for it.Her sufferings had gone up before God. As she spoke her confession so humbly before all the people, the count’s mother rose from her seat, and, coming up to her, threw her handkerchief over her head5—for she was bareheaded—and led her away to her home.She would only accept her hospitality on condition of being allowed to live in a little room apart, with no more furniture than a nun’s cell. Here she lived twelve years of penance, till her boy was old enough to choose his state in life. He elected to be a Dominican, and afterwards became a Preacher of the Apostolic Palace; and she entered a Franciscan convent, where she spent ten more years of penance, till God took her to Himself.She cut off all her long hair when she went to live in her cell at the house of the count’s mother, that she might not again be an occasion of sin to anyone. And after that, when she found she was still a subject of human admiration, she cut off her lips, that no one might admire her again.61‘La strapazzava,’ a word particularly applied to overworking a horse.↑2‘Di una rara bellezza.’↑3‘Era disperata.’↑4‘Un sacco crudo,’ a loose garment made of harsh sackcloth that had not been dressed.↑5Handkerchiefs are used so habitually for tying up parcels in Rome, that the narrator thought it worth while to specify that this one was a ‘fazzaletto di naso.’↑6The life is thus given in Butler:—‘Margaret was a native of Alviano in Tuscany. The harshness of a stepmother and her own indulged propension to vice cast her headlong into the greatest disorders. The sight of the carcase of a man, half-putrefied, who had been her gallant, struck her with so great a fear of the Divine judgments, and with so deep a sense of the treachery of the world, that she in a moment became a perfect penitent. The first thing she did was to throw herself at her father’s feet, bathed in tears, to beg his pardon for her contempt of his authority and fatherly admonitions. She spent the days and nights in tears; and to repair the scandal she had given by her crimes, she went to the parish church of Alviano with a rope about her neck, and there asked public pardon for them. After this she repaired to Cortona and made her most penitent confession to a father of the Order of S. Francis, who admired the great sentiments of compunction with which she was filled, and prescribed her austerities and practices suitable to her fervour. Her conversion happened in the year 1274, the twenty-fifth of her age.... This model of true penitents, after twenty-three years spent in severe penance, twenty of them in the religious habit, being worn out by austerities and consumed by the fire of divine love, died on the 22nd of February 1297.’↑ST. THEODORA.When Santa Teodora was young she was married, and lived very happily with her husband, for they were both very fond of each other.But there was a count who saw her and fell in love with her, and tried his utmost to get an opportunity of telling her his affection, but she was so prudent that he could not approach her. So what did he do? he went to a bad old woman1and told her that he would give her ever so much money if she would get him the opportunity of meeting her. The old wretch acceptedthe commission willingly, and put all her bad arts in requisition to make Theodora forget her duty. For a long time Theodora refused to listen to her and sent her away, but she went on finding excuses to come to her, and again and again urged her persuasions and excited her curiosity so that finally she consented that he might just come and see her, and the witch woman assured her that was all he asked. But what he wanted was the opportunity of speaking his own story into her ear, and when that was given him he pushed his suit so successfully that it wasn’t only once he came, but many times.Yet it was not a very long time before a day came when Theodora saw how wrong she had been, and then, seized with compunction, she determined to go away and hide herself where she would never be heard of more. Before her husband came home she cut off all her hair, and putting on a coarse dress she went to a Capuchin monastery and asked admission.‘What is your name?’ asked the Superior.‘Theodore,’ she replied.‘You seem too young for our severe rule,’ he continued; ‘you seem a mere boy;’ but she expressed such sincere sentiments of contrition as showed him she was worthy to embrace their life of penance.The Devil was very much vexed to see what a perfect penitent she made, and he stirred up the other monks to suspect her of all manner of things; but they could find no fault against her, nor did they ever suspect that she was a woman.One day when she was sent with another brother to beg for the convent a storm overtook them in a wood, and they were obliged to seek the shelter of a cottage there was on the borders of the wood where they were belated. ‘There is room in the stable for one of you,’ said the peasant who lived there; ‘but that other one who looks so young and so delicate’ (he meant Theodora) ‘must sleepindoors, and the only place is the loft where my daughter sleeps; but it can’t be helped.’ Theodora, therefore, slept in the loft and the monk in the stable, and in the morning when the weather was fair they went back to their convent. Months passed away, and the incident was almost forgotten, when one day the peasant came to the monastery and rang the bell in a great fury, and he laid down at the entrance a bundle in which was a baby. ‘That young monk of yours is the father of this child,’ he said, ‘and you ought to turn him out of the convent.’ Then the Superior sent for ‘Theodore,’ and repeated what the peasant had said.‘Surely God has sent me this new penance because the life I lead here is not severe enough,’ she said. ‘He has sent me this further punishment that all the community should think me guilty.’ Therefore she would not justify herself, but accepted the accusation and took the baby and went away. Her only way of living now was to get a night’s lodging how she could, and come every day to the convent gate with the child and live on the dole that was distributed there to the poor. What a life for her who had been brought up delicately in her own palace!She was not allowed to rest, however, even so, for people took offence because she was permitted to remain so near the monastery, and the monks had to send her away. So she went to seek the shelter of a wood, and to labour to find the means of living for herself and the child in the roots and herbs she could pick up. But one of the monks one day found her there, and saw her so emaciated that he told the Superior, and he let her come back to receive the dole.At last she died, and when they came to bury her they found she had in one hand a written paper so tightly clasped that no one had the strength to unclose it; and there she lay on her bier in the church looking so sad andworn, yet as sweetly fair as she had looked in life, and with the written paper tightly grasped in her closed hand.Now when her husband found that she had left his palace the night she went away he left no means untried to discover where she was; and when he had made inquiries and sent everywhere, and could learn no tidings whatever, he put on pilgrim’s weeds and went out to seek for her everywhere himself.It so happened that he came into the city where she died just as she was thus laid on her bier in the church. In spite of her male attire he knew her; in the midst of his grief he noticed the written paper she held. Tohistouch her hand opened instantly, and in the scroll was found recorded all she had done and all she had suffered.1‘Vecchiaccia’; the additionacciaimplies that she was bad: probably a witch was intended.↑NUN BEATRICE.1Nun Beatrice had not altogether the true spirit of a religious: she was somewhat given to vanity;2though but for this she was a good nun, and full of excellent dispositions. She held the office of portress;3and, as she determined to go away out of her convent and return into the world, this seemed to afford her a favourable opportunity for carrying out her design. Accordingly, one day when the house was very quiet, and there seemed no danger of being observed, having previously contrived to secrete some secular clothes such as passed through her hands to keep in store for giving to the poor, she let herself out and went away.In the parlour was a kneeling-desk with a picture of Our Lady hanging over it, where she had been wont to kneel and hold converse with Our Lady in prayer whenever she had a moment to spare. On this desk she laidthe keys before she went, thinking it was a safe place for the Superior to find them; and she commended them to the care of Our Lady, whose picture hung above, and said, ‘Keep thou the keys, and let no harm come to this good house and my dear sisters.’As she said the words Our Lady looked at her with a glance of reproach, enough to have melted her heart and made her return to a better mood had she seen it; but she was too full of her own thoughts and the excitement of her undertaking to notice anything. No sooner was she gone out, however, than Our Lady, walking out of the canvas, assumed the dress that she had laid aside, and, tying the keys to her girdle, assumed the office of portress.With the habit of the portress Our Lady also assumed her semblance; so that no one noticed the exchange, except that all remarked how humble, how modest, how edifying Beatrice had become.After a time the nuns began to say it was a pity so perfect a nun should be left in so subordinate a position, and they made her therefore Mistress of the Novices. This office she exercised with as great perfection, according to its requirements, as she had the other; and so sweetly did she train the young nuns entrusted to her direction that all the novices became saints.Beatrice meantime had gone to live in the world as a secular; and though she often repented of what she had done, she had not the courage to go back and tell all. She prayed for courage, but she went on delaying. While she was in this mind it so happened one day that the factor4of the convent came to the house where she was living. What strange and moving memories of her peaceful home filled her mind as she saw his well-known form, though he did not recognise her in her secular dress! What an opportunity too, she thought, to learn what was the feeling of the community towards her, and what had been said of her escape!‘I hope all your nuns are well,’ she said. ‘I used to live in their neighbourhood once, and there was one of them I used to know, Suora5Beatrice. How is she now?’‘Sister Beatrice!’ said the factor. ‘She is the model of perfection, the example of the whole house. Everybody is ready to worship her. With all respect to the Church, which never canonizes the living, no one doubts she is a saint indeed.’‘It cannot be the same,’ answered Beatrice. ‘The one I knew was anything but a saint, though I loved her well, and should like to have news of her.’ And she hardly knew how to conceal the astonishment with which she was seized at hearing him speak thus; for the event on which she expected him to enlarge at once was the extraordinary fact of her escape. But he pursued in the same quiet way as before. ‘Oh yes, it must be the same. There has never been but one of the name since I have known the convent. She was portress some time ago; but latterly she has been made Mistress of the Novices.’There was nothing more to be learnt from him; so she pursued her inquiries no further. But he had no sooner had start enough to put him at a safe distance, than she set out to go to the convent and see this Sister Beatrice who so strangely represented her.Arrived at the convent door, she asked to see Sister Beatrice, and in a very few minutes the Mistress of the Novices entered the parlour.The presence of the new Mistress of the Novices filled Beatrice with an awe she could not account for; and, without waiting to ask herself why, she fell on her knees before her.‘It is well you have come back, my child,’ said Our Lady; ‘resume your dress, which I have worn for you; go in to the convent again, and do penance, and keep up the good name I have earned for you.’With that Our Lady returned to the canvas; Beatriceresumed her habit, and strove so earnestly to form herself by the model of perfection Our Lady had set while wearing it, that in a few months she became a saint.[Mr. Ralston gives a Russian story (pp. 249–50), in which St. Nicholas comes in person and serves a man who has been devout to his picture.]1‘La Monica Beatrice.’‘Monica,’ provincialism or vulgarism for ‘monaca,’ a nun.↑2‘Albagia,’ self-esteem, vanity.↑3‘Rotara,’ equivalent to portress; it alludes to her having charge of the ‘ruota,’ or ‘turniquet,’ through which things are passed in and out and messages conveyed through a convent-wall, without the nun having to present herself at the door.↑4‘Fattore,’ an agent employed by most convents to attend to their secular affairs.↑5‘Suora’ is the received word for a ‘Sister’ in a convent. ‘Sister,’ the natural relationship, is ‘Sorella.’↑PADRE FILIPPO.[St. Philip Neri is a giant indeed in the household memories of the Roman poor. His acts have become travestied and magnified among them in the most portentous way, and they always talk of him with the most patriotic enthusiasm. ‘He was a Roman!—a Roman indeed!’ they will say. And yet he was not a born Roman, but was made ‘Protector of Rome’ by the Church.‘Padre Filippo’ is their favourite way of naming him, and sometimes ‘il buon Filippo’ and ‘Pippo buono.’]1There was in Padre Filippo’s time a cardinal who was Prefect of the provisions,1who let everything go wrong and attended to nothing, and the poor were all suffering because provisions got so dear.Padre Filippo went to the Pope—Papa Medici2it was—and told him how badly off the poor were; so the Pope called the Cardinal to account, and went on making him attend to it till Padre Filippo told him that things were on a better footing.But the Cardinal came to Padre Filippo and said:‘Why do you vex me by going and making mischief to the Pope?’But Padre Filippo, instead of being frightened at his anger, rose up and said:‘Come here and I will show you what is the fate of those who oppress and neglect the poor. Come here Eminentissimo, and look,’ and he took him to the window and asked him what he saw.The Cardinal looked, and he saw a great fire of Hell, and the souls writhing in it. The Cardinal said no more and went away, but not long after he gave up being a cardinal and became a simple brother under Padre Filippo.[Who this cardinal may have been I do not know, but the story was told me another time in this form:—]1AThere was a cardinal—Gastaldi was his name—who went a good deal into society to the neglect of more important duties. One evening, when he was at a conversazione, Padre Filippo came to the house where he was and had him called out to him in an empty room.‘Your Eminence! come to this window, I have something to show you.’The Cardinal came to the window and looked out, and instead of the houses he saw Hell opened and all the souls3in the flames; a great serpent was wriggling in and out among them and biting them, and in the midst was a gilt cardinalitial chair.‘Who is that seat for?’ inquired the Cardinal.‘It is placed there for your Eminence,’ replied St. Philip.‘What must I do to escape it?’ exclaimed the Cardinal, horrified and self-convicted.Padre Filippo read him a lecture on penitence and amendment of life, and for the practical part of his advice warned him to devote to good works moneys he had been too fond of heaping up. The Cardinal after this became very devout, and the poor were great gainers by St. Philip’s instructions to him, and the two churches you see at the end of the Corso and Babbuino in Piazza del Popolo were also built by him with the money Padre Filippo had warned him to spend aright, and you may see his arms up there any day for yourself.42Some of their stories of him are jocose. There was a young married lady who was a friend of the Order, and had done it much good. She was very much afraid of the idea of her confinement as the time approached and said she could never endure it. Padre Filippo knew how good she was and felt great compassion for her.‘Never mind, my child,’ said the ‘good Philip’; ‘I will take all your pain on myself.’Time passed away, and one night the community was very much surprised to hear ‘good Philip’ raving and shouting with pain; he who voluntarily submitted to every penance without a word, and whom they had often seen so patient in illness. That same night the lady’s child was born and she felt no pain at all.Early next morning she sent to tell him that her child was born, and to ask how he was.‘Tell her I am getting a little better now,’ said ‘good Philip,’ ‘but I never suffered anything like it before. Next time, mind, she must manage her affairs for herself. For never willIinterfere5with anything ofthatsort again.’3Another who had no child was very anxious to have one, and came to Padre Filippo to ask him to pray for her that she might have one. Padre Filippo promised to pray for her; but instead of a child there was only a shapeless thing. She sent for Padre Filippo once more, therefore, and said:‘There! that’s all your prayers have brought!’‘Oh never mind!’ said Padre Filippo; and he took it and shaped it (the narrator twisted up a large towel and showed how he formed first one leg then the other, then the arms, then the head, as if she had seen him do it). Then he knelt down by the side and prayed while he told them to keep silence, and it opened its eyes and cried, and the mother was content.[His winning and practical ways of dealing with his penitents afford an endless theme of anecdote, but some have grown to most extravagant proportions. The following shows how, as in all legends, mysteries are made to wear a material form. The fact that on some occasions he satisfied some, whom no one else could satisfy, of the boundless mercy of God, is brought to proof in such a tangible way as to provoke the denial it was invented to silence.]4There was a man who was dying, and would not have a priest near him. He said he had so many sins on him it was impossible God could forgive him, so it was no use bothering himself about confessing. His wife and his children begged and entreated him to let them send for a priest, but he would not listen to them.So they sent for Padre Filippo, and as he was a friend he said:‘If he comes as a visitor he may come in, but not as a priest.’Good Philip sat down by his side and said:‘A visitor may ask a question. Why won’t you let me come as a priest?’The sick man gave the same answer as before.‘Now you’re quite mistaken,’ said St. Philip, ‘and I’ll show you something.’Then he called for paper and pen and wrote a note.‘Padre Eterne!’ he wrote. ‘Can a man’s sins be forgiven?’ and he folded it, and away it went of itself right up to heaven.An hour later, as they were all sitting there, another note came back all by itself, written in shining letters of gold, and it said:—‘Padre Eterne forgives and receives everyone who is penitent.’The sick man resisted no longer after that; he made his confession and received the sacrament, and died consoled in ‘good Philip’s’ arms.5Padre Filippo was walking one day through the streets of Rome when he saw a great crowd very much excited. ‘What’s the matter?’ asked ‘good Philip.’‘There’s a man in that house up there beating his wife fit to kill her, and for nothing at all, for she’s an angel of goodness. Nothing at all, but because she’s so ugly.’Padre Filippo waited till the husband was tired of beating her and had gone out, and all the crowd had dispersed. Then he went up to the room where the poor woman lived, and knocked at the door. ‘Who’s there?’ said the woman.‘Padre Filippo!’ answered ‘good Philip,’ and the woman opened quickly enough when she heard it was Padre Filippo who knocked.But good Philip himself started back with horror when he saw her, she was so ugly. However, he said nothing,but made the sign of the cross over her, and prayed, and immediately she became as beautiful as she had been ugly; but she knew nothing, of course, of the change.‘Your husband won’t beat you any more,’ said good Philip, as he turned to go; ‘only if he asks you who has been here send him to me.’When the husband came home and found his wife had become so beautiful, he kissed her, and was beside himself for joy; and she could not imagine what had made him so different towards her. ‘Who has been here?’ he asked.‘Only Padre Filippo,’ answered the wife; ‘and he said that if you asked I was to tell you to go to him;’ the husband ran off to him to thank him, and to say how sorry he was for having beaten her.But there lived opposite a woman who was also in everything the opposite of this one. She was very handsome, but as bad in conduct as the other was good. However, when she saw the ugly wife become so handsome, she said to herself, ‘If good Philip would only make me a little handsomer than I am, it would be a good thing for me;’ and she went to Padre Filippo and asked him to make her handsomer.Padre Filippo looked at her, and he knew what sort of woman she was, and he raised his hand and made the sign of the cross over her, and prayed, and she became ugly; uglier even than the other woman had been!‘Why have you treated me differently from the other woman?’ exclaimed the woman, for she had brought a glass with her to be able to contemplate the improvement she expected him to make in her appearance.‘Because beauty was of use to her in her state of life,’ answered PadreFilippo. ‘But you have only used the beauty God gave you as an occasion of sin; therefore a stumbling-block have I now removed out of your way.’And he said well, didn’t he?One Easter there came to him a young man of good family to confession, and Padre Filippo knew that every one had tried in vain to make him give up his mistress, and that to argue with him about it was quite useless. So he tried another tack. ‘I know it is such a habit with you to go to see her youcan’tgive it up, so I’m not going to ask you to. You shall go and see her as often as you like, only will you do something to please me?’The young man was very fond of good Philip, and there was nothing he would have not done for him except to give up his mistress; so as he knew that was not in question, he answered ‘yes’ very readily.‘You promise me to do what I say, punctually?’ asked the saint.‘Oh, yes, father, punctually.’‘Very well, then; all I ask is that though you go to her as often as you like, you just pass by this way and come up and pull my bell every time you go; nothing more than that.’The young man did not think it was a very hard injunction, but when it came to performing it he felt its effect. At first he used to go three times a day, but he was so ashamed of ringing the saint’s bell so often, that very soon he went no more than once a day. That dropped to two or three times a week, then once a week, and long before next Easter he had given her up and had become all his parents could wish him to be.7‘There was another such case; just such another, only this man had a wife too, but he was so infatuated with the other, he would have it she loved him the better of the two.’‘Yes; and the other was a miniature-painter,’ broke incorroboratively a kind of charwoman who had come in to tidy the place while we were talking.‘Yes, she was a miniature-painter,’ continued the narrator; ‘but it’s I who am telling the story.’‘Padre Filippo said, “How much do you allow her?”’‘Twenty pauls a day,’ broke in the charwoman.‘Forty scudi a month,’ said the narrator positively.‘There’s not much difference,’ interposed I, fearing I should lose the story between them. ‘Twenty pauls a day is sixty scudi a month. It doesn’t matter.’‘Well, then, Padre Filippo said,’ continued the narrator,‘“Now just to try whether she cares so much about you, you give her thirty scudi a month.”’‘Fifteen pauls a day,’ interposed the charwoman.‘Thirty scudi a month!’ reiterated the narrator.‘Never mind,’ said I. ‘Whatever it was, it was to be reduced.’‘Yes; that’s it,’ pursued the narrator; ‘and he made him go on and on diminishing it. She took it very well at first, suspecting he was trying her, and thinking he would make it up to her afterwards.’‘But when she found he didn’t,’ said the charwoman,‘She turned him out,’ said the narrator, putting her down with a frown. ‘He was so infatuated, however, that even now he was not satisfied, and said that in stopping the money he had been unfair, and she was in the right. So good Philip, who was patience itself, said, “Go and pay her up, and we’ll try her another way. You go and kill a dog, and put it in a bag, and go to her with your hands covered with blood, and let her think you have got into trouble for hurting some one, and ask her to hide you.” So the man went and killed a dog.’‘It was a cat he killed, because he couldn’t find a dog handy,’ said the irrepressible charwoman.‘Nonsense; of course it was a dog,’ asseverated the narrator. ‘But when he went to her house and pretendedto be in a bad way, and asked her to have pity on him, she only answered: “Not I, indeed! I’m not going to get myself into a scrape6with the law, forhim!” and drove him away. And he came and told Padre Filippo.‘“Now,” said good Philip, “go to your wife whom you have abandoned so long. Go to her with the same story, and see what she does for you.”‘The man took the dead dog in the bag, and ran to the lodging where his wife was, and knocked stealthily at her door. “It is I,” he whispered.‘“Come in, husband,” exclaimed the wife, throwing open the door.‘“Stop! hush! take care! don’t touch me!” said the husband. “There’s blood upon me. Save me! hide me! put me somewhere!”‘“It’s so long since you’ve been here, no one will think of coming after you here, so you will be quite safe. Sit down and be composed,” said the wife soothingly; and she poured him out wine to drink.‘But the police were nearer than he fancied. He had thought to finish up the affair in five minutes by explaining all to her. But “the other,” not satisfied with refusing him shelter, had gone and set the police on his track; and here they were after him.‘The wife’s quick ears heard them on the stairs. “Get into this cupboard quick, and leave me to manage them,” she said.‘The husband safely stowed away, she opened the door without hesitation, as if she had nothing to hide. “How can you think he is here?” she said when they asked for him. “Ask any of the neighbours how long it is since he has been here.”‘“Oh, three years,” “four years,” “five,” said various voices of people who had come round at hearing the police arrive.‘“You see you must have come to the wrong place,”she said. And the husband smiled as he heard her standing out for him so bravely.‘Her determined manner had satisfied the police; and they were just turning to go when one of them saw tell-tale spots of blood on the floor that had dropped from the dead dog. The track was followed to the cupboard, and the man dragged to prison. It was in vain that he assured them he had killed nothing but a dog.‘“Ha! that will be the faithful dog of the murdered man,” said the police. “We shan’t be long before we find the body of the man himself!”‘The wife was distracted at finding her husband, who had but so lately come back to her, was to be taken away again; and he could discern how real was her distress.‘“Go to Padre Filippo, and he will set all right,” said the husband as they carried him away. The woman went to Padre Filippo, and he explained all, amid the laughter of the Court. But the husband went back to his wife, and never left her any more after that.’[The story was told me another time with this variation, that the penitent was a peasant7who came up to Rome with his ass, and tied it to a pillar set up for the purpose outside the church, while he went in to confess. The first time he went, St. Philip told him he must have nothing more to do with the occasion of sin, who in this case was a spinner instead of a miniature-painter. The peasant was so angry with the advice that he stayed away from confession a whole year. At the end of the year he came back. St. Philip received him with open arms, saying he had been praying ever since for his return to a better mind. The sum that formed the sliding-scale that was to open his eyes to the mercenary nature of the affection he had so much prized, was calculated at a lower rate than the other; but the rest of the story was the same.]8‘Ah, there’s plenty to be said about Padre Filippo,’ said the charwoman; and I should have liked to put herunder examination, but that it would have been a breach of hospitality, as the other evidently did not like the interruption; so I was obliged to be satisfied with the testimony she had already afforded of the popularity of the saint. ‘Ha, good Padre Filippo, he was content to eat “black bread” like us’; and she took a hunch out of her pocket to show me; (it was only like our ‘brown bread.’)‘There was no lack where he was. Once I know, with half a rubbio8of corn, he made enough to last all the community ten years,’ she, however, ran on to say before she could be dismissed.9One day Padre Filippo was going over Ponte S. Angelo, when he met two little boys who seemed to attract his notice. ‘Forty-two years hence you will be made a cardinal,’ he said to one, as he gave him a friendly tap with his walking-stick. ‘And that other one,’ he added, turning to his companion, ‘will be dead in two years.’And so it came true exactly.10There was another peasant who, when he came into Rome on a Sunday morning, always went to the church where St. Philip was.9‘You quite weary10one with your continual preaching about the Blessed Sacrament. I’m so tired of hearing about it, that I declare to you I don’t care so much about it as my mule does about a sack of corn.’ Padre Filippo preferred convincing people in some practical way to going into angry discussions with them; so he did not say very much in answer to the countryman’s remarks, but asked him the name of his village. Not long after he went down to this village to preach; and had a pretty little altar erected on a hill-side, and set up the Blessed Sacrament in Exposition. Then he went and found out the same countryman, and said, ‘Now bringa sack of corn near where the altar is, and let’s see what the mule does.’ The countryman placed a sack of corn near the altar, and drove the mule by to see what it would do.The mule kicked aside the sack of corn, and fell down on its knees before the altar; and the man, seeing the token, went to confession to St. Philip, and never said anything profane any more.11There were two other fellows11who were more profane still, and who said one to the other, ‘They make such a fuss about Padre Filippo and his miracles, I warrant it’s all nonsense. Let’s watch till he passes, and one of us pretend to be dead and see if he finds it out.’So said so done. ‘What is your companion lying on the ground for?’ said St. Philip as he passed. ‘He’s dead! Father,’ replied the other. ‘Dead, is he?’ said Padre Filippo; ‘then you must go for a bier for him.’ He had no sooner passed on than the man burst out laughing, expecting his companion to join his mirth. But his companion didn’t move. ‘Why don’t you get up?’ he said, and gave him a kick; but he made no sign. When he bent down to look at him he found he was really dead; and he had to go for the bier.[Cancellieri has collected some curious incidents (‘Morcato,’ p. 210–12, Appendix N. xxii.) concerning an attempt which was made by Princess Anne Colonna to obtain from Urban VIII. the authority to remove a part of the Saint’s body to her chapel at Naples. The Fathers of the Oratory and the people were greatly averse to dividing it, as it was very well preserved in its entirety. By a fatality, which the people readily believed to be providential, Monsig. Moraldo, who was charged to bring the matter under the Pope’s notice, forgot it every time he was in attendance on the Pope, though it was the most important thing he had to say. At last he put the Bull concerning it out on his desk that he might be sure to remember it, though otherwise he would have kept it concealed, for it bore the endorsement, ‘Per levare (to remove) parte del corpo di S. Filippo Neri.’ While he was talking about it to one of the papal secretaries standing near the window, a priest, who had come about other matters, was shown in, and thus happened to pass by the side of the table when the endorsement of the Bull caught his eye. With all a Roman’s desire to preserve the body to Rome intact, he immediately gave notice at the Oratory, and two courageous young fathers took upon themselves to hide the body. When the prelates, therefore, came shortly after to claim the fulfilment of the Bull, the Rector opened the shrine in good faith, but the body was not there, and the report ran among the vulgar that it had been miraculously removed. Subsequently the Rector gave themthe heart, and drew a tooth of the Saint, which was a verbal compliance with the terms of the Bull, being certainly ‘a part of the body.’ Some years after, the body was restored to its shrine, and in 1743 Prince Chigi provided it with velvets and brocades to the value of 1,000 scudi.]1‘Grascia e annòna’ are two old words meaning all kinds of meat and vegetable (including grain) food. It was the title of one department of the local administration. There was a great dearth in Rome in the year 1590–1, mentioned in the histories of the times. It is probable the people would ascribe to the head of the department the fault of the calamity.↑2These people generally call the popes by their family names. This ‘Papa Medici’ would be Pius IV., who reigned from 1559 to 1566.↑3‘Brutte anime,’ ‘ugly souls.’↑4All legends have doubtless some foundation in fact; but unfortunately for the detail of this one, the arms up in the façade of the said Churches, ‘Dei Miracoli’ and ‘di Monte Santo’—are the arms of a Cardinal Gastaldi or Castaldi, who rebuilt them about a hundred years later than St. Philip’s time. Alexander VII. having rebuilt the Flaminian Gate, or Porta del Popolo, the insignificance of these two churches became more noticeable than before; buthe did not survive to carry out his intention of rebuilding them. This was subsequently performed by Cardinal Gastaldi.—Maroni, xii. 147, xxviii. 185; Panciroli, 169; Melchiorri, 254 and 420.↑5‘Impicciare,’ ‘entangle myself with,’ ‘interfere with’—a very favourite Romanism.↑6‘Impicciare,’ again here.↑7‘Campagnola,’ a peasant of the Campagna near Rome.↑8Arubbiois between four and five acres.↑9St. Philip lived and taught for thirty-three years at the Church of S. Girolamo della Carità, not very far from the vegetable market in Campo de’ Fiori, all the streets about containing shops much frequented by the country people when they come up to Rome with their vegetables.↑10‘Scocciare,’ to persevere to weariness; to din.↑11‘Vassalli,’ in the older dictionaries ‘vassallo’ is only defined as a vassal; but in modern Roman parlance it means a scamp, a vagabond.↑

ST. ANTHONY.St. Anthony’s father was accused of murder, and as facts seemed against him, he was condemned to be executed.St. Anthony was preaching in the pulpit as his father was taken to the scaffold. ‘Allow me to stop for a minute to take breath,’ he said, and he made a minute’s pause in the midst of his discourse, and then went on again.But in that minute’s pause, though no one in church had lost sight of him, he had gone on to the scaffold.‘What are you doing to that man?’ he asked.‘He has committed a murder, and is going to be executed.’‘He has murdered no one. Bring hither the dead man.’No one knew who it was that spoke, but they felt impelled to obey him nevertheless.When the dead man’s body was brought, St. Anthony said to him:—‘Is this the man who killed you? say!’The dead man opened his eyes and looked at the accused.‘Oh, no; that’s not the man at all!’ he said.‘And you, where are you?’ continued St. Anthony.‘I should be in Paradise, but that there is a ground of excommunication on me, therefore am I in Purgatory,’ answered the dead man. Then St. Anthony put his ear down,and bid him tell him the matter of the excommunication; and, when he had confessed it, he released him from the bond, and he went straight to Paradise. The father of St. Anthony, too, was pronounced innocent, and set free.And all the while no one had missed St. Anthony from the pulpit!2SANT’ ANTONIO E SORA1CASTITRE.I too know a story about St. Anthony.St. Anthony was a fair youth, as you will always see in his portraits. As he went about preaching there was a young woman who began to admire him very much, and her name was Sora Castitre. Whenever she could find out in which direction he was going she would put herself in his way and try to speak to him. St. Anthony at first kept his eyes fixed on the ground, and took no notice of her; then he tried to make her desist by rebuking her, but she ceased not to follow him.Then he thought to himself, with all a saint’s compunction, ‘It is not she who is to blame, and who is worthy of rebuke, but I, who have been the occasion of sin to her. God grant that sin be not imputed to her through loving me.’The next time she met him, it was in a deserted part of the Campagna.‘Brother Antonio, come along with me down this path. No one will see us there,’ said Sora Castitre.Much to her surprise, instead of pursuing the severe tone he had always adopted towards her, St. Anthony greeted her and smiled with a smile which filled her with a joy different from anything she had known before. What was more, he seemed to follow her, and she led on.But as she went the way seemed quite changed. She knew well the retired path by which she had meant to lead him, but now everything around looked different; not onelandmark was the same. Yet ‘how could it be different?’ she said within herself; and she led on.What was her astonishment, when, instead of finding it terminate in a rocky gorge as she had found before, there rose before her presently an austere building surrounded with walls and gates!St. Anthony stepped forward as they reached the gate. A nun opened to them, and St. Anthony asked for the mother abbess. ‘I have brought you a maiden,’ he said, ‘whom I recommend to your affectionate and tender care.’ The mother abbess promised to make her her special charge, and St. Anthony went his way, first calling the maiden aside and charging her with this one petition he would have her make:‘I have sinned; have mercy on me.’Then St. Anthony went back to his convent and called all the brethren together, and asked them all to pray very earnestly all through the night, and in the morning tell him what manifestation they had had.The brethren promised to comply; and in the morning they all told him they had seen a little spark of light shining in the darkness.‘It suffices not, my brethren!’ said St. Anthony; ‘continue your charity and pray on instantly this night also.’The brethren promised compliance; and in the morning they all told him they had seen a pale streak of light stealing away towards heaven.‘It suffices not, my brethren!’ said St. Anthony; ‘of your charity pray on yet again this night also.’The brethren promised compliance; and in the morning they told him they had all seen a blaze of light, and in the midst of it a bed on which lay a most beautiful maiden, white2as a lily, carried up to heaven, borne by four shining angels.‘It is well, my brethren!’ replied St. Anthony; ‘your prayers have rendered a soul to the celestial quires.’Afterwards he went to the convent where he had left Sora Castitre, and learnt from the mother abbess that, spending three penitential days saying only, ‘I have sinned; have mercy on me,’ she had rendered up her soul to God in simplicity and fervour.3The legend of St. Anthony preaching to the fishes is well known from paintings, and I do not reproduce it because it was told me with no variation from the usual form. But another legend, which early pictures have rendered equally familiar, I received with an anachronistic addition which is worth putting down.4ST. ANTHONY AND THE HOLY CHILD.3St. Anthony had been sent a long way off to preach;4by the way fatigue overtook him, and he found hospitality for a few days in a monastery by the way. Later in the evening came a Protestant5and asked hospitality, and he also was received, because you know there are many Protestants who are very good; and, besides that, if the man needed hospitality the monks would give it, whoever he might be.The monks were all in their cells by an early hour in the evening, but the Protestant walked up and down the corridors smoking.Suddenly through the cracks and the keyhole and all round the lintel of the door he saw a bright light issue where anon all was dark; it seemed as if the cell was on fire. ‘One of the good monks has set fire to his bedclothes!’ he said, and looked through the keyhole. What did he see? on the open book from which a father who was kneeling before it had been taking his meditationsstood a beautiful Child whom it filled you with love to look at, and from Whom shone a light too bright to bear.Anxious to obtain a better view of the glorious sight the Protestant knocked at the door; St. Anthony, for it was he, called to him to come in; but instantly the vision vanished.‘Who was that Child who was talking to you?’ asked the Protestant.‘The Divine Infant!’ answered St. Anthony with the greatest simplicity.The next night the Protestant, curious to know if the Child would appear again, again walked up and down the corridor smoking, keeping his eye on the door of St. Anthony’s cell; nor was it long before the same sight met his eye, but this time he was led to prolong his converse with the saint. The next night there was the same prodigy, and that night they sat up all night talking.When morning came he told the father abbot he wished to make his adjuration and join the order, and he finally took the habit in that monastery.5They say there was once a poor man who had paid what he owed for his ground. You know the way is, that when a man has gathered in his harvest and turned a little money then he pays off what he owes. This man paid for his ground as soon as he had made something by his harvest, but the seller did not give him any receipt. Soon after the owner died, and his son came to ask for the money over again. ‘But I paid your father,’ said the poor man. ‘Then show your receipt,’ said the son. ‘But he didn’t give me one,’ answered the poor man. ‘Then you must pay me,’ insisted the new proprietor.‘What shall I do! what shall I do!’ exclaimed the poor man in despair. ‘St. Anthony, help me!’ He hadhardly said the words when he saw a friar6coming towards him.‘What’s the matter, good man?’ said the friar, ‘that you are so distressed: tell me.’ And the poor man told him all the story of his distress.‘Shall I tell you how to get the receipt?’ asked the friar.‘Indeed, indeed!’7exclaimed the poor man, ‘that would be the making of me; but it’s more than you can do—the man is dead!’‘Never mind that. You do what I tell you,’ said the monk. ‘Go straight along that path;’ and the man saw that where he pointed was a path that had never been there before. ‘Follow that path,’ said the monk, ‘and you will come to a casino with great iron gates which shut and open of themselves continually. You must watch the moment when they are open and go boldly in. Inside you will see a big room and a man sitting at a table writing ceaselessly and casting accounts. That is your landlord; ask him for the receipt and he won’t dare withhold it now. But mind one thing. Don’t touch a single article in the room, whatever you do.’The poor man went along the path, and found all as the monk had told him.‘How did you get here?’ exclaimed the landlord, as soon as he recognised him; and the poor man told him how he had been sent and why he was come. The landlord sat at his desk writing with the greatest expedition, as if some one was whipping him on, and knitting his brows over his sums as if they were more than his brain could calculate; nevertheless, he took a piece of paper and wrote the receipt, and moreover he wrote two or three lines more on another piece of paper, which he bade him give to his son.The poor man promised to deliver it, and turned to go; but as he went could not forbear putting his hand over the polished surface of a table he had to pass, unmindful of the charge the monk had given him not totouch anything. His hand was no sooner in contact with the table than the whole skin was burnt off, and he understood that he was in Hell. With all expedition he watched the turn of the door opening, and hastened out.‘What have you got about your hand?’ asked St. Anthony when the man came back, for the friar was none other than St. Anthony.‘I touched one of the tables in that house,’ he answered, ‘forgetting what you told me, and burnt my hand so badly I had to dip this cloth in a river as I came by and tie it up. But I have the receipt, thanks to you.’ So St. Anthony touched his hand and healed it, and he saw him no more.Then the man took the letter to the old lord’s son. ‘Why, this is my father’s writing!’ he exclaimed; ‘and my father is dead. How did you come by it?’ And he told him. And the letter said: ‘Behold, I am in Hell! But you, mend your ways; give money to the poor; compensate this man for the trouble he has had; and be just to all, lest you also come hither.’Then the old landlord’s son gave the man a large sum of money to compensate him for his anxieties, and sent him away consoled.1‘Sora’ in this place does not mean ‘sister’; it is an expression in Roman vernacular for which we have no equivalent, and is applied to respectable persons of the lower class who do not aspire to be called ‘Signora,’ ‘Mrs.,’ or ‘Miss,’ as with us. ‘Sor’ or ‘Ser’ is the masculine equivalent; we had it in use at p. 194.↑2The word used was ‘candida,’ and not ‘bianca,’ as expressive of purest white.↑3‘Sant’ Antonio ed il Santo Bambino.’↑4I believe St. Anthony was never in Rome; but his genial winning character made him so popular that the people speak of him as one of themselves.↑5St. Anthony’s date is 1195–1231; so the idea of making his observer a Protestant, and a smoker to boot, is very quaint, and is an instance of how chronological order gets confused by tradition.↑6‘Fraticello’; ‘good little friar.’ An affectionate way of speaking of Franciscans often used.↑7‘Magàri!’ a very strong form of ‘indeed.’↑

ST. ANTHONY.

St. Anthony’s father was accused of murder, and as facts seemed against him, he was condemned to be executed.St. Anthony was preaching in the pulpit as his father was taken to the scaffold. ‘Allow me to stop for a minute to take breath,’ he said, and he made a minute’s pause in the midst of his discourse, and then went on again.But in that minute’s pause, though no one in church had lost sight of him, he had gone on to the scaffold.‘What are you doing to that man?’ he asked.‘He has committed a murder, and is going to be executed.’‘He has murdered no one. Bring hither the dead man.’No one knew who it was that spoke, but they felt impelled to obey him nevertheless.When the dead man’s body was brought, St. Anthony said to him:—‘Is this the man who killed you? say!’The dead man opened his eyes and looked at the accused.‘Oh, no; that’s not the man at all!’ he said.‘And you, where are you?’ continued St. Anthony.‘I should be in Paradise, but that there is a ground of excommunication on me, therefore am I in Purgatory,’ answered the dead man. Then St. Anthony put his ear down,and bid him tell him the matter of the excommunication; and, when he had confessed it, he released him from the bond, and he went straight to Paradise. The father of St. Anthony, too, was pronounced innocent, and set free.And all the while no one had missed St. Anthony from the pulpit!2SANT’ ANTONIO E SORA1CASTITRE.I too know a story about St. Anthony.St. Anthony was a fair youth, as you will always see in his portraits. As he went about preaching there was a young woman who began to admire him very much, and her name was Sora Castitre. Whenever she could find out in which direction he was going she would put herself in his way and try to speak to him. St. Anthony at first kept his eyes fixed on the ground, and took no notice of her; then he tried to make her desist by rebuking her, but she ceased not to follow him.Then he thought to himself, with all a saint’s compunction, ‘It is not she who is to blame, and who is worthy of rebuke, but I, who have been the occasion of sin to her. God grant that sin be not imputed to her through loving me.’The next time she met him, it was in a deserted part of the Campagna.‘Brother Antonio, come along with me down this path. No one will see us there,’ said Sora Castitre.Much to her surprise, instead of pursuing the severe tone he had always adopted towards her, St. Anthony greeted her and smiled with a smile which filled her with a joy different from anything she had known before. What was more, he seemed to follow her, and she led on.But as she went the way seemed quite changed. She knew well the retired path by which she had meant to lead him, but now everything around looked different; not onelandmark was the same. Yet ‘how could it be different?’ she said within herself; and she led on.What was her astonishment, when, instead of finding it terminate in a rocky gorge as she had found before, there rose before her presently an austere building surrounded with walls and gates!St. Anthony stepped forward as they reached the gate. A nun opened to them, and St. Anthony asked for the mother abbess. ‘I have brought you a maiden,’ he said, ‘whom I recommend to your affectionate and tender care.’ The mother abbess promised to make her her special charge, and St. Anthony went his way, first calling the maiden aside and charging her with this one petition he would have her make:‘I have sinned; have mercy on me.’Then St. Anthony went back to his convent and called all the brethren together, and asked them all to pray very earnestly all through the night, and in the morning tell him what manifestation they had had.The brethren promised to comply; and in the morning they all told him they had seen a little spark of light shining in the darkness.‘It suffices not, my brethren!’ said St. Anthony; ‘continue your charity and pray on instantly this night also.’The brethren promised compliance; and in the morning they all told him they had seen a pale streak of light stealing away towards heaven.‘It suffices not, my brethren!’ said St. Anthony; ‘of your charity pray on yet again this night also.’The brethren promised compliance; and in the morning they told him they had all seen a blaze of light, and in the midst of it a bed on which lay a most beautiful maiden, white2as a lily, carried up to heaven, borne by four shining angels.‘It is well, my brethren!’ replied St. Anthony; ‘your prayers have rendered a soul to the celestial quires.’Afterwards he went to the convent where he had left Sora Castitre, and learnt from the mother abbess that, spending three penitential days saying only, ‘I have sinned; have mercy on me,’ she had rendered up her soul to God in simplicity and fervour.3The legend of St. Anthony preaching to the fishes is well known from paintings, and I do not reproduce it because it was told me with no variation from the usual form. But another legend, which early pictures have rendered equally familiar, I received with an anachronistic addition which is worth putting down.4ST. ANTHONY AND THE HOLY CHILD.3St. Anthony had been sent a long way off to preach;4by the way fatigue overtook him, and he found hospitality for a few days in a monastery by the way. Later in the evening came a Protestant5and asked hospitality, and he also was received, because you know there are many Protestants who are very good; and, besides that, if the man needed hospitality the monks would give it, whoever he might be.The monks were all in their cells by an early hour in the evening, but the Protestant walked up and down the corridors smoking.Suddenly through the cracks and the keyhole and all round the lintel of the door he saw a bright light issue where anon all was dark; it seemed as if the cell was on fire. ‘One of the good monks has set fire to his bedclothes!’ he said, and looked through the keyhole. What did he see? on the open book from which a father who was kneeling before it had been taking his meditationsstood a beautiful Child whom it filled you with love to look at, and from Whom shone a light too bright to bear.Anxious to obtain a better view of the glorious sight the Protestant knocked at the door; St. Anthony, for it was he, called to him to come in; but instantly the vision vanished.‘Who was that Child who was talking to you?’ asked the Protestant.‘The Divine Infant!’ answered St. Anthony with the greatest simplicity.The next night the Protestant, curious to know if the Child would appear again, again walked up and down the corridor smoking, keeping his eye on the door of St. Anthony’s cell; nor was it long before the same sight met his eye, but this time he was led to prolong his converse with the saint. The next night there was the same prodigy, and that night they sat up all night talking.When morning came he told the father abbot he wished to make his adjuration and join the order, and he finally took the habit in that monastery.5They say there was once a poor man who had paid what he owed for his ground. You know the way is, that when a man has gathered in his harvest and turned a little money then he pays off what he owes. This man paid for his ground as soon as he had made something by his harvest, but the seller did not give him any receipt. Soon after the owner died, and his son came to ask for the money over again. ‘But I paid your father,’ said the poor man. ‘Then show your receipt,’ said the son. ‘But he didn’t give me one,’ answered the poor man. ‘Then you must pay me,’ insisted the new proprietor.‘What shall I do! what shall I do!’ exclaimed the poor man in despair. ‘St. Anthony, help me!’ He hadhardly said the words when he saw a friar6coming towards him.‘What’s the matter, good man?’ said the friar, ‘that you are so distressed: tell me.’ And the poor man told him all the story of his distress.‘Shall I tell you how to get the receipt?’ asked the friar.‘Indeed, indeed!’7exclaimed the poor man, ‘that would be the making of me; but it’s more than you can do—the man is dead!’‘Never mind that. You do what I tell you,’ said the monk. ‘Go straight along that path;’ and the man saw that where he pointed was a path that had never been there before. ‘Follow that path,’ said the monk, ‘and you will come to a casino with great iron gates which shut and open of themselves continually. You must watch the moment when they are open and go boldly in. Inside you will see a big room and a man sitting at a table writing ceaselessly and casting accounts. That is your landlord; ask him for the receipt and he won’t dare withhold it now. But mind one thing. Don’t touch a single article in the room, whatever you do.’The poor man went along the path, and found all as the monk had told him.‘How did you get here?’ exclaimed the landlord, as soon as he recognised him; and the poor man told him how he had been sent and why he was come. The landlord sat at his desk writing with the greatest expedition, as if some one was whipping him on, and knitting his brows over his sums as if they were more than his brain could calculate; nevertheless, he took a piece of paper and wrote the receipt, and moreover he wrote two or three lines more on another piece of paper, which he bade him give to his son.The poor man promised to deliver it, and turned to go; but as he went could not forbear putting his hand over the polished surface of a table he had to pass, unmindful of the charge the monk had given him not totouch anything. His hand was no sooner in contact with the table than the whole skin was burnt off, and he understood that he was in Hell. With all expedition he watched the turn of the door opening, and hastened out.‘What have you got about your hand?’ asked St. Anthony when the man came back, for the friar was none other than St. Anthony.‘I touched one of the tables in that house,’ he answered, ‘forgetting what you told me, and burnt my hand so badly I had to dip this cloth in a river as I came by and tie it up. But I have the receipt, thanks to you.’ So St. Anthony touched his hand and healed it, and he saw him no more.Then the man took the letter to the old lord’s son. ‘Why, this is my father’s writing!’ he exclaimed; ‘and my father is dead. How did you come by it?’ And he told him. And the letter said: ‘Behold, I am in Hell! But you, mend your ways; give money to the poor; compensate this man for the trouble he has had; and be just to all, lest you also come hither.’Then the old landlord’s son gave the man a large sum of money to compensate him for his anxieties, and sent him away consoled.

St. Anthony’s father was accused of murder, and as facts seemed against him, he was condemned to be executed.

St. Anthony was preaching in the pulpit as his father was taken to the scaffold. ‘Allow me to stop for a minute to take breath,’ he said, and he made a minute’s pause in the midst of his discourse, and then went on again.

But in that minute’s pause, though no one in church had lost sight of him, he had gone on to the scaffold.

‘What are you doing to that man?’ he asked.

‘He has committed a murder, and is going to be executed.’

‘He has murdered no one. Bring hither the dead man.’

No one knew who it was that spoke, but they felt impelled to obey him nevertheless.

When the dead man’s body was brought, St. Anthony said to him:—

‘Is this the man who killed you? say!’

The dead man opened his eyes and looked at the accused.

‘Oh, no; that’s not the man at all!’ he said.

‘And you, where are you?’ continued St. Anthony.

‘I should be in Paradise, but that there is a ground of excommunication on me, therefore am I in Purgatory,’ answered the dead man. Then St. Anthony put his ear down,and bid him tell him the matter of the excommunication; and, when he had confessed it, he released him from the bond, and he went straight to Paradise. The father of St. Anthony, too, was pronounced innocent, and set free.

And all the while no one had missed St. Anthony from the pulpit!

2SANT’ ANTONIO E SORA1CASTITRE.I too know a story about St. Anthony.St. Anthony was a fair youth, as you will always see in his portraits. As he went about preaching there was a young woman who began to admire him very much, and her name was Sora Castitre. Whenever she could find out in which direction he was going she would put herself in his way and try to speak to him. St. Anthony at first kept his eyes fixed on the ground, and took no notice of her; then he tried to make her desist by rebuking her, but she ceased not to follow him.Then he thought to himself, with all a saint’s compunction, ‘It is not she who is to blame, and who is worthy of rebuke, but I, who have been the occasion of sin to her. God grant that sin be not imputed to her through loving me.’The next time she met him, it was in a deserted part of the Campagna.‘Brother Antonio, come along with me down this path. No one will see us there,’ said Sora Castitre.Much to her surprise, instead of pursuing the severe tone he had always adopted towards her, St. Anthony greeted her and smiled with a smile which filled her with a joy different from anything she had known before. What was more, he seemed to follow her, and she led on.But as she went the way seemed quite changed. She knew well the retired path by which she had meant to lead him, but now everything around looked different; not onelandmark was the same. Yet ‘how could it be different?’ she said within herself; and she led on.What was her astonishment, when, instead of finding it terminate in a rocky gorge as she had found before, there rose before her presently an austere building surrounded with walls and gates!St. Anthony stepped forward as they reached the gate. A nun opened to them, and St. Anthony asked for the mother abbess. ‘I have brought you a maiden,’ he said, ‘whom I recommend to your affectionate and tender care.’ The mother abbess promised to make her her special charge, and St. Anthony went his way, first calling the maiden aside and charging her with this one petition he would have her make:‘I have sinned; have mercy on me.’Then St. Anthony went back to his convent and called all the brethren together, and asked them all to pray very earnestly all through the night, and in the morning tell him what manifestation they had had.The brethren promised to comply; and in the morning they all told him they had seen a little spark of light shining in the darkness.‘It suffices not, my brethren!’ said St. Anthony; ‘continue your charity and pray on instantly this night also.’The brethren promised compliance; and in the morning they all told him they had seen a pale streak of light stealing away towards heaven.‘It suffices not, my brethren!’ said St. Anthony; ‘of your charity pray on yet again this night also.’The brethren promised compliance; and in the morning they told him they had all seen a blaze of light, and in the midst of it a bed on which lay a most beautiful maiden, white2as a lily, carried up to heaven, borne by four shining angels.‘It is well, my brethren!’ replied St. Anthony; ‘your prayers have rendered a soul to the celestial quires.’Afterwards he went to the convent where he had left Sora Castitre, and learnt from the mother abbess that, spending three penitential days saying only, ‘I have sinned; have mercy on me,’ she had rendered up her soul to God in simplicity and fervour.

2SANT’ ANTONIO E SORA1CASTITRE.

I too know a story about St. Anthony.St. Anthony was a fair youth, as you will always see in his portraits. As he went about preaching there was a young woman who began to admire him very much, and her name was Sora Castitre. Whenever she could find out in which direction he was going she would put herself in his way and try to speak to him. St. Anthony at first kept his eyes fixed on the ground, and took no notice of her; then he tried to make her desist by rebuking her, but she ceased not to follow him.Then he thought to himself, with all a saint’s compunction, ‘It is not she who is to blame, and who is worthy of rebuke, but I, who have been the occasion of sin to her. God grant that sin be not imputed to her through loving me.’The next time she met him, it was in a deserted part of the Campagna.‘Brother Antonio, come along with me down this path. No one will see us there,’ said Sora Castitre.Much to her surprise, instead of pursuing the severe tone he had always adopted towards her, St. Anthony greeted her and smiled with a smile which filled her with a joy different from anything she had known before. What was more, he seemed to follow her, and she led on.But as she went the way seemed quite changed. She knew well the retired path by which she had meant to lead him, but now everything around looked different; not onelandmark was the same. Yet ‘how could it be different?’ she said within herself; and she led on.What was her astonishment, when, instead of finding it terminate in a rocky gorge as she had found before, there rose before her presently an austere building surrounded with walls and gates!St. Anthony stepped forward as they reached the gate. A nun opened to them, and St. Anthony asked for the mother abbess. ‘I have brought you a maiden,’ he said, ‘whom I recommend to your affectionate and tender care.’ The mother abbess promised to make her her special charge, and St. Anthony went his way, first calling the maiden aside and charging her with this one petition he would have her make:‘I have sinned; have mercy on me.’Then St. Anthony went back to his convent and called all the brethren together, and asked them all to pray very earnestly all through the night, and in the morning tell him what manifestation they had had.The brethren promised to comply; and in the morning they all told him they had seen a little spark of light shining in the darkness.‘It suffices not, my brethren!’ said St. Anthony; ‘continue your charity and pray on instantly this night also.’The brethren promised compliance; and in the morning they all told him they had seen a pale streak of light stealing away towards heaven.‘It suffices not, my brethren!’ said St. Anthony; ‘of your charity pray on yet again this night also.’The brethren promised compliance; and in the morning they told him they had all seen a blaze of light, and in the midst of it a bed on which lay a most beautiful maiden, white2as a lily, carried up to heaven, borne by four shining angels.‘It is well, my brethren!’ replied St. Anthony; ‘your prayers have rendered a soul to the celestial quires.’Afterwards he went to the convent where he had left Sora Castitre, and learnt from the mother abbess that, spending three penitential days saying only, ‘I have sinned; have mercy on me,’ she had rendered up her soul to God in simplicity and fervour.

I too know a story about St. Anthony.

St. Anthony was a fair youth, as you will always see in his portraits. As he went about preaching there was a young woman who began to admire him very much, and her name was Sora Castitre. Whenever she could find out in which direction he was going she would put herself in his way and try to speak to him. St. Anthony at first kept his eyes fixed on the ground, and took no notice of her; then he tried to make her desist by rebuking her, but she ceased not to follow him.

Then he thought to himself, with all a saint’s compunction, ‘It is not she who is to blame, and who is worthy of rebuke, but I, who have been the occasion of sin to her. God grant that sin be not imputed to her through loving me.’

The next time she met him, it was in a deserted part of the Campagna.

‘Brother Antonio, come along with me down this path. No one will see us there,’ said Sora Castitre.

Much to her surprise, instead of pursuing the severe tone he had always adopted towards her, St. Anthony greeted her and smiled with a smile which filled her with a joy different from anything she had known before. What was more, he seemed to follow her, and she led on.

But as she went the way seemed quite changed. She knew well the retired path by which she had meant to lead him, but now everything around looked different; not onelandmark was the same. Yet ‘how could it be different?’ she said within herself; and she led on.

What was her astonishment, when, instead of finding it terminate in a rocky gorge as she had found before, there rose before her presently an austere building surrounded with walls and gates!

St. Anthony stepped forward as they reached the gate. A nun opened to them, and St. Anthony asked for the mother abbess. ‘I have brought you a maiden,’ he said, ‘whom I recommend to your affectionate and tender care.’ The mother abbess promised to make her her special charge, and St. Anthony went his way, first calling the maiden aside and charging her with this one petition he would have her make:

‘I have sinned; have mercy on me.’

Then St. Anthony went back to his convent and called all the brethren together, and asked them all to pray very earnestly all through the night, and in the morning tell him what manifestation they had had.

The brethren promised to comply; and in the morning they all told him they had seen a little spark of light shining in the darkness.

‘It suffices not, my brethren!’ said St. Anthony; ‘continue your charity and pray on instantly this night also.’

The brethren promised compliance; and in the morning they all told him they had seen a pale streak of light stealing away towards heaven.

‘It suffices not, my brethren!’ said St. Anthony; ‘of your charity pray on yet again this night also.’

The brethren promised compliance; and in the morning they told him they had all seen a blaze of light, and in the midst of it a bed on which lay a most beautiful maiden, white2as a lily, carried up to heaven, borne by four shining angels.

‘It is well, my brethren!’ replied St. Anthony; ‘your prayers have rendered a soul to the celestial quires.’

Afterwards he went to the convent where he had left Sora Castitre, and learnt from the mother abbess that, spending three penitential days saying only, ‘I have sinned; have mercy on me,’ she had rendered up her soul to God in simplicity and fervour.

3The legend of St. Anthony preaching to the fishes is well known from paintings, and I do not reproduce it because it was told me with no variation from the usual form. But another legend, which early pictures have rendered equally familiar, I received with an anachronistic addition which is worth putting down.

3

The legend of St. Anthony preaching to the fishes is well known from paintings, and I do not reproduce it because it was told me with no variation from the usual form. But another legend, which early pictures have rendered equally familiar, I received with an anachronistic addition which is worth putting down.

The legend of St. Anthony preaching to the fishes is well known from paintings, and I do not reproduce it because it was told me with no variation from the usual form. But another legend, which early pictures have rendered equally familiar, I received with an anachronistic addition which is worth putting down.

4ST. ANTHONY AND THE HOLY CHILD.3St. Anthony had been sent a long way off to preach;4by the way fatigue overtook him, and he found hospitality for a few days in a monastery by the way. Later in the evening came a Protestant5and asked hospitality, and he also was received, because you know there are many Protestants who are very good; and, besides that, if the man needed hospitality the monks would give it, whoever he might be.The monks were all in their cells by an early hour in the evening, but the Protestant walked up and down the corridors smoking.Suddenly through the cracks and the keyhole and all round the lintel of the door he saw a bright light issue where anon all was dark; it seemed as if the cell was on fire. ‘One of the good monks has set fire to his bedclothes!’ he said, and looked through the keyhole. What did he see? on the open book from which a father who was kneeling before it had been taking his meditationsstood a beautiful Child whom it filled you with love to look at, and from Whom shone a light too bright to bear.Anxious to obtain a better view of the glorious sight the Protestant knocked at the door; St. Anthony, for it was he, called to him to come in; but instantly the vision vanished.‘Who was that Child who was talking to you?’ asked the Protestant.‘The Divine Infant!’ answered St. Anthony with the greatest simplicity.The next night the Protestant, curious to know if the Child would appear again, again walked up and down the corridor smoking, keeping his eye on the door of St. Anthony’s cell; nor was it long before the same sight met his eye, but this time he was led to prolong his converse with the saint. The next night there was the same prodigy, and that night they sat up all night talking.When morning came he told the father abbot he wished to make his adjuration and join the order, and he finally took the habit in that monastery.

4ST. ANTHONY AND THE HOLY CHILD.3

St. Anthony had been sent a long way off to preach;4by the way fatigue overtook him, and he found hospitality for a few days in a monastery by the way. Later in the evening came a Protestant5and asked hospitality, and he also was received, because you know there are many Protestants who are very good; and, besides that, if the man needed hospitality the monks would give it, whoever he might be.The monks were all in their cells by an early hour in the evening, but the Protestant walked up and down the corridors smoking.Suddenly through the cracks and the keyhole and all round the lintel of the door he saw a bright light issue where anon all was dark; it seemed as if the cell was on fire. ‘One of the good monks has set fire to his bedclothes!’ he said, and looked through the keyhole. What did he see? on the open book from which a father who was kneeling before it had been taking his meditationsstood a beautiful Child whom it filled you with love to look at, and from Whom shone a light too bright to bear.Anxious to obtain a better view of the glorious sight the Protestant knocked at the door; St. Anthony, for it was he, called to him to come in; but instantly the vision vanished.‘Who was that Child who was talking to you?’ asked the Protestant.‘The Divine Infant!’ answered St. Anthony with the greatest simplicity.The next night the Protestant, curious to know if the Child would appear again, again walked up and down the corridor smoking, keeping his eye on the door of St. Anthony’s cell; nor was it long before the same sight met his eye, but this time he was led to prolong his converse with the saint. The next night there was the same prodigy, and that night they sat up all night talking.When morning came he told the father abbot he wished to make his adjuration and join the order, and he finally took the habit in that monastery.

St. Anthony had been sent a long way off to preach;4by the way fatigue overtook him, and he found hospitality for a few days in a monastery by the way. Later in the evening came a Protestant5and asked hospitality, and he also was received, because you know there are many Protestants who are very good; and, besides that, if the man needed hospitality the monks would give it, whoever he might be.

The monks were all in their cells by an early hour in the evening, but the Protestant walked up and down the corridors smoking.

Suddenly through the cracks and the keyhole and all round the lintel of the door he saw a bright light issue where anon all was dark; it seemed as if the cell was on fire. ‘One of the good monks has set fire to his bedclothes!’ he said, and looked through the keyhole. What did he see? on the open book from which a father who was kneeling before it had been taking his meditationsstood a beautiful Child whom it filled you with love to look at, and from Whom shone a light too bright to bear.

Anxious to obtain a better view of the glorious sight the Protestant knocked at the door; St. Anthony, for it was he, called to him to come in; but instantly the vision vanished.

‘Who was that Child who was talking to you?’ asked the Protestant.

‘The Divine Infant!’ answered St. Anthony with the greatest simplicity.

The next night the Protestant, curious to know if the Child would appear again, again walked up and down the corridor smoking, keeping his eye on the door of St. Anthony’s cell; nor was it long before the same sight met his eye, but this time he was led to prolong his converse with the saint. The next night there was the same prodigy, and that night they sat up all night talking.

When morning came he told the father abbot he wished to make his adjuration and join the order, and he finally took the habit in that monastery.

5They say there was once a poor man who had paid what he owed for his ground. You know the way is, that when a man has gathered in his harvest and turned a little money then he pays off what he owes. This man paid for his ground as soon as he had made something by his harvest, but the seller did not give him any receipt. Soon after the owner died, and his son came to ask for the money over again. ‘But I paid your father,’ said the poor man. ‘Then show your receipt,’ said the son. ‘But he didn’t give me one,’ answered the poor man. ‘Then you must pay me,’ insisted the new proprietor.‘What shall I do! what shall I do!’ exclaimed the poor man in despair. ‘St. Anthony, help me!’ He hadhardly said the words when he saw a friar6coming towards him.‘What’s the matter, good man?’ said the friar, ‘that you are so distressed: tell me.’ And the poor man told him all the story of his distress.‘Shall I tell you how to get the receipt?’ asked the friar.‘Indeed, indeed!’7exclaimed the poor man, ‘that would be the making of me; but it’s more than you can do—the man is dead!’‘Never mind that. You do what I tell you,’ said the monk. ‘Go straight along that path;’ and the man saw that where he pointed was a path that had never been there before. ‘Follow that path,’ said the monk, ‘and you will come to a casino with great iron gates which shut and open of themselves continually. You must watch the moment when they are open and go boldly in. Inside you will see a big room and a man sitting at a table writing ceaselessly and casting accounts. That is your landlord; ask him for the receipt and he won’t dare withhold it now. But mind one thing. Don’t touch a single article in the room, whatever you do.’The poor man went along the path, and found all as the monk had told him.‘How did you get here?’ exclaimed the landlord, as soon as he recognised him; and the poor man told him how he had been sent and why he was come. The landlord sat at his desk writing with the greatest expedition, as if some one was whipping him on, and knitting his brows over his sums as if they were more than his brain could calculate; nevertheless, he took a piece of paper and wrote the receipt, and moreover he wrote two or three lines more on another piece of paper, which he bade him give to his son.The poor man promised to deliver it, and turned to go; but as he went could not forbear putting his hand over the polished surface of a table he had to pass, unmindful of the charge the monk had given him not totouch anything. His hand was no sooner in contact with the table than the whole skin was burnt off, and he understood that he was in Hell. With all expedition he watched the turn of the door opening, and hastened out.‘What have you got about your hand?’ asked St. Anthony when the man came back, for the friar was none other than St. Anthony.‘I touched one of the tables in that house,’ he answered, ‘forgetting what you told me, and burnt my hand so badly I had to dip this cloth in a river as I came by and tie it up. But I have the receipt, thanks to you.’ So St. Anthony touched his hand and healed it, and he saw him no more.Then the man took the letter to the old lord’s son. ‘Why, this is my father’s writing!’ he exclaimed; ‘and my father is dead. How did you come by it?’ And he told him. And the letter said: ‘Behold, I am in Hell! But you, mend your ways; give money to the poor; compensate this man for the trouble he has had; and be just to all, lest you also come hither.’Then the old landlord’s son gave the man a large sum of money to compensate him for his anxieties, and sent him away consoled.

5

They say there was once a poor man who had paid what he owed for his ground. You know the way is, that when a man has gathered in his harvest and turned a little money then he pays off what he owes. This man paid for his ground as soon as he had made something by his harvest, but the seller did not give him any receipt. Soon after the owner died, and his son came to ask for the money over again. ‘But I paid your father,’ said the poor man. ‘Then show your receipt,’ said the son. ‘But he didn’t give me one,’ answered the poor man. ‘Then you must pay me,’ insisted the new proprietor.‘What shall I do! what shall I do!’ exclaimed the poor man in despair. ‘St. Anthony, help me!’ He hadhardly said the words when he saw a friar6coming towards him.‘What’s the matter, good man?’ said the friar, ‘that you are so distressed: tell me.’ And the poor man told him all the story of his distress.‘Shall I tell you how to get the receipt?’ asked the friar.‘Indeed, indeed!’7exclaimed the poor man, ‘that would be the making of me; but it’s more than you can do—the man is dead!’‘Never mind that. You do what I tell you,’ said the monk. ‘Go straight along that path;’ and the man saw that where he pointed was a path that had never been there before. ‘Follow that path,’ said the monk, ‘and you will come to a casino with great iron gates which shut and open of themselves continually. You must watch the moment when they are open and go boldly in. Inside you will see a big room and a man sitting at a table writing ceaselessly and casting accounts. That is your landlord; ask him for the receipt and he won’t dare withhold it now. But mind one thing. Don’t touch a single article in the room, whatever you do.’The poor man went along the path, and found all as the monk had told him.‘How did you get here?’ exclaimed the landlord, as soon as he recognised him; and the poor man told him how he had been sent and why he was come. The landlord sat at his desk writing with the greatest expedition, as if some one was whipping him on, and knitting his brows over his sums as if they were more than his brain could calculate; nevertheless, he took a piece of paper and wrote the receipt, and moreover he wrote two or three lines more on another piece of paper, which he bade him give to his son.The poor man promised to deliver it, and turned to go; but as he went could not forbear putting his hand over the polished surface of a table he had to pass, unmindful of the charge the monk had given him not totouch anything. His hand was no sooner in contact with the table than the whole skin was burnt off, and he understood that he was in Hell. With all expedition he watched the turn of the door opening, and hastened out.‘What have you got about your hand?’ asked St. Anthony when the man came back, for the friar was none other than St. Anthony.‘I touched one of the tables in that house,’ he answered, ‘forgetting what you told me, and burnt my hand so badly I had to dip this cloth in a river as I came by and tie it up. But I have the receipt, thanks to you.’ So St. Anthony touched his hand and healed it, and he saw him no more.Then the man took the letter to the old lord’s son. ‘Why, this is my father’s writing!’ he exclaimed; ‘and my father is dead. How did you come by it?’ And he told him. And the letter said: ‘Behold, I am in Hell! But you, mend your ways; give money to the poor; compensate this man for the trouble he has had; and be just to all, lest you also come hither.’Then the old landlord’s son gave the man a large sum of money to compensate him for his anxieties, and sent him away consoled.

They say there was once a poor man who had paid what he owed for his ground. You know the way is, that when a man has gathered in his harvest and turned a little money then he pays off what he owes. This man paid for his ground as soon as he had made something by his harvest, but the seller did not give him any receipt. Soon after the owner died, and his son came to ask for the money over again. ‘But I paid your father,’ said the poor man. ‘Then show your receipt,’ said the son. ‘But he didn’t give me one,’ answered the poor man. ‘Then you must pay me,’ insisted the new proprietor.

‘What shall I do! what shall I do!’ exclaimed the poor man in despair. ‘St. Anthony, help me!’ He hadhardly said the words when he saw a friar6coming towards him.

‘What’s the matter, good man?’ said the friar, ‘that you are so distressed: tell me.’ And the poor man told him all the story of his distress.

‘Shall I tell you how to get the receipt?’ asked the friar.

‘Indeed, indeed!’7exclaimed the poor man, ‘that would be the making of me; but it’s more than you can do—the man is dead!’

‘Never mind that. You do what I tell you,’ said the monk. ‘Go straight along that path;’ and the man saw that where he pointed was a path that had never been there before. ‘Follow that path,’ said the monk, ‘and you will come to a casino with great iron gates which shut and open of themselves continually. You must watch the moment when they are open and go boldly in. Inside you will see a big room and a man sitting at a table writing ceaselessly and casting accounts. That is your landlord; ask him for the receipt and he won’t dare withhold it now. But mind one thing. Don’t touch a single article in the room, whatever you do.’

The poor man went along the path, and found all as the monk had told him.

‘How did you get here?’ exclaimed the landlord, as soon as he recognised him; and the poor man told him how he had been sent and why he was come. The landlord sat at his desk writing with the greatest expedition, as if some one was whipping him on, and knitting his brows over his sums as if they were more than his brain could calculate; nevertheless, he took a piece of paper and wrote the receipt, and moreover he wrote two or three lines more on another piece of paper, which he bade him give to his son.

The poor man promised to deliver it, and turned to go; but as he went could not forbear putting his hand over the polished surface of a table he had to pass, unmindful of the charge the monk had given him not totouch anything. His hand was no sooner in contact with the table than the whole skin was burnt off, and he understood that he was in Hell. With all expedition he watched the turn of the door opening, and hastened out.

‘What have you got about your hand?’ asked St. Anthony when the man came back, for the friar was none other than St. Anthony.

‘I touched one of the tables in that house,’ he answered, ‘forgetting what you told me, and burnt my hand so badly I had to dip this cloth in a river as I came by and tie it up. But I have the receipt, thanks to you.’ So St. Anthony touched his hand and healed it, and he saw him no more.

Then the man took the letter to the old lord’s son. ‘Why, this is my father’s writing!’ he exclaimed; ‘and my father is dead. How did you come by it?’ And he told him. And the letter said: ‘Behold, I am in Hell! But you, mend your ways; give money to the poor; compensate this man for the trouble he has had; and be just to all, lest you also come hither.’

Then the old landlord’s son gave the man a large sum of money to compensate him for his anxieties, and sent him away consoled.

1‘Sora’ in this place does not mean ‘sister’; it is an expression in Roman vernacular for which we have no equivalent, and is applied to respectable persons of the lower class who do not aspire to be called ‘Signora,’ ‘Mrs.,’ or ‘Miss,’ as with us. ‘Sor’ or ‘Ser’ is the masculine equivalent; we had it in use at p. 194.↑2The word used was ‘candida,’ and not ‘bianca,’ as expressive of purest white.↑3‘Sant’ Antonio ed il Santo Bambino.’↑4I believe St. Anthony was never in Rome; but his genial winning character made him so popular that the people speak of him as one of themselves.↑5St. Anthony’s date is 1195–1231; so the idea of making his observer a Protestant, and a smoker to boot, is very quaint, and is an instance of how chronological order gets confused by tradition.↑6‘Fraticello’; ‘good little friar.’ An affectionate way of speaking of Franciscans often used.↑7‘Magàri!’ a very strong form of ‘indeed.’↑

1‘Sora’ in this place does not mean ‘sister’; it is an expression in Roman vernacular for which we have no equivalent, and is applied to respectable persons of the lower class who do not aspire to be called ‘Signora,’ ‘Mrs.,’ or ‘Miss,’ as with us. ‘Sor’ or ‘Ser’ is the masculine equivalent; we had it in use at p. 194.↑

2The word used was ‘candida,’ and not ‘bianca,’ as expressive of purest white.↑

3‘Sant’ Antonio ed il Santo Bambino.’↑

4I believe St. Anthony was never in Rome; but his genial winning character made him so popular that the people speak of him as one of themselves.↑

5St. Anthony’s date is 1195–1231; so the idea of making his observer a Protestant, and a smoker to boot, is very quaint, and is an instance of how chronological order gets confused by tradition.↑

6‘Fraticello’; ‘good little friar.’ An affectionate way of speaking of Franciscans often used.↑

7‘Magàri!’ a very strong form of ‘indeed.’↑

ST. MARGARET OF CORTONA.St. Margaret wasn’t always a saint, you must know: in her youth she was very much the reverse. She had a very cruel stepmother, who worried her to death,1and gave her work she was unequal to do.One day her stepmother had sent her out to tie up bundles of hay. As she was so engaged a Count came by, and he stopped to look at her, for she was rarely beautiful.2‘What hard work for such pretty little hands,’ he began by saying; and after many tender words had been exchanged he proposed that she should go home with him, where her life would be the reverse of the suffering existence she had now to endure.Margaret consented at once, for her stepmother, besides working her hard, had neglected to form her to proper sentiments of virtue.The count took her to his villa at a place called Monte Porciana, a good way from Cortona. Here her life was indeed a contrast to what it had been at home at Cortona. Instead of having to work, she had plenty of servants to wait upon her; her dress and her food were all in the greatest luxury, and she was supplied with everything she wished for. Sometimes as she went to the theatre, decked out in her gay attire, and knowing that she was a scandal to all, she would say in mirth and wantonness, ‘Who knows whether one day I may not be stuck up there on high in the churches, like some of those saints? As strange things have happened ere now!’ But she only said it in wantonness. So she went on enjoying life, and when their son was born there was nothing more she desired.In the midst of this gay existence, word was brought her one evening that the Count, who had gone out that morning full of health and spirits to the hunt, had beenovertaken and assassinated, and as all had been afraid to pursue the murderers, they knew not where his body was.Margaret was thrown into a frenzy3at the news; her fine clothing and her rich fare gave her little pleasure now. All amusement and frivolity were put out of sight; and she sat on her sofa and stared before her, for she had no heart to turn to anything that could distract her thoughts from her great loss. Then one day—it might have been three days after—a favourite dog belonging to the count came limping and whining up to her. Margaret rose immediately; she knew that the dog would take her to the count’s body, and she rose up and motioned to him to go: and the dog, all glad to return to his master, ran on before. All the household were too much afraid of the assassins to venture in their way, so Margaret went forth alone. It was a long rough way; but the dog ran on, and Margaret kept on as well as her broken strength would admit. At last they came to a brake where the dog stopped, and now whined no longer but howled piteously.Margaret knew that they had reached the object of their search, and it was indeed here the assassins had hidden the body. Moving away with her own hands the leaves and branches with which they had covered it over, the fearful sight of her lover’s mangled body lay before her. The condition into which the wounds and the lapse of time had brought it was more than she could bear to look at, and she swooned away on the spot.When she came to herself all the course of her thoughts was changed. She saw what her life had been; the sense of the scandal she had given was more to her even than her own distracting grief. As the most terrible penance she could think of, she resolved to go back to her stepmother and endure her hard treatment, sharpened by the invectives with which she knew it would now be seasoned.Taking with her her son, she went to her, therefore, and with the greatest submission of manner entreated to be readmitted. But not even this would the stepmother grant her, but drove her away from the door. She then turned to her father, but he was bound to say the same as his wife. She now saw there was one misery worse than harsh treatment, and that was penury—starvation, not only for herself, but her child.Little she cared what became of her, but for the child something must be done. What did she do? She went and put on a sackcloth dress,4tied about the waist with a rope, and she went to the church at the high mass time; and when mass was over she stood on the altar step, and told all the people she was Margaret of Cortona, who had given so much scandal, and now was come to show her contrition for it.Her sufferings had gone up before God. As she spoke her confession so humbly before all the people, the count’s mother rose from her seat, and, coming up to her, threw her handkerchief over her head5—for she was bareheaded—and led her away to her home.She would only accept her hospitality on condition of being allowed to live in a little room apart, with no more furniture than a nun’s cell. Here she lived twelve years of penance, till her boy was old enough to choose his state in life. He elected to be a Dominican, and afterwards became a Preacher of the Apostolic Palace; and she entered a Franciscan convent, where she spent ten more years of penance, till God took her to Himself.She cut off all her long hair when she went to live in her cell at the house of the count’s mother, that she might not again be an occasion of sin to anyone. And after that, when she found she was still a subject of human admiration, she cut off her lips, that no one might admire her again.61‘La strapazzava,’ a word particularly applied to overworking a horse.↑2‘Di una rara bellezza.’↑3‘Era disperata.’↑4‘Un sacco crudo,’ a loose garment made of harsh sackcloth that had not been dressed.↑5Handkerchiefs are used so habitually for tying up parcels in Rome, that the narrator thought it worth while to specify that this one was a ‘fazzaletto di naso.’↑6The life is thus given in Butler:—‘Margaret was a native of Alviano in Tuscany. The harshness of a stepmother and her own indulged propension to vice cast her headlong into the greatest disorders. The sight of the carcase of a man, half-putrefied, who had been her gallant, struck her with so great a fear of the Divine judgments, and with so deep a sense of the treachery of the world, that she in a moment became a perfect penitent. The first thing she did was to throw herself at her father’s feet, bathed in tears, to beg his pardon for her contempt of his authority and fatherly admonitions. She spent the days and nights in tears; and to repair the scandal she had given by her crimes, she went to the parish church of Alviano with a rope about her neck, and there asked public pardon for them. After this she repaired to Cortona and made her most penitent confession to a father of the Order of S. Francis, who admired the great sentiments of compunction with which she was filled, and prescribed her austerities and practices suitable to her fervour. Her conversion happened in the year 1274, the twenty-fifth of her age.... This model of true penitents, after twenty-three years spent in severe penance, twenty of them in the religious habit, being worn out by austerities and consumed by the fire of divine love, died on the 22nd of February 1297.’↑

ST. MARGARET OF CORTONA.

St. Margaret wasn’t always a saint, you must know: in her youth she was very much the reverse. She had a very cruel stepmother, who worried her to death,1and gave her work she was unequal to do.One day her stepmother had sent her out to tie up bundles of hay. As she was so engaged a Count came by, and he stopped to look at her, for she was rarely beautiful.2‘What hard work for such pretty little hands,’ he began by saying; and after many tender words had been exchanged he proposed that she should go home with him, where her life would be the reverse of the suffering existence she had now to endure.Margaret consented at once, for her stepmother, besides working her hard, had neglected to form her to proper sentiments of virtue.The count took her to his villa at a place called Monte Porciana, a good way from Cortona. Here her life was indeed a contrast to what it had been at home at Cortona. Instead of having to work, she had plenty of servants to wait upon her; her dress and her food were all in the greatest luxury, and she was supplied with everything she wished for. Sometimes as she went to the theatre, decked out in her gay attire, and knowing that she was a scandal to all, she would say in mirth and wantonness, ‘Who knows whether one day I may not be stuck up there on high in the churches, like some of those saints? As strange things have happened ere now!’ But she only said it in wantonness. So she went on enjoying life, and when their son was born there was nothing more she desired.In the midst of this gay existence, word was brought her one evening that the Count, who had gone out that morning full of health and spirits to the hunt, had beenovertaken and assassinated, and as all had been afraid to pursue the murderers, they knew not where his body was.Margaret was thrown into a frenzy3at the news; her fine clothing and her rich fare gave her little pleasure now. All amusement and frivolity were put out of sight; and she sat on her sofa and stared before her, for she had no heart to turn to anything that could distract her thoughts from her great loss. Then one day—it might have been three days after—a favourite dog belonging to the count came limping and whining up to her. Margaret rose immediately; she knew that the dog would take her to the count’s body, and she rose up and motioned to him to go: and the dog, all glad to return to his master, ran on before. All the household were too much afraid of the assassins to venture in their way, so Margaret went forth alone. It was a long rough way; but the dog ran on, and Margaret kept on as well as her broken strength would admit. At last they came to a brake where the dog stopped, and now whined no longer but howled piteously.Margaret knew that they had reached the object of their search, and it was indeed here the assassins had hidden the body. Moving away with her own hands the leaves and branches with which they had covered it over, the fearful sight of her lover’s mangled body lay before her. The condition into which the wounds and the lapse of time had brought it was more than she could bear to look at, and she swooned away on the spot.When she came to herself all the course of her thoughts was changed. She saw what her life had been; the sense of the scandal she had given was more to her even than her own distracting grief. As the most terrible penance she could think of, she resolved to go back to her stepmother and endure her hard treatment, sharpened by the invectives with which she knew it would now be seasoned.Taking with her her son, she went to her, therefore, and with the greatest submission of manner entreated to be readmitted. But not even this would the stepmother grant her, but drove her away from the door. She then turned to her father, but he was bound to say the same as his wife. She now saw there was one misery worse than harsh treatment, and that was penury—starvation, not only for herself, but her child.Little she cared what became of her, but for the child something must be done. What did she do? She went and put on a sackcloth dress,4tied about the waist with a rope, and she went to the church at the high mass time; and when mass was over she stood on the altar step, and told all the people she was Margaret of Cortona, who had given so much scandal, and now was come to show her contrition for it.Her sufferings had gone up before God. As she spoke her confession so humbly before all the people, the count’s mother rose from her seat, and, coming up to her, threw her handkerchief over her head5—for she was bareheaded—and led her away to her home.She would only accept her hospitality on condition of being allowed to live in a little room apart, with no more furniture than a nun’s cell. Here she lived twelve years of penance, till her boy was old enough to choose his state in life. He elected to be a Dominican, and afterwards became a Preacher of the Apostolic Palace; and she entered a Franciscan convent, where she spent ten more years of penance, till God took her to Himself.She cut off all her long hair when she went to live in her cell at the house of the count’s mother, that she might not again be an occasion of sin to anyone. And after that, when she found she was still a subject of human admiration, she cut off her lips, that no one might admire her again.6

St. Margaret wasn’t always a saint, you must know: in her youth she was very much the reverse. She had a very cruel stepmother, who worried her to death,1and gave her work she was unequal to do.

One day her stepmother had sent her out to tie up bundles of hay. As she was so engaged a Count came by, and he stopped to look at her, for she was rarely beautiful.2

‘What hard work for such pretty little hands,’ he began by saying; and after many tender words had been exchanged he proposed that she should go home with him, where her life would be the reverse of the suffering existence she had now to endure.

Margaret consented at once, for her stepmother, besides working her hard, had neglected to form her to proper sentiments of virtue.

The count took her to his villa at a place called Monte Porciana, a good way from Cortona. Here her life was indeed a contrast to what it had been at home at Cortona. Instead of having to work, she had plenty of servants to wait upon her; her dress and her food were all in the greatest luxury, and she was supplied with everything she wished for. Sometimes as she went to the theatre, decked out in her gay attire, and knowing that she was a scandal to all, she would say in mirth and wantonness, ‘Who knows whether one day I may not be stuck up there on high in the churches, like some of those saints? As strange things have happened ere now!’ But she only said it in wantonness. So she went on enjoying life, and when their son was born there was nothing more she desired.

In the midst of this gay existence, word was brought her one evening that the Count, who had gone out that morning full of health and spirits to the hunt, had beenovertaken and assassinated, and as all had been afraid to pursue the murderers, they knew not where his body was.

Margaret was thrown into a frenzy3at the news; her fine clothing and her rich fare gave her little pleasure now. All amusement and frivolity were put out of sight; and she sat on her sofa and stared before her, for she had no heart to turn to anything that could distract her thoughts from her great loss. Then one day—it might have been three days after—a favourite dog belonging to the count came limping and whining up to her. Margaret rose immediately; she knew that the dog would take her to the count’s body, and she rose up and motioned to him to go: and the dog, all glad to return to his master, ran on before. All the household were too much afraid of the assassins to venture in their way, so Margaret went forth alone. It was a long rough way; but the dog ran on, and Margaret kept on as well as her broken strength would admit. At last they came to a brake where the dog stopped, and now whined no longer but howled piteously.

Margaret knew that they had reached the object of their search, and it was indeed here the assassins had hidden the body. Moving away with her own hands the leaves and branches with which they had covered it over, the fearful sight of her lover’s mangled body lay before her. The condition into which the wounds and the lapse of time had brought it was more than she could bear to look at, and she swooned away on the spot.

When she came to herself all the course of her thoughts was changed. She saw what her life had been; the sense of the scandal she had given was more to her even than her own distracting grief. As the most terrible penance she could think of, she resolved to go back to her stepmother and endure her hard treatment, sharpened by the invectives with which she knew it would now be seasoned.

Taking with her her son, she went to her, therefore, and with the greatest submission of manner entreated to be readmitted. But not even this would the stepmother grant her, but drove her away from the door. She then turned to her father, but he was bound to say the same as his wife. She now saw there was one misery worse than harsh treatment, and that was penury—starvation, not only for herself, but her child.

Little she cared what became of her, but for the child something must be done. What did she do? She went and put on a sackcloth dress,4tied about the waist with a rope, and she went to the church at the high mass time; and when mass was over she stood on the altar step, and told all the people she was Margaret of Cortona, who had given so much scandal, and now was come to show her contrition for it.

Her sufferings had gone up before God. As she spoke her confession so humbly before all the people, the count’s mother rose from her seat, and, coming up to her, threw her handkerchief over her head5—for she was bareheaded—and led her away to her home.

She would only accept her hospitality on condition of being allowed to live in a little room apart, with no more furniture than a nun’s cell. Here she lived twelve years of penance, till her boy was old enough to choose his state in life. He elected to be a Dominican, and afterwards became a Preacher of the Apostolic Palace; and she entered a Franciscan convent, where she spent ten more years of penance, till God took her to Himself.

She cut off all her long hair when she went to live in her cell at the house of the count’s mother, that she might not again be an occasion of sin to anyone. And after that, when she found she was still a subject of human admiration, she cut off her lips, that no one might admire her again.6

1‘La strapazzava,’ a word particularly applied to overworking a horse.↑2‘Di una rara bellezza.’↑3‘Era disperata.’↑4‘Un sacco crudo,’ a loose garment made of harsh sackcloth that had not been dressed.↑5Handkerchiefs are used so habitually for tying up parcels in Rome, that the narrator thought it worth while to specify that this one was a ‘fazzaletto di naso.’↑6The life is thus given in Butler:—‘Margaret was a native of Alviano in Tuscany. The harshness of a stepmother and her own indulged propension to vice cast her headlong into the greatest disorders. The sight of the carcase of a man, half-putrefied, who had been her gallant, struck her with so great a fear of the Divine judgments, and with so deep a sense of the treachery of the world, that she in a moment became a perfect penitent. The first thing she did was to throw herself at her father’s feet, bathed in tears, to beg his pardon for her contempt of his authority and fatherly admonitions. She spent the days and nights in tears; and to repair the scandal she had given by her crimes, she went to the parish church of Alviano with a rope about her neck, and there asked public pardon for them. After this she repaired to Cortona and made her most penitent confession to a father of the Order of S. Francis, who admired the great sentiments of compunction with which she was filled, and prescribed her austerities and practices suitable to her fervour. Her conversion happened in the year 1274, the twenty-fifth of her age.... This model of true penitents, after twenty-three years spent in severe penance, twenty of them in the religious habit, being worn out by austerities and consumed by the fire of divine love, died on the 22nd of February 1297.’↑

1‘La strapazzava,’ a word particularly applied to overworking a horse.↑

2‘Di una rara bellezza.’↑

3‘Era disperata.’↑

4‘Un sacco crudo,’ a loose garment made of harsh sackcloth that had not been dressed.↑

5Handkerchiefs are used so habitually for tying up parcels in Rome, that the narrator thought it worth while to specify that this one was a ‘fazzaletto di naso.’↑

6The life is thus given in Butler:—‘Margaret was a native of Alviano in Tuscany. The harshness of a stepmother and her own indulged propension to vice cast her headlong into the greatest disorders. The sight of the carcase of a man, half-putrefied, who had been her gallant, struck her with so great a fear of the Divine judgments, and with so deep a sense of the treachery of the world, that she in a moment became a perfect penitent. The first thing she did was to throw herself at her father’s feet, bathed in tears, to beg his pardon for her contempt of his authority and fatherly admonitions. She spent the days and nights in tears; and to repair the scandal she had given by her crimes, she went to the parish church of Alviano with a rope about her neck, and there asked public pardon for them. After this she repaired to Cortona and made her most penitent confession to a father of the Order of S. Francis, who admired the great sentiments of compunction with which she was filled, and prescribed her austerities and practices suitable to her fervour. Her conversion happened in the year 1274, the twenty-fifth of her age.... This model of true penitents, after twenty-three years spent in severe penance, twenty of them in the religious habit, being worn out by austerities and consumed by the fire of divine love, died on the 22nd of February 1297.’↑

ST. THEODORA.When Santa Teodora was young she was married, and lived very happily with her husband, for they were both very fond of each other.But there was a count who saw her and fell in love with her, and tried his utmost to get an opportunity of telling her his affection, but she was so prudent that he could not approach her. So what did he do? he went to a bad old woman1and told her that he would give her ever so much money if she would get him the opportunity of meeting her. The old wretch acceptedthe commission willingly, and put all her bad arts in requisition to make Theodora forget her duty. For a long time Theodora refused to listen to her and sent her away, but she went on finding excuses to come to her, and again and again urged her persuasions and excited her curiosity so that finally she consented that he might just come and see her, and the witch woman assured her that was all he asked. But what he wanted was the opportunity of speaking his own story into her ear, and when that was given him he pushed his suit so successfully that it wasn’t only once he came, but many times.Yet it was not a very long time before a day came when Theodora saw how wrong she had been, and then, seized with compunction, she determined to go away and hide herself where she would never be heard of more. Before her husband came home she cut off all her hair, and putting on a coarse dress she went to a Capuchin monastery and asked admission.‘What is your name?’ asked the Superior.‘Theodore,’ she replied.‘You seem too young for our severe rule,’ he continued; ‘you seem a mere boy;’ but she expressed such sincere sentiments of contrition as showed him she was worthy to embrace their life of penance.The Devil was very much vexed to see what a perfect penitent she made, and he stirred up the other monks to suspect her of all manner of things; but they could find no fault against her, nor did they ever suspect that she was a woman.One day when she was sent with another brother to beg for the convent a storm overtook them in a wood, and they were obliged to seek the shelter of a cottage there was on the borders of the wood where they were belated. ‘There is room in the stable for one of you,’ said the peasant who lived there; ‘but that other one who looks so young and so delicate’ (he meant Theodora) ‘must sleepindoors, and the only place is the loft where my daughter sleeps; but it can’t be helped.’ Theodora, therefore, slept in the loft and the monk in the stable, and in the morning when the weather was fair they went back to their convent. Months passed away, and the incident was almost forgotten, when one day the peasant came to the monastery and rang the bell in a great fury, and he laid down at the entrance a bundle in which was a baby. ‘That young monk of yours is the father of this child,’ he said, ‘and you ought to turn him out of the convent.’ Then the Superior sent for ‘Theodore,’ and repeated what the peasant had said.‘Surely God has sent me this new penance because the life I lead here is not severe enough,’ she said. ‘He has sent me this further punishment that all the community should think me guilty.’ Therefore she would not justify herself, but accepted the accusation and took the baby and went away. Her only way of living now was to get a night’s lodging how she could, and come every day to the convent gate with the child and live on the dole that was distributed there to the poor. What a life for her who had been brought up delicately in her own palace!She was not allowed to rest, however, even so, for people took offence because she was permitted to remain so near the monastery, and the monks had to send her away. So she went to seek the shelter of a wood, and to labour to find the means of living for herself and the child in the roots and herbs she could pick up. But one of the monks one day found her there, and saw her so emaciated that he told the Superior, and he let her come back to receive the dole.At last she died, and when they came to bury her they found she had in one hand a written paper so tightly clasped that no one had the strength to unclose it; and there she lay on her bier in the church looking so sad andworn, yet as sweetly fair as she had looked in life, and with the written paper tightly grasped in her closed hand.Now when her husband found that she had left his palace the night she went away he left no means untried to discover where she was; and when he had made inquiries and sent everywhere, and could learn no tidings whatever, he put on pilgrim’s weeds and went out to seek for her everywhere himself.It so happened that he came into the city where she died just as she was thus laid on her bier in the church. In spite of her male attire he knew her; in the midst of his grief he noticed the written paper she held. Tohistouch her hand opened instantly, and in the scroll was found recorded all she had done and all she had suffered.1‘Vecchiaccia’; the additionacciaimplies that she was bad: probably a witch was intended.↑

ST. THEODORA.

When Santa Teodora was young she was married, and lived very happily with her husband, for they were both very fond of each other.But there was a count who saw her and fell in love with her, and tried his utmost to get an opportunity of telling her his affection, but she was so prudent that he could not approach her. So what did he do? he went to a bad old woman1and told her that he would give her ever so much money if she would get him the opportunity of meeting her. The old wretch acceptedthe commission willingly, and put all her bad arts in requisition to make Theodora forget her duty. For a long time Theodora refused to listen to her and sent her away, but she went on finding excuses to come to her, and again and again urged her persuasions and excited her curiosity so that finally she consented that he might just come and see her, and the witch woman assured her that was all he asked. But what he wanted was the opportunity of speaking his own story into her ear, and when that was given him he pushed his suit so successfully that it wasn’t only once he came, but many times.Yet it was not a very long time before a day came when Theodora saw how wrong she had been, and then, seized with compunction, she determined to go away and hide herself where she would never be heard of more. Before her husband came home she cut off all her hair, and putting on a coarse dress she went to a Capuchin monastery and asked admission.‘What is your name?’ asked the Superior.‘Theodore,’ she replied.‘You seem too young for our severe rule,’ he continued; ‘you seem a mere boy;’ but she expressed such sincere sentiments of contrition as showed him she was worthy to embrace their life of penance.The Devil was very much vexed to see what a perfect penitent she made, and he stirred up the other monks to suspect her of all manner of things; but they could find no fault against her, nor did they ever suspect that she was a woman.One day when she was sent with another brother to beg for the convent a storm overtook them in a wood, and they were obliged to seek the shelter of a cottage there was on the borders of the wood where they were belated. ‘There is room in the stable for one of you,’ said the peasant who lived there; ‘but that other one who looks so young and so delicate’ (he meant Theodora) ‘must sleepindoors, and the only place is the loft where my daughter sleeps; but it can’t be helped.’ Theodora, therefore, slept in the loft and the monk in the stable, and in the morning when the weather was fair they went back to their convent. Months passed away, and the incident was almost forgotten, when one day the peasant came to the monastery and rang the bell in a great fury, and he laid down at the entrance a bundle in which was a baby. ‘That young monk of yours is the father of this child,’ he said, ‘and you ought to turn him out of the convent.’ Then the Superior sent for ‘Theodore,’ and repeated what the peasant had said.‘Surely God has sent me this new penance because the life I lead here is not severe enough,’ she said. ‘He has sent me this further punishment that all the community should think me guilty.’ Therefore she would not justify herself, but accepted the accusation and took the baby and went away. Her only way of living now was to get a night’s lodging how she could, and come every day to the convent gate with the child and live on the dole that was distributed there to the poor. What a life for her who had been brought up delicately in her own palace!She was not allowed to rest, however, even so, for people took offence because she was permitted to remain so near the monastery, and the monks had to send her away. So she went to seek the shelter of a wood, and to labour to find the means of living for herself and the child in the roots and herbs she could pick up. But one of the monks one day found her there, and saw her so emaciated that he told the Superior, and he let her come back to receive the dole.At last she died, and when they came to bury her they found she had in one hand a written paper so tightly clasped that no one had the strength to unclose it; and there she lay on her bier in the church looking so sad andworn, yet as sweetly fair as she had looked in life, and with the written paper tightly grasped in her closed hand.Now when her husband found that she had left his palace the night she went away he left no means untried to discover where she was; and when he had made inquiries and sent everywhere, and could learn no tidings whatever, he put on pilgrim’s weeds and went out to seek for her everywhere himself.It so happened that he came into the city where she died just as she was thus laid on her bier in the church. In spite of her male attire he knew her; in the midst of his grief he noticed the written paper she held. Tohistouch her hand opened instantly, and in the scroll was found recorded all she had done and all she had suffered.

When Santa Teodora was young she was married, and lived very happily with her husband, for they were both very fond of each other.

But there was a count who saw her and fell in love with her, and tried his utmost to get an opportunity of telling her his affection, but she was so prudent that he could not approach her. So what did he do? he went to a bad old woman1and told her that he would give her ever so much money if she would get him the opportunity of meeting her. The old wretch acceptedthe commission willingly, and put all her bad arts in requisition to make Theodora forget her duty. For a long time Theodora refused to listen to her and sent her away, but she went on finding excuses to come to her, and again and again urged her persuasions and excited her curiosity so that finally she consented that he might just come and see her, and the witch woman assured her that was all he asked. But what he wanted was the opportunity of speaking his own story into her ear, and when that was given him he pushed his suit so successfully that it wasn’t only once he came, but many times.

Yet it was not a very long time before a day came when Theodora saw how wrong she had been, and then, seized with compunction, she determined to go away and hide herself where she would never be heard of more. Before her husband came home she cut off all her hair, and putting on a coarse dress she went to a Capuchin monastery and asked admission.

‘What is your name?’ asked the Superior.

‘Theodore,’ she replied.

‘You seem too young for our severe rule,’ he continued; ‘you seem a mere boy;’ but she expressed such sincere sentiments of contrition as showed him she was worthy to embrace their life of penance.

The Devil was very much vexed to see what a perfect penitent she made, and he stirred up the other monks to suspect her of all manner of things; but they could find no fault against her, nor did they ever suspect that she was a woman.

One day when she was sent with another brother to beg for the convent a storm overtook them in a wood, and they were obliged to seek the shelter of a cottage there was on the borders of the wood where they were belated. ‘There is room in the stable for one of you,’ said the peasant who lived there; ‘but that other one who looks so young and so delicate’ (he meant Theodora) ‘must sleepindoors, and the only place is the loft where my daughter sleeps; but it can’t be helped.’ Theodora, therefore, slept in the loft and the monk in the stable, and in the morning when the weather was fair they went back to their convent. Months passed away, and the incident was almost forgotten, when one day the peasant came to the monastery and rang the bell in a great fury, and he laid down at the entrance a bundle in which was a baby. ‘That young monk of yours is the father of this child,’ he said, ‘and you ought to turn him out of the convent.’ Then the Superior sent for ‘Theodore,’ and repeated what the peasant had said.

‘Surely God has sent me this new penance because the life I lead here is not severe enough,’ she said. ‘He has sent me this further punishment that all the community should think me guilty.’ Therefore she would not justify herself, but accepted the accusation and took the baby and went away. Her only way of living now was to get a night’s lodging how she could, and come every day to the convent gate with the child and live on the dole that was distributed there to the poor. What a life for her who had been brought up delicately in her own palace!

She was not allowed to rest, however, even so, for people took offence because she was permitted to remain so near the monastery, and the monks had to send her away. So she went to seek the shelter of a wood, and to labour to find the means of living for herself and the child in the roots and herbs she could pick up. But one of the monks one day found her there, and saw her so emaciated that he told the Superior, and he let her come back to receive the dole.

At last she died, and when they came to bury her they found she had in one hand a written paper so tightly clasped that no one had the strength to unclose it; and there she lay on her bier in the church looking so sad andworn, yet as sweetly fair as she had looked in life, and with the written paper tightly grasped in her closed hand.

Now when her husband found that she had left his palace the night she went away he left no means untried to discover where she was; and when he had made inquiries and sent everywhere, and could learn no tidings whatever, he put on pilgrim’s weeds and went out to seek for her everywhere himself.

It so happened that he came into the city where she died just as she was thus laid on her bier in the church. In spite of her male attire he knew her; in the midst of his grief he noticed the written paper she held. Tohistouch her hand opened instantly, and in the scroll was found recorded all she had done and all she had suffered.

1‘Vecchiaccia’; the additionacciaimplies that she was bad: probably a witch was intended.↑

1‘Vecchiaccia’; the additionacciaimplies that she was bad: probably a witch was intended.↑

NUN BEATRICE.1Nun Beatrice had not altogether the true spirit of a religious: she was somewhat given to vanity;2though but for this she was a good nun, and full of excellent dispositions. She held the office of portress;3and, as she determined to go away out of her convent and return into the world, this seemed to afford her a favourable opportunity for carrying out her design. Accordingly, one day when the house was very quiet, and there seemed no danger of being observed, having previously contrived to secrete some secular clothes such as passed through her hands to keep in store for giving to the poor, she let herself out and went away.In the parlour was a kneeling-desk with a picture of Our Lady hanging over it, where she had been wont to kneel and hold converse with Our Lady in prayer whenever she had a moment to spare. On this desk she laidthe keys before she went, thinking it was a safe place for the Superior to find them; and she commended them to the care of Our Lady, whose picture hung above, and said, ‘Keep thou the keys, and let no harm come to this good house and my dear sisters.’As she said the words Our Lady looked at her with a glance of reproach, enough to have melted her heart and made her return to a better mood had she seen it; but she was too full of her own thoughts and the excitement of her undertaking to notice anything. No sooner was she gone out, however, than Our Lady, walking out of the canvas, assumed the dress that she had laid aside, and, tying the keys to her girdle, assumed the office of portress.With the habit of the portress Our Lady also assumed her semblance; so that no one noticed the exchange, except that all remarked how humble, how modest, how edifying Beatrice had become.After a time the nuns began to say it was a pity so perfect a nun should be left in so subordinate a position, and they made her therefore Mistress of the Novices. This office she exercised with as great perfection, according to its requirements, as she had the other; and so sweetly did she train the young nuns entrusted to her direction that all the novices became saints.Beatrice meantime had gone to live in the world as a secular; and though she often repented of what she had done, she had not the courage to go back and tell all. She prayed for courage, but she went on delaying. While she was in this mind it so happened one day that the factor4of the convent came to the house where she was living. What strange and moving memories of her peaceful home filled her mind as she saw his well-known form, though he did not recognise her in her secular dress! What an opportunity too, she thought, to learn what was the feeling of the community towards her, and what had been said of her escape!‘I hope all your nuns are well,’ she said. ‘I used to live in their neighbourhood once, and there was one of them I used to know, Suora5Beatrice. How is she now?’‘Sister Beatrice!’ said the factor. ‘She is the model of perfection, the example of the whole house. Everybody is ready to worship her. With all respect to the Church, which never canonizes the living, no one doubts she is a saint indeed.’‘It cannot be the same,’ answered Beatrice. ‘The one I knew was anything but a saint, though I loved her well, and should like to have news of her.’ And she hardly knew how to conceal the astonishment with which she was seized at hearing him speak thus; for the event on which she expected him to enlarge at once was the extraordinary fact of her escape. But he pursued in the same quiet way as before. ‘Oh yes, it must be the same. There has never been but one of the name since I have known the convent. She was portress some time ago; but latterly she has been made Mistress of the Novices.’There was nothing more to be learnt from him; so she pursued her inquiries no further. But he had no sooner had start enough to put him at a safe distance, than she set out to go to the convent and see this Sister Beatrice who so strangely represented her.Arrived at the convent door, she asked to see Sister Beatrice, and in a very few minutes the Mistress of the Novices entered the parlour.The presence of the new Mistress of the Novices filled Beatrice with an awe she could not account for; and, without waiting to ask herself why, she fell on her knees before her.‘It is well you have come back, my child,’ said Our Lady; ‘resume your dress, which I have worn for you; go in to the convent again, and do penance, and keep up the good name I have earned for you.’With that Our Lady returned to the canvas; Beatriceresumed her habit, and strove so earnestly to form herself by the model of perfection Our Lady had set while wearing it, that in a few months she became a saint.[Mr. Ralston gives a Russian story (pp. 249–50), in which St. Nicholas comes in person and serves a man who has been devout to his picture.]1‘La Monica Beatrice.’‘Monica,’ provincialism or vulgarism for ‘monaca,’ a nun.↑2‘Albagia,’ self-esteem, vanity.↑3‘Rotara,’ equivalent to portress; it alludes to her having charge of the ‘ruota,’ or ‘turniquet,’ through which things are passed in and out and messages conveyed through a convent-wall, without the nun having to present herself at the door.↑4‘Fattore,’ an agent employed by most convents to attend to their secular affairs.↑5‘Suora’ is the received word for a ‘Sister’ in a convent. ‘Sister,’ the natural relationship, is ‘Sorella.’↑

NUN BEATRICE.1

Nun Beatrice had not altogether the true spirit of a religious: she was somewhat given to vanity;2though but for this she was a good nun, and full of excellent dispositions. She held the office of portress;3and, as she determined to go away out of her convent and return into the world, this seemed to afford her a favourable opportunity for carrying out her design. Accordingly, one day when the house was very quiet, and there seemed no danger of being observed, having previously contrived to secrete some secular clothes such as passed through her hands to keep in store for giving to the poor, she let herself out and went away.In the parlour was a kneeling-desk with a picture of Our Lady hanging over it, where she had been wont to kneel and hold converse with Our Lady in prayer whenever she had a moment to spare. On this desk she laidthe keys before she went, thinking it was a safe place for the Superior to find them; and she commended them to the care of Our Lady, whose picture hung above, and said, ‘Keep thou the keys, and let no harm come to this good house and my dear sisters.’As she said the words Our Lady looked at her with a glance of reproach, enough to have melted her heart and made her return to a better mood had she seen it; but she was too full of her own thoughts and the excitement of her undertaking to notice anything. No sooner was she gone out, however, than Our Lady, walking out of the canvas, assumed the dress that she had laid aside, and, tying the keys to her girdle, assumed the office of portress.With the habit of the portress Our Lady also assumed her semblance; so that no one noticed the exchange, except that all remarked how humble, how modest, how edifying Beatrice had become.After a time the nuns began to say it was a pity so perfect a nun should be left in so subordinate a position, and they made her therefore Mistress of the Novices. This office she exercised with as great perfection, according to its requirements, as she had the other; and so sweetly did she train the young nuns entrusted to her direction that all the novices became saints.Beatrice meantime had gone to live in the world as a secular; and though she often repented of what she had done, she had not the courage to go back and tell all. She prayed for courage, but she went on delaying. While she was in this mind it so happened one day that the factor4of the convent came to the house where she was living. What strange and moving memories of her peaceful home filled her mind as she saw his well-known form, though he did not recognise her in her secular dress! What an opportunity too, she thought, to learn what was the feeling of the community towards her, and what had been said of her escape!‘I hope all your nuns are well,’ she said. ‘I used to live in their neighbourhood once, and there was one of them I used to know, Suora5Beatrice. How is she now?’‘Sister Beatrice!’ said the factor. ‘She is the model of perfection, the example of the whole house. Everybody is ready to worship her. With all respect to the Church, which never canonizes the living, no one doubts she is a saint indeed.’‘It cannot be the same,’ answered Beatrice. ‘The one I knew was anything but a saint, though I loved her well, and should like to have news of her.’ And she hardly knew how to conceal the astonishment with which she was seized at hearing him speak thus; for the event on which she expected him to enlarge at once was the extraordinary fact of her escape. But he pursued in the same quiet way as before. ‘Oh yes, it must be the same. There has never been but one of the name since I have known the convent. She was portress some time ago; but latterly she has been made Mistress of the Novices.’There was nothing more to be learnt from him; so she pursued her inquiries no further. But he had no sooner had start enough to put him at a safe distance, than she set out to go to the convent and see this Sister Beatrice who so strangely represented her.Arrived at the convent door, she asked to see Sister Beatrice, and in a very few minutes the Mistress of the Novices entered the parlour.The presence of the new Mistress of the Novices filled Beatrice with an awe she could not account for; and, without waiting to ask herself why, she fell on her knees before her.‘It is well you have come back, my child,’ said Our Lady; ‘resume your dress, which I have worn for you; go in to the convent again, and do penance, and keep up the good name I have earned for you.’With that Our Lady returned to the canvas; Beatriceresumed her habit, and strove so earnestly to form herself by the model of perfection Our Lady had set while wearing it, that in a few months she became a saint.[Mr. Ralston gives a Russian story (pp. 249–50), in which St. Nicholas comes in person and serves a man who has been devout to his picture.]

Nun Beatrice had not altogether the true spirit of a religious: she was somewhat given to vanity;2though but for this she was a good nun, and full of excellent dispositions. She held the office of portress;3and, as she determined to go away out of her convent and return into the world, this seemed to afford her a favourable opportunity for carrying out her design. Accordingly, one day when the house was very quiet, and there seemed no danger of being observed, having previously contrived to secrete some secular clothes such as passed through her hands to keep in store for giving to the poor, she let herself out and went away.

In the parlour was a kneeling-desk with a picture of Our Lady hanging over it, where she had been wont to kneel and hold converse with Our Lady in prayer whenever she had a moment to spare. On this desk she laidthe keys before she went, thinking it was a safe place for the Superior to find them; and she commended them to the care of Our Lady, whose picture hung above, and said, ‘Keep thou the keys, and let no harm come to this good house and my dear sisters.’

As she said the words Our Lady looked at her with a glance of reproach, enough to have melted her heart and made her return to a better mood had she seen it; but she was too full of her own thoughts and the excitement of her undertaking to notice anything. No sooner was she gone out, however, than Our Lady, walking out of the canvas, assumed the dress that she had laid aside, and, tying the keys to her girdle, assumed the office of portress.

With the habit of the portress Our Lady also assumed her semblance; so that no one noticed the exchange, except that all remarked how humble, how modest, how edifying Beatrice had become.

After a time the nuns began to say it was a pity so perfect a nun should be left in so subordinate a position, and they made her therefore Mistress of the Novices. This office she exercised with as great perfection, according to its requirements, as she had the other; and so sweetly did she train the young nuns entrusted to her direction that all the novices became saints.

Beatrice meantime had gone to live in the world as a secular; and though she often repented of what she had done, she had not the courage to go back and tell all. She prayed for courage, but she went on delaying. While she was in this mind it so happened one day that the factor4of the convent came to the house where she was living. What strange and moving memories of her peaceful home filled her mind as she saw his well-known form, though he did not recognise her in her secular dress! What an opportunity too, she thought, to learn what was the feeling of the community towards her, and what had been said of her escape!

‘I hope all your nuns are well,’ she said. ‘I used to live in their neighbourhood once, and there was one of them I used to know, Suora5Beatrice. How is she now?’

‘Sister Beatrice!’ said the factor. ‘She is the model of perfection, the example of the whole house. Everybody is ready to worship her. With all respect to the Church, which never canonizes the living, no one doubts she is a saint indeed.’

‘It cannot be the same,’ answered Beatrice. ‘The one I knew was anything but a saint, though I loved her well, and should like to have news of her.’ And she hardly knew how to conceal the astonishment with which she was seized at hearing him speak thus; for the event on which she expected him to enlarge at once was the extraordinary fact of her escape. But he pursued in the same quiet way as before. ‘Oh yes, it must be the same. There has never been but one of the name since I have known the convent. She was portress some time ago; but latterly she has been made Mistress of the Novices.’

There was nothing more to be learnt from him; so she pursued her inquiries no further. But he had no sooner had start enough to put him at a safe distance, than she set out to go to the convent and see this Sister Beatrice who so strangely represented her.

Arrived at the convent door, she asked to see Sister Beatrice, and in a very few minutes the Mistress of the Novices entered the parlour.

The presence of the new Mistress of the Novices filled Beatrice with an awe she could not account for; and, without waiting to ask herself why, she fell on her knees before her.

‘It is well you have come back, my child,’ said Our Lady; ‘resume your dress, which I have worn for you; go in to the convent again, and do penance, and keep up the good name I have earned for you.’

With that Our Lady returned to the canvas; Beatriceresumed her habit, and strove so earnestly to form herself by the model of perfection Our Lady had set while wearing it, that in a few months she became a saint.

[Mr. Ralston gives a Russian story (pp. 249–50), in which St. Nicholas comes in person and serves a man who has been devout to his picture.]

1‘La Monica Beatrice.’‘Monica,’ provincialism or vulgarism for ‘monaca,’ a nun.↑2‘Albagia,’ self-esteem, vanity.↑3‘Rotara,’ equivalent to portress; it alludes to her having charge of the ‘ruota,’ or ‘turniquet,’ through which things are passed in and out and messages conveyed through a convent-wall, without the nun having to present herself at the door.↑4‘Fattore,’ an agent employed by most convents to attend to their secular affairs.↑5‘Suora’ is the received word for a ‘Sister’ in a convent. ‘Sister,’ the natural relationship, is ‘Sorella.’↑

1‘La Monica Beatrice.’‘Monica,’ provincialism or vulgarism for ‘monaca,’ a nun.↑

2‘Albagia,’ self-esteem, vanity.↑

3‘Rotara,’ equivalent to portress; it alludes to her having charge of the ‘ruota,’ or ‘turniquet,’ through which things are passed in and out and messages conveyed through a convent-wall, without the nun having to present herself at the door.↑

4‘Fattore,’ an agent employed by most convents to attend to their secular affairs.↑

5‘Suora’ is the received word for a ‘Sister’ in a convent. ‘Sister,’ the natural relationship, is ‘Sorella.’↑

PADRE FILIPPO.[St. Philip Neri is a giant indeed in the household memories of the Roman poor. His acts have become travestied and magnified among them in the most portentous way, and they always talk of him with the most patriotic enthusiasm. ‘He was a Roman!—a Roman indeed!’ they will say. And yet he was not a born Roman, but was made ‘Protector of Rome’ by the Church.‘Padre Filippo’ is their favourite way of naming him, and sometimes ‘il buon Filippo’ and ‘Pippo buono.’]1There was in Padre Filippo’s time a cardinal who was Prefect of the provisions,1who let everything go wrong and attended to nothing, and the poor were all suffering because provisions got so dear.Padre Filippo went to the Pope—Papa Medici2it was—and told him how badly off the poor were; so the Pope called the Cardinal to account, and went on making him attend to it till Padre Filippo told him that things were on a better footing.But the Cardinal came to Padre Filippo and said:‘Why do you vex me by going and making mischief to the Pope?’But Padre Filippo, instead of being frightened at his anger, rose up and said:‘Come here and I will show you what is the fate of those who oppress and neglect the poor. Come here Eminentissimo, and look,’ and he took him to the window and asked him what he saw.The Cardinal looked, and he saw a great fire of Hell, and the souls writhing in it. The Cardinal said no more and went away, but not long after he gave up being a cardinal and became a simple brother under Padre Filippo.[Who this cardinal may have been I do not know, but the story was told me another time in this form:—]1AThere was a cardinal—Gastaldi was his name—who went a good deal into society to the neglect of more important duties. One evening, when he was at a conversazione, Padre Filippo came to the house where he was and had him called out to him in an empty room.‘Your Eminence! come to this window, I have something to show you.’The Cardinal came to the window and looked out, and instead of the houses he saw Hell opened and all the souls3in the flames; a great serpent was wriggling in and out among them and biting them, and in the midst was a gilt cardinalitial chair.‘Who is that seat for?’ inquired the Cardinal.‘It is placed there for your Eminence,’ replied St. Philip.‘What must I do to escape it?’ exclaimed the Cardinal, horrified and self-convicted.Padre Filippo read him a lecture on penitence and amendment of life, and for the practical part of his advice warned him to devote to good works moneys he had been too fond of heaping up. The Cardinal after this became very devout, and the poor were great gainers by St. Philip’s instructions to him, and the two churches you see at the end of the Corso and Babbuino in Piazza del Popolo were also built by him with the money Padre Filippo had warned him to spend aright, and you may see his arms up there any day for yourself.42Some of their stories of him are jocose. There was a young married lady who was a friend of the Order, and had done it much good. She was very much afraid of the idea of her confinement as the time approached and said she could never endure it. Padre Filippo knew how good she was and felt great compassion for her.‘Never mind, my child,’ said the ‘good Philip’; ‘I will take all your pain on myself.’Time passed away, and one night the community was very much surprised to hear ‘good Philip’ raving and shouting with pain; he who voluntarily submitted to every penance without a word, and whom they had often seen so patient in illness. That same night the lady’s child was born and she felt no pain at all.Early next morning she sent to tell him that her child was born, and to ask how he was.‘Tell her I am getting a little better now,’ said ‘good Philip,’ ‘but I never suffered anything like it before. Next time, mind, she must manage her affairs for herself. For never willIinterfere5with anything ofthatsort again.’3Another who had no child was very anxious to have one, and came to Padre Filippo to ask him to pray for her that she might have one. Padre Filippo promised to pray for her; but instead of a child there was only a shapeless thing. She sent for Padre Filippo once more, therefore, and said:‘There! that’s all your prayers have brought!’‘Oh never mind!’ said Padre Filippo; and he took it and shaped it (the narrator twisted up a large towel and showed how he formed first one leg then the other, then the arms, then the head, as if she had seen him do it). Then he knelt down by the side and prayed while he told them to keep silence, and it opened its eyes and cried, and the mother was content.[His winning and practical ways of dealing with his penitents afford an endless theme of anecdote, but some have grown to most extravagant proportions. The following shows how, as in all legends, mysteries are made to wear a material form. The fact that on some occasions he satisfied some, whom no one else could satisfy, of the boundless mercy of God, is brought to proof in such a tangible way as to provoke the denial it was invented to silence.]4There was a man who was dying, and would not have a priest near him. He said he had so many sins on him it was impossible God could forgive him, so it was no use bothering himself about confessing. His wife and his children begged and entreated him to let them send for a priest, but he would not listen to them.So they sent for Padre Filippo, and as he was a friend he said:‘If he comes as a visitor he may come in, but not as a priest.’Good Philip sat down by his side and said:‘A visitor may ask a question. Why won’t you let me come as a priest?’The sick man gave the same answer as before.‘Now you’re quite mistaken,’ said St. Philip, ‘and I’ll show you something.’Then he called for paper and pen and wrote a note.‘Padre Eterne!’ he wrote. ‘Can a man’s sins be forgiven?’ and he folded it, and away it went of itself right up to heaven.An hour later, as they were all sitting there, another note came back all by itself, written in shining letters of gold, and it said:—‘Padre Eterne forgives and receives everyone who is penitent.’The sick man resisted no longer after that; he made his confession and received the sacrament, and died consoled in ‘good Philip’s’ arms.5Padre Filippo was walking one day through the streets of Rome when he saw a great crowd very much excited. ‘What’s the matter?’ asked ‘good Philip.’‘There’s a man in that house up there beating his wife fit to kill her, and for nothing at all, for she’s an angel of goodness. Nothing at all, but because she’s so ugly.’Padre Filippo waited till the husband was tired of beating her and had gone out, and all the crowd had dispersed. Then he went up to the room where the poor woman lived, and knocked at the door. ‘Who’s there?’ said the woman.‘Padre Filippo!’ answered ‘good Philip,’ and the woman opened quickly enough when she heard it was Padre Filippo who knocked.But good Philip himself started back with horror when he saw her, she was so ugly. However, he said nothing,but made the sign of the cross over her, and prayed, and immediately she became as beautiful as she had been ugly; but she knew nothing, of course, of the change.‘Your husband won’t beat you any more,’ said good Philip, as he turned to go; ‘only if he asks you who has been here send him to me.’When the husband came home and found his wife had become so beautiful, he kissed her, and was beside himself for joy; and she could not imagine what had made him so different towards her. ‘Who has been here?’ he asked.‘Only Padre Filippo,’ answered the wife; ‘and he said that if you asked I was to tell you to go to him;’ the husband ran off to him to thank him, and to say how sorry he was for having beaten her.But there lived opposite a woman who was also in everything the opposite of this one. She was very handsome, but as bad in conduct as the other was good. However, when she saw the ugly wife become so handsome, she said to herself, ‘If good Philip would only make me a little handsomer than I am, it would be a good thing for me;’ and she went to Padre Filippo and asked him to make her handsomer.Padre Filippo looked at her, and he knew what sort of woman she was, and he raised his hand and made the sign of the cross over her, and prayed, and she became ugly; uglier even than the other woman had been!‘Why have you treated me differently from the other woman?’ exclaimed the woman, for she had brought a glass with her to be able to contemplate the improvement she expected him to make in her appearance.‘Because beauty was of use to her in her state of life,’ answered PadreFilippo. ‘But you have only used the beauty God gave you as an occasion of sin; therefore a stumbling-block have I now removed out of your way.’And he said well, didn’t he?One Easter there came to him a young man of good family to confession, and Padre Filippo knew that every one had tried in vain to make him give up his mistress, and that to argue with him about it was quite useless. So he tried another tack. ‘I know it is such a habit with you to go to see her youcan’tgive it up, so I’m not going to ask you to. You shall go and see her as often as you like, only will you do something to please me?’The young man was very fond of good Philip, and there was nothing he would have not done for him except to give up his mistress; so as he knew that was not in question, he answered ‘yes’ very readily.‘You promise me to do what I say, punctually?’ asked the saint.‘Oh, yes, father, punctually.’‘Very well, then; all I ask is that though you go to her as often as you like, you just pass by this way and come up and pull my bell every time you go; nothing more than that.’The young man did not think it was a very hard injunction, but when it came to performing it he felt its effect. At first he used to go three times a day, but he was so ashamed of ringing the saint’s bell so often, that very soon he went no more than once a day. That dropped to two or three times a week, then once a week, and long before next Easter he had given her up and had become all his parents could wish him to be.7‘There was another such case; just such another, only this man had a wife too, but he was so infatuated with the other, he would have it she loved him the better of the two.’‘Yes; and the other was a miniature-painter,’ broke incorroboratively a kind of charwoman who had come in to tidy the place while we were talking.‘Yes, she was a miniature-painter,’ continued the narrator; ‘but it’s I who am telling the story.’‘Padre Filippo said, “How much do you allow her?”’‘Twenty pauls a day,’ broke in the charwoman.‘Forty scudi a month,’ said the narrator positively.‘There’s not much difference,’ interposed I, fearing I should lose the story between them. ‘Twenty pauls a day is sixty scudi a month. It doesn’t matter.’‘Well, then, Padre Filippo said,’ continued the narrator,‘“Now just to try whether she cares so much about you, you give her thirty scudi a month.”’‘Fifteen pauls a day,’ interposed the charwoman.‘Thirty scudi a month!’ reiterated the narrator.‘Never mind,’ said I. ‘Whatever it was, it was to be reduced.’‘Yes; that’s it,’ pursued the narrator; ‘and he made him go on and on diminishing it. She took it very well at first, suspecting he was trying her, and thinking he would make it up to her afterwards.’‘But when she found he didn’t,’ said the charwoman,‘She turned him out,’ said the narrator, putting her down with a frown. ‘He was so infatuated, however, that even now he was not satisfied, and said that in stopping the money he had been unfair, and she was in the right. So good Philip, who was patience itself, said, “Go and pay her up, and we’ll try her another way. You go and kill a dog, and put it in a bag, and go to her with your hands covered with blood, and let her think you have got into trouble for hurting some one, and ask her to hide you.” So the man went and killed a dog.’‘It was a cat he killed, because he couldn’t find a dog handy,’ said the irrepressible charwoman.‘Nonsense; of course it was a dog,’ asseverated the narrator. ‘But when he went to her house and pretendedto be in a bad way, and asked her to have pity on him, she only answered: “Not I, indeed! I’m not going to get myself into a scrape6with the law, forhim!” and drove him away. And he came and told Padre Filippo.‘“Now,” said good Philip, “go to your wife whom you have abandoned so long. Go to her with the same story, and see what she does for you.”‘The man took the dead dog in the bag, and ran to the lodging where his wife was, and knocked stealthily at her door. “It is I,” he whispered.‘“Come in, husband,” exclaimed the wife, throwing open the door.‘“Stop! hush! take care! don’t touch me!” said the husband. “There’s blood upon me. Save me! hide me! put me somewhere!”‘“It’s so long since you’ve been here, no one will think of coming after you here, so you will be quite safe. Sit down and be composed,” said the wife soothingly; and she poured him out wine to drink.‘But the police were nearer than he fancied. He had thought to finish up the affair in five minutes by explaining all to her. But “the other,” not satisfied with refusing him shelter, had gone and set the police on his track; and here they were after him.‘The wife’s quick ears heard them on the stairs. “Get into this cupboard quick, and leave me to manage them,” she said.‘The husband safely stowed away, she opened the door without hesitation, as if she had nothing to hide. “How can you think he is here?” she said when they asked for him. “Ask any of the neighbours how long it is since he has been here.”‘“Oh, three years,” “four years,” “five,” said various voices of people who had come round at hearing the police arrive.‘“You see you must have come to the wrong place,”she said. And the husband smiled as he heard her standing out for him so bravely.‘Her determined manner had satisfied the police; and they were just turning to go when one of them saw tell-tale spots of blood on the floor that had dropped from the dead dog. The track was followed to the cupboard, and the man dragged to prison. It was in vain that he assured them he had killed nothing but a dog.‘“Ha! that will be the faithful dog of the murdered man,” said the police. “We shan’t be long before we find the body of the man himself!”‘The wife was distracted at finding her husband, who had but so lately come back to her, was to be taken away again; and he could discern how real was her distress.‘“Go to Padre Filippo, and he will set all right,” said the husband as they carried him away. The woman went to Padre Filippo, and he explained all, amid the laughter of the Court. But the husband went back to his wife, and never left her any more after that.’[The story was told me another time with this variation, that the penitent was a peasant7who came up to Rome with his ass, and tied it to a pillar set up for the purpose outside the church, while he went in to confess. The first time he went, St. Philip told him he must have nothing more to do with the occasion of sin, who in this case was a spinner instead of a miniature-painter. The peasant was so angry with the advice that he stayed away from confession a whole year. At the end of the year he came back. St. Philip received him with open arms, saying he had been praying ever since for his return to a better mind. The sum that formed the sliding-scale that was to open his eyes to the mercenary nature of the affection he had so much prized, was calculated at a lower rate than the other; but the rest of the story was the same.]8‘Ah, there’s plenty to be said about Padre Filippo,’ said the charwoman; and I should have liked to put herunder examination, but that it would have been a breach of hospitality, as the other evidently did not like the interruption; so I was obliged to be satisfied with the testimony she had already afforded of the popularity of the saint. ‘Ha, good Padre Filippo, he was content to eat “black bread” like us’; and she took a hunch out of her pocket to show me; (it was only like our ‘brown bread.’)‘There was no lack where he was. Once I know, with half a rubbio8of corn, he made enough to last all the community ten years,’ she, however, ran on to say before she could be dismissed.9One day Padre Filippo was going over Ponte S. Angelo, when he met two little boys who seemed to attract his notice. ‘Forty-two years hence you will be made a cardinal,’ he said to one, as he gave him a friendly tap with his walking-stick. ‘And that other one,’ he added, turning to his companion, ‘will be dead in two years.’And so it came true exactly.10There was another peasant who, when he came into Rome on a Sunday morning, always went to the church where St. Philip was.9‘You quite weary10one with your continual preaching about the Blessed Sacrament. I’m so tired of hearing about it, that I declare to you I don’t care so much about it as my mule does about a sack of corn.’ Padre Filippo preferred convincing people in some practical way to going into angry discussions with them; so he did not say very much in answer to the countryman’s remarks, but asked him the name of his village. Not long after he went down to this village to preach; and had a pretty little altar erected on a hill-side, and set up the Blessed Sacrament in Exposition. Then he went and found out the same countryman, and said, ‘Now bringa sack of corn near where the altar is, and let’s see what the mule does.’ The countryman placed a sack of corn near the altar, and drove the mule by to see what it would do.The mule kicked aside the sack of corn, and fell down on its knees before the altar; and the man, seeing the token, went to confession to St. Philip, and never said anything profane any more.11There were two other fellows11who were more profane still, and who said one to the other, ‘They make such a fuss about Padre Filippo and his miracles, I warrant it’s all nonsense. Let’s watch till he passes, and one of us pretend to be dead and see if he finds it out.’So said so done. ‘What is your companion lying on the ground for?’ said St. Philip as he passed. ‘He’s dead! Father,’ replied the other. ‘Dead, is he?’ said Padre Filippo; ‘then you must go for a bier for him.’ He had no sooner passed on than the man burst out laughing, expecting his companion to join his mirth. But his companion didn’t move. ‘Why don’t you get up?’ he said, and gave him a kick; but he made no sign. When he bent down to look at him he found he was really dead; and he had to go for the bier.[Cancellieri has collected some curious incidents (‘Morcato,’ p. 210–12, Appendix N. xxii.) concerning an attempt which was made by Princess Anne Colonna to obtain from Urban VIII. the authority to remove a part of the Saint’s body to her chapel at Naples. The Fathers of the Oratory and the people were greatly averse to dividing it, as it was very well preserved in its entirety. By a fatality, which the people readily believed to be providential, Monsig. Moraldo, who was charged to bring the matter under the Pope’s notice, forgot it every time he was in attendance on the Pope, though it was the most important thing he had to say. At last he put the Bull concerning it out on his desk that he might be sure to remember it, though otherwise he would have kept it concealed, for it bore the endorsement, ‘Per levare (to remove) parte del corpo di S. Filippo Neri.’ While he was talking about it to one of the papal secretaries standing near the window, a priest, who had come about other matters, was shown in, and thus happened to pass by the side of the table when the endorsement of the Bull caught his eye. With all a Roman’s desire to preserve the body to Rome intact, he immediately gave notice at the Oratory, and two courageous young fathers took upon themselves to hide the body. When the prelates, therefore, came shortly after to claim the fulfilment of the Bull, the Rector opened the shrine in good faith, but the body was not there, and the report ran among the vulgar that it had been miraculously removed. Subsequently the Rector gave themthe heart, and drew a tooth of the Saint, which was a verbal compliance with the terms of the Bull, being certainly ‘a part of the body.’ Some years after, the body was restored to its shrine, and in 1743 Prince Chigi provided it with velvets and brocades to the value of 1,000 scudi.]1‘Grascia e annòna’ are two old words meaning all kinds of meat and vegetable (including grain) food. It was the title of one department of the local administration. There was a great dearth in Rome in the year 1590–1, mentioned in the histories of the times. It is probable the people would ascribe to the head of the department the fault of the calamity.↑2These people generally call the popes by their family names. This ‘Papa Medici’ would be Pius IV., who reigned from 1559 to 1566.↑3‘Brutte anime,’ ‘ugly souls.’↑4All legends have doubtless some foundation in fact; but unfortunately for the detail of this one, the arms up in the façade of the said Churches, ‘Dei Miracoli’ and ‘di Monte Santo’—are the arms of a Cardinal Gastaldi or Castaldi, who rebuilt them about a hundred years later than St. Philip’s time. Alexander VII. having rebuilt the Flaminian Gate, or Porta del Popolo, the insignificance of these two churches became more noticeable than before; buthe did not survive to carry out his intention of rebuilding them. This was subsequently performed by Cardinal Gastaldi.—Maroni, xii. 147, xxviii. 185; Panciroli, 169; Melchiorri, 254 and 420.↑5‘Impicciare,’ ‘entangle myself with,’ ‘interfere with’—a very favourite Romanism.↑6‘Impicciare,’ again here.↑7‘Campagnola,’ a peasant of the Campagna near Rome.↑8Arubbiois between four and five acres.↑9St. Philip lived and taught for thirty-three years at the Church of S. Girolamo della Carità, not very far from the vegetable market in Campo de’ Fiori, all the streets about containing shops much frequented by the country people when they come up to Rome with their vegetables.↑10‘Scocciare,’ to persevere to weariness; to din.↑11‘Vassalli,’ in the older dictionaries ‘vassallo’ is only defined as a vassal; but in modern Roman parlance it means a scamp, a vagabond.↑

PADRE FILIPPO.

[St. Philip Neri is a giant indeed in the household memories of the Roman poor. His acts have become travestied and magnified among them in the most portentous way, and they always talk of him with the most patriotic enthusiasm. ‘He was a Roman!—a Roman indeed!’ they will say. And yet he was not a born Roman, but was made ‘Protector of Rome’ by the Church.‘Padre Filippo’ is their favourite way of naming him, and sometimes ‘il buon Filippo’ and ‘Pippo buono.’]1There was in Padre Filippo’s time a cardinal who was Prefect of the provisions,1who let everything go wrong and attended to nothing, and the poor were all suffering because provisions got so dear.Padre Filippo went to the Pope—Papa Medici2it was—and told him how badly off the poor were; so the Pope called the Cardinal to account, and went on making him attend to it till Padre Filippo told him that things were on a better footing.But the Cardinal came to Padre Filippo and said:‘Why do you vex me by going and making mischief to the Pope?’But Padre Filippo, instead of being frightened at his anger, rose up and said:‘Come here and I will show you what is the fate of those who oppress and neglect the poor. Come here Eminentissimo, and look,’ and he took him to the window and asked him what he saw.The Cardinal looked, and he saw a great fire of Hell, and the souls writhing in it. The Cardinal said no more and went away, but not long after he gave up being a cardinal and became a simple brother under Padre Filippo.[Who this cardinal may have been I do not know, but the story was told me another time in this form:—]1AThere was a cardinal—Gastaldi was his name—who went a good deal into society to the neglect of more important duties. One evening, when he was at a conversazione, Padre Filippo came to the house where he was and had him called out to him in an empty room.‘Your Eminence! come to this window, I have something to show you.’The Cardinal came to the window and looked out, and instead of the houses he saw Hell opened and all the souls3in the flames; a great serpent was wriggling in and out among them and biting them, and in the midst was a gilt cardinalitial chair.‘Who is that seat for?’ inquired the Cardinal.‘It is placed there for your Eminence,’ replied St. Philip.‘What must I do to escape it?’ exclaimed the Cardinal, horrified and self-convicted.Padre Filippo read him a lecture on penitence and amendment of life, and for the practical part of his advice warned him to devote to good works moneys he had been too fond of heaping up. The Cardinal after this became very devout, and the poor were great gainers by St. Philip’s instructions to him, and the two churches you see at the end of the Corso and Babbuino in Piazza del Popolo were also built by him with the money Padre Filippo had warned him to spend aright, and you may see his arms up there any day for yourself.42Some of their stories of him are jocose. There was a young married lady who was a friend of the Order, and had done it much good. She was very much afraid of the idea of her confinement as the time approached and said she could never endure it. Padre Filippo knew how good she was and felt great compassion for her.‘Never mind, my child,’ said the ‘good Philip’; ‘I will take all your pain on myself.’Time passed away, and one night the community was very much surprised to hear ‘good Philip’ raving and shouting with pain; he who voluntarily submitted to every penance without a word, and whom they had often seen so patient in illness. That same night the lady’s child was born and she felt no pain at all.Early next morning she sent to tell him that her child was born, and to ask how he was.‘Tell her I am getting a little better now,’ said ‘good Philip,’ ‘but I never suffered anything like it before. Next time, mind, she must manage her affairs for herself. For never willIinterfere5with anything ofthatsort again.’3Another who had no child was very anxious to have one, and came to Padre Filippo to ask him to pray for her that she might have one. Padre Filippo promised to pray for her; but instead of a child there was only a shapeless thing. She sent for Padre Filippo once more, therefore, and said:‘There! that’s all your prayers have brought!’‘Oh never mind!’ said Padre Filippo; and he took it and shaped it (the narrator twisted up a large towel and showed how he formed first one leg then the other, then the arms, then the head, as if she had seen him do it). Then he knelt down by the side and prayed while he told them to keep silence, and it opened its eyes and cried, and the mother was content.[His winning and practical ways of dealing with his penitents afford an endless theme of anecdote, but some have grown to most extravagant proportions. The following shows how, as in all legends, mysteries are made to wear a material form. The fact that on some occasions he satisfied some, whom no one else could satisfy, of the boundless mercy of God, is brought to proof in such a tangible way as to provoke the denial it was invented to silence.]4There was a man who was dying, and would not have a priest near him. He said he had so many sins on him it was impossible God could forgive him, so it was no use bothering himself about confessing. His wife and his children begged and entreated him to let them send for a priest, but he would not listen to them.So they sent for Padre Filippo, and as he was a friend he said:‘If he comes as a visitor he may come in, but not as a priest.’Good Philip sat down by his side and said:‘A visitor may ask a question. Why won’t you let me come as a priest?’The sick man gave the same answer as before.‘Now you’re quite mistaken,’ said St. Philip, ‘and I’ll show you something.’Then he called for paper and pen and wrote a note.‘Padre Eterne!’ he wrote. ‘Can a man’s sins be forgiven?’ and he folded it, and away it went of itself right up to heaven.An hour later, as they were all sitting there, another note came back all by itself, written in shining letters of gold, and it said:—‘Padre Eterne forgives and receives everyone who is penitent.’The sick man resisted no longer after that; he made his confession and received the sacrament, and died consoled in ‘good Philip’s’ arms.5Padre Filippo was walking one day through the streets of Rome when he saw a great crowd very much excited. ‘What’s the matter?’ asked ‘good Philip.’‘There’s a man in that house up there beating his wife fit to kill her, and for nothing at all, for she’s an angel of goodness. Nothing at all, but because she’s so ugly.’Padre Filippo waited till the husband was tired of beating her and had gone out, and all the crowd had dispersed. Then he went up to the room where the poor woman lived, and knocked at the door. ‘Who’s there?’ said the woman.‘Padre Filippo!’ answered ‘good Philip,’ and the woman opened quickly enough when she heard it was Padre Filippo who knocked.But good Philip himself started back with horror when he saw her, she was so ugly. However, he said nothing,but made the sign of the cross over her, and prayed, and immediately she became as beautiful as she had been ugly; but she knew nothing, of course, of the change.‘Your husband won’t beat you any more,’ said good Philip, as he turned to go; ‘only if he asks you who has been here send him to me.’When the husband came home and found his wife had become so beautiful, he kissed her, and was beside himself for joy; and she could not imagine what had made him so different towards her. ‘Who has been here?’ he asked.‘Only Padre Filippo,’ answered the wife; ‘and he said that if you asked I was to tell you to go to him;’ the husband ran off to him to thank him, and to say how sorry he was for having beaten her.But there lived opposite a woman who was also in everything the opposite of this one. She was very handsome, but as bad in conduct as the other was good. However, when she saw the ugly wife become so handsome, she said to herself, ‘If good Philip would only make me a little handsomer than I am, it would be a good thing for me;’ and she went to Padre Filippo and asked him to make her handsomer.Padre Filippo looked at her, and he knew what sort of woman she was, and he raised his hand and made the sign of the cross over her, and prayed, and she became ugly; uglier even than the other woman had been!‘Why have you treated me differently from the other woman?’ exclaimed the woman, for she had brought a glass with her to be able to contemplate the improvement she expected him to make in her appearance.‘Because beauty was of use to her in her state of life,’ answered PadreFilippo. ‘But you have only used the beauty God gave you as an occasion of sin; therefore a stumbling-block have I now removed out of your way.’And he said well, didn’t he?One Easter there came to him a young man of good family to confession, and Padre Filippo knew that every one had tried in vain to make him give up his mistress, and that to argue with him about it was quite useless. So he tried another tack. ‘I know it is such a habit with you to go to see her youcan’tgive it up, so I’m not going to ask you to. You shall go and see her as often as you like, only will you do something to please me?’The young man was very fond of good Philip, and there was nothing he would have not done for him except to give up his mistress; so as he knew that was not in question, he answered ‘yes’ very readily.‘You promise me to do what I say, punctually?’ asked the saint.‘Oh, yes, father, punctually.’‘Very well, then; all I ask is that though you go to her as often as you like, you just pass by this way and come up and pull my bell every time you go; nothing more than that.’The young man did not think it was a very hard injunction, but when it came to performing it he felt its effect. At first he used to go three times a day, but he was so ashamed of ringing the saint’s bell so often, that very soon he went no more than once a day. That dropped to two or three times a week, then once a week, and long before next Easter he had given her up and had become all his parents could wish him to be.7‘There was another such case; just such another, only this man had a wife too, but he was so infatuated with the other, he would have it she loved him the better of the two.’‘Yes; and the other was a miniature-painter,’ broke incorroboratively a kind of charwoman who had come in to tidy the place while we were talking.‘Yes, she was a miniature-painter,’ continued the narrator; ‘but it’s I who am telling the story.’‘Padre Filippo said, “How much do you allow her?”’‘Twenty pauls a day,’ broke in the charwoman.‘Forty scudi a month,’ said the narrator positively.‘There’s not much difference,’ interposed I, fearing I should lose the story between them. ‘Twenty pauls a day is sixty scudi a month. It doesn’t matter.’‘Well, then, Padre Filippo said,’ continued the narrator,‘“Now just to try whether she cares so much about you, you give her thirty scudi a month.”’‘Fifteen pauls a day,’ interposed the charwoman.‘Thirty scudi a month!’ reiterated the narrator.‘Never mind,’ said I. ‘Whatever it was, it was to be reduced.’‘Yes; that’s it,’ pursued the narrator; ‘and he made him go on and on diminishing it. She took it very well at first, suspecting he was trying her, and thinking he would make it up to her afterwards.’‘But when she found he didn’t,’ said the charwoman,‘She turned him out,’ said the narrator, putting her down with a frown. ‘He was so infatuated, however, that even now he was not satisfied, and said that in stopping the money he had been unfair, and she was in the right. So good Philip, who was patience itself, said, “Go and pay her up, and we’ll try her another way. You go and kill a dog, and put it in a bag, and go to her with your hands covered with blood, and let her think you have got into trouble for hurting some one, and ask her to hide you.” So the man went and killed a dog.’‘It was a cat he killed, because he couldn’t find a dog handy,’ said the irrepressible charwoman.‘Nonsense; of course it was a dog,’ asseverated the narrator. ‘But when he went to her house and pretendedto be in a bad way, and asked her to have pity on him, she only answered: “Not I, indeed! I’m not going to get myself into a scrape6with the law, forhim!” and drove him away. And he came and told Padre Filippo.‘“Now,” said good Philip, “go to your wife whom you have abandoned so long. Go to her with the same story, and see what she does for you.”‘The man took the dead dog in the bag, and ran to the lodging where his wife was, and knocked stealthily at her door. “It is I,” he whispered.‘“Come in, husband,” exclaimed the wife, throwing open the door.‘“Stop! hush! take care! don’t touch me!” said the husband. “There’s blood upon me. Save me! hide me! put me somewhere!”‘“It’s so long since you’ve been here, no one will think of coming after you here, so you will be quite safe. Sit down and be composed,” said the wife soothingly; and she poured him out wine to drink.‘But the police were nearer than he fancied. He had thought to finish up the affair in five minutes by explaining all to her. But “the other,” not satisfied with refusing him shelter, had gone and set the police on his track; and here they were after him.‘The wife’s quick ears heard them on the stairs. “Get into this cupboard quick, and leave me to manage them,” she said.‘The husband safely stowed away, she opened the door without hesitation, as if she had nothing to hide. “How can you think he is here?” she said when they asked for him. “Ask any of the neighbours how long it is since he has been here.”‘“Oh, three years,” “four years,” “five,” said various voices of people who had come round at hearing the police arrive.‘“You see you must have come to the wrong place,”she said. And the husband smiled as he heard her standing out for him so bravely.‘Her determined manner had satisfied the police; and they were just turning to go when one of them saw tell-tale spots of blood on the floor that had dropped from the dead dog. The track was followed to the cupboard, and the man dragged to prison. It was in vain that he assured them he had killed nothing but a dog.‘“Ha! that will be the faithful dog of the murdered man,” said the police. “We shan’t be long before we find the body of the man himself!”‘The wife was distracted at finding her husband, who had but so lately come back to her, was to be taken away again; and he could discern how real was her distress.‘“Go to Padre Filippo, and he will set all right,” said the husband as they carried him away. The woman went to Padre Filippo, and he explained all, amid the laughter of the Court. But the husband went back to his wife, and never left her any more after that.’[The story was told me another time with this variation, that the penitent was a peasant7who came up to Rome with his ass, and tied it to a pillar set up for the purpose outside the church, while he went in to confess. The first time he went, St. Philip told him he must have nothing more to do with the occasion of sin, who in this case was a spinner instead of a miniature-painter. The peasant was so angry with the advice that he stayed away from confession a whole year. At the end of the year he came back. St. Philip received him with open arms, saying he had been praying ever since for his return to a better mind. The sum that formed the sliding-scale that was to open his eyes to the mercenary nature of the affection he had so much prized, was calculated at a lower rate than the other; but the rest of the story was the same.]8‘Ah, there’s plenty to be said about Padre Filippo,’ said the charwoman; and I should have liked to put herunder examination, but that it would have been a breach of hospitality, as the other evidently did not like the interruption; so I was obliged to be satisfied with the testimony she had already afforded of the popularity of the saint. ‘Ha, good Padre Filippo, he was content to eat “black bread” like us’; and she took a hunch out of her pocket to show me; (it was only like our ‘brown bread.’)‘There was no lack where he was. Once I know, with half a rubbio8of corn, he made enough to last all the community ten years,’ she, however, ran on to say before she could be dismissed.9One day Padre Filippo was going over Ponte S. Angelo, when he met two little boys who seemed to attract his notice. ‘Forty-two years hence you will be made a cardinal,’ he said to one, as he gave him a friendly tap with his walking-stick. ‘And that other one,’ he added, turning to his companion, ‘will be dead in two years.’And so it came true exactly.10There was another peasant who, when he came into Rome on a Sunday morning, always went to the church where St. Philip was.9‘You quite weary10one with your continual preaching about the Blessed Sacrament. I’m so tired of hearing about it, that I declare to you I don’t care so much about it as my mule does about a sack of corn.’ Padre Filippo preferred convincing people in some practical way to going into angry discussions with them; so he did not say very much in answer to the countryman’s remarks, but asked him the name of his village. Not long after he went down to this village to preach; and had a pretty little altar erected on a hill-side, and set up the Blessed Sacrament in Exposition. Then he went and found out the same countryman, and said, ‘Now bringa sack of corn near where the altar is, and let’s see what the mule does.’ The countryman placed a sack of corn near the altar, and drove the mule by to see what it would do.The mule kicked aside the sack of corn, and fell down on its knees before the altar; and the man, seeing the token, went to confession to St. Philip, and never said anything profane any more.11There were two other fellows11who were more profane still, and who said one to the other, ‘They make such a fuss about Padre Filippo and his miracles, I warrant it’s all nonsense. Let’s watch till he passes, and one of us pretend to be dead and see if he finds it out.’So said so done. ‘What is your companion lying on the ground for?’ said St. Philip as he passed. ‘He’s dead! Father,’ replied the other. ‘Dead, is he?’ said Padre Filippo; ‘then you must go for a bier for him.’ He had no sooner passed on than the man burst out laughing, expecting his companion to join his mirth. But his companion didn’t move. ‘Why don’t you get up?’ he said, and gave him a kick; but he made no sign. When he bent down to look at him he found he was really dead; and he had to go for the bier.[Cancellieri has collected some curious incidents (‘Morcato,’ p. 210–12, Appendix N. xxii.) concerning an attempt which was made by Princess Anne Colonna to obtain from Urban VIII. the authority to remove a part of the Saint’s body to her chapel at Naples. The Fathers of the Oratory and the people were greatly averse to dividing it, as it was very well preserved in its entirety. By a fatality, which the people readily believed to be providential, Monsig. Moraldo, who was charged to bring the matter under the Pope’s notice, forgot it every time he was in attendance on the Pope, though it was the most important thing he had to say. At last he put the Bull concerning it out on his desk that he might be sure to remember it, though otherwise he would have kept it concealed, for it bore the endorsement, ‘Per levare (to remove) parte del corpo di S. Filippo Neri.’ While he was talking about it to one of the papal secretaries standing near the window, a priest, who had come about other matters, was shown in, and thus happened to pass by the side of the table when the endorsement of the Bull caught his eye. With all a Roman’s desire to preserve the body to Rome intact, he immediately gave notice at the Oratory, and two courageous young fathers took upon themselves to hide the body. When the prelates, therefore, came shortly after to claim the fulfilment of the Bull, the Rector opened the shrine in good faith, but the body was not there, and the report ran among the vulgar that it had been miraculously removed. Subsequently the Rector gave themthe heart, and drew a tooth of the Saint, which was a verbal compliance with the terms of the Bull, being certainly ‘a part of the body.’ Some years after, the body was restored to its shrine, and in 1743 Prince Chigi provided it with velvets and brocades to the value of 1,000 scudi.]

[St. Philip Neri is a giant indeed in the household memories of the Roman poor. His acts have become travestied and magnified among them in the most portentous way, and they always talk of him with the most patriotic enthusiasm. ‘He was a Roman!—a Roman indeed!’ they will say. And yet he was not a born Roman, but was made ‘Protector of Rome’ by the Church.

‘Padre Filippo’ is their favourite way of naming him, and sometimes ‘il buon Filippo’ and ‘Pippo buono.’]

1There was in Padre Filippo’s time a cardinal who was Prefect of the provisions,1who let everything go wrong and attended to nothing, and the poor were all suffering because provisions got so dear.Padre Filippo went to the Pope—Papa Medici2it was—and told him how badly off the poor were; so the Pope called the Cardinal to account, and went on making him attend to it till Padre Filippo told him that things were on a better footing.But the Cardinal came to Padre Filippo and said:‘Why do you vex me by going and making mischief to the Pope?’But Padre Filippo, instead of being frightened at his anger, rose up and said:‘Come here and I will show you what is the fate of those who oppress and neglect the poor. Come here Eminentissimo, and look,’ and he took him to the window and asked him what he saw.The Cardinal looked, and he saw a great fire of Hell, and the souls writhing in it. The Cardinal said no more and went away, but not long after he gave up being a cardinal and became a simple brother under Padre Filippo.[Who this cardinal may have been I do not know, but the story was told me another time in this form:—]

1

There was in Padre Filippo’s time a cardinal who was Prefect of the provisions,1who let everything go wrong and attended to nothing, and the poor were all suffering because provisions got so dear.Padre Filippo went to the Pope—Papa Medici2it was—and told him how badly off the poor were; so the Pope called the Cardinal to account, and went on making him attend to it till Padre Filippo told him that things were on a better footing.But the Cardinal came to Padre Filippo and said:‘Why do you vex me by going and making mischief to the Pope?’But Padre Filippo, instead of being frightened at his anger, rose up and said:‘Come here and I will show you what is the fate of those who oppress and neglect the poor. Come here Eminentissimo, and look,’ and he took him to the window and asked him what he saw.The Cardinal looked, and he saw a great fire of Hell, and the souls writhing in it. The Cardinal said no more and went away, but not long after he gave up being a cardinal and became a simple brother under Padre Filippo.[Who this cardinal may have been I do not know, but the story was told me another time in this form:—]

There was in Padre Filippo’s time a cardinal who was Prefect of the provisions,1who let everything go wrong and attended to nothing, and the poor were all suffering because provisions got so dear.

Padre Filippo went to the Pope—Papa Medici2it was—and told him how badly off the poor were; so the Pope called the Cardinal to account, and went on making him attend to it till Padre Filippo told him that things were on a better footing.

But the Cardinal came to Padre Filippo and said:

‘Why do you vex me by going and making mischief to the Pope?’

But Padre Filippo, instead of being frightened at his anger, rose up and said:

‘Come here and I will show you what is the fate of those who oppress and neglect the poor. Come here Eminentissimo, and look,’ and he took him to the window and asked him what he saw.

The Cardinal looked, and he saw a great fire of Hell, and the souls writhing in it. The Cardinal said no more and went away, but not long after he gave up being a cardinal and became a simple brother under Padre Filippo.

[Who this cardinal may have been I do not know, but the story was told me another time in this form:—]

1AThere was a cardinal—Gastaldi was his name—who went a good deal into society to the neglect of more important duties. One evening, when he was at a conversazione, Padre Filippo came to the house where he was and had him called out to him in an empty room.‘Your Eminence! come to this window, I have something to show you.’The Cardinal came to the window and looked out, and instead of the houses he saw Hell opened and all the souls3in the flames; a great serpent was wriggling in and out among them and biting them, and in the midst was a gilt cardinalitial chair.‘Who is that seat for?’ inquired the Cardinal.‘It is placed there for your Eminence,’ replied St. Philip.‘What must I do to escape it?’ exclaimed the Cardinal, horrified and self-convicted.Padre Filippo read him a lecture on penitence and amendment of life, and for the practical part of his advice warned him to devote to good works moneys he had been too fond of heaping up. The Cardinal after this became very devout, and the poor were great gainers by St. Philip’s instructions to him, and the two churches you see at the end of the Corso and Babbuino in Piazza del Popolo were also built by him with the money Padre Filippo had warned him to spend aright, and you may see his arms up there any day for yourself.4

1A

There was a cardinal—Gastaldi was his name—who went a good deal into society to the neglect of more important duties. One evening, when he was at a conversazione, Padre Filippo came to the house where he was and had him called out to him in an empty room.‘Your Eminence! come to this window, I have something to show you.’The Cardinal came to the window and looked out, and instead of the houses he saw Hell opened and all the souls3in the flames; a great serpent was wriggling in and out among them and biting them, and in the midst was a gilt cardinalitial chair.‘Who is that seat for?’ inquired the Cardinal.‘It is placed there for your Eminence,’ replied St. Philip.‘What must I do to escape it?’ exclaimed the Cardinal, horrified and self-convicted.Padre Filippo read him a lecture on penitence and amendment of life, and for the practical part of his advice warned him to devote to good works moneys he had been too fond of heaping up. The Cardinal after this became very devout, and the poor were great gainers by St. Philip’s instructions to him, and the two churches you see at the end of the Corso and Babbuino in Piazza del Popolo were also built by him with the money Padre Filippo had warned him to spend aright, and you may see his arms up there any day for yourself.4

There was a cardinal—Gastaldi was his name—who went a good deal into society to the neglect of more important duties. One evening, when he was at a conversazione, Padre Filippo came to the house where he was and had him called out to him in an empty room.

‘Your Eminence! come to this window, I have something to show you.’

The Cardinal came to the window and looked out, and instead of the houses he saw Hell opened and all the souls3in the flames; a great serpent was wriggling in and out among them and biting them, and in the midst was a gilt cardinalitial chair.

‘Who is that seat for?’ inquired the Cardinal.

‘It is placed there for your Eminence,’ replied St. Philip.

‘What must I do to escape it?’ exclaimed the Cardinal, horrified and self-convicted.

Padre Filippo read him a lecture on penitence and amendment of life, and for the practical part of his advice warned him to devote to good works moneys he had been too fond of heaping up. The Cardinal after this became very devout, and the poor were great gainers by St. Philip’s instructions to him, and the two churches you see at the end of the Corso and Babbuino in Piazza del Popolo were also built by him with the money Padre Filippo had warned him to spend aright, and you may see his arms up there any day for yourself.4

2Some of their stories of him are jocose. There was a young married lady who was a friend of the Order, and had done it much good. She was very much afraid of the idea of her confinement as the time approached and said she could never endure it. Padre Filippo knew how good she was and felt great compassion for her.‘Never mind, my child,’ said the ‘good Philip’; ‘I will take all your pain on myself.’Time passed away, and one night the community was very much surprised to hear ‘good Philip’ raving and shouting with pain; he who voluntarily submitted to every penance without a word, and whom they had often seen so patient in illness. That same night the lady’s child was born and she felt no pain at all.Early next morning she sent to tell him that her child was born, and to ask how he was.‘Tell her I am getting a little better now,’ said ‘good Philip,’ ‘but I never suffered anything like it before. Next time, mind, she must manage her affairs for herself. For never willIinterfere5with anything ofthatsort again.’

2

Some of their stories of him are jocose. There was a young married lady who was a friend of the Order, and had done it much good. She was very much afraid of the idea of her confinement as the time approached and said she could never endure it. Padre Filippo knew how good she was and felt great compassion for her.‘Never mind, my child,’ said the ‘good Philip’; ‘I will take all your pain on myself.’Time passed away, and one night the community was very much surprised to hear ‘good Philip’ raving and shouting with pain; he who voluntarily submitted to every penance without a word, and whom they had often seen so patient in illness. That same night the lady’s child was born and she felt no pain at all.Early next morning she sent to tell him that her child was born, and to ask how he was.‘Tell her I am getting a little better now,’ said ‘good Philip,’ ‘but I never suffered anything like it before. Next time, mind, she must manage her affairs for herself. For never willIinterfere5with anything ofthatsort again.’

Some of their stories of him are jocose. There was a young married lady who was a friend of the Order, and had done it much good. She was very much afraid of the idea of her confinement as the time approached and said she could never endure it. Padre Filippo knew how good she was and felt great compassion for her.

‘Never mind, my child,’ said the ‘good Philip’; ‘I will take all your pain on myself.’

Time passed away, and one night the community was very much surprised to hear ‘good Philip’ raving and shouting with pain; he who voluntarily submitted to every penance without a word, and whom they had often seen so patient in illness. That same night the lady’s child was born and she felt no pain at all.

Early next morning she sent to tell him that her child was born, and to ask how he was.

‘Tell her I am getting a little better now,’ said ‘good Philip,’ ‘but I never suffered anything like it before. Next time, mind, she must manage her affairs for herself. For never willIinterfere5with anything ofthatsort again.’

3Another who had no child was very anxious to have one, and came to Padre Filippo to ask him to pray for her that she might have one. Padre Filippo promised to pray for her; but instead of a child there was only a shapeless thing. She sent for Padre Filippo once more, therefore, and said:‘There! that’s all your prayers have brought!’‘Oh never mind!’ said Padre Filippo; and he took it and shaped it (the narrator twisted up a large towel and showed how he formed first one leg then the other, then the arms, then the head, as if she had seen him do it). Then he knelt down by the side and prayed while he told them to keep silence, and it opened its eyes and cried, and the mother was content.[His winning and practical ways of dealing with his penitents afford an endless theme of anecdote, but some have grown to most extravagant proportions. The following shows how, as in all legends, mysteries are made to wear a material form. The fact that on some occasions he satisfied some, whom no one else could satisfy, of the boundless mercy of God, is brought to proof in such a tangible way as to provoke the denial it was invented to silence.]

3

Another who had no child was very anxious to have one, and came to Padre Filippo to ask him to pray for her that she might have one. Padre Filippo promised to pray for her; but instead of a child there was only a shapeless thing. She sent for Padre Filippo once more, therefore, and said:‘There! that’s all your prayers have brought!’‘Oh never mind!’ said Padre Filippo; and he took it and shaped it (the narrator twisted up a large towel and showed how he formed first one leg then the other, then the arms, then the head, as if she had seen him do it). Then he knelt down by the side and prayed while he told them to keep silence, and it opened its eyes and cried, and the mother was content.[His winning and practical ways of dealing with his penitents afford an endless theme of anecdote, but some have grown to most extravagant proportions. The following shows how, as in all legends, mysteries are made to wear a material form. The fact that on some occasions he satisfied some, whom no one else could satisfy, of the boundless mercy of God, is brought to proof in such a tangible way as to provoke the denial it was invented to silence.]

Another who had no child was very anxious to have one, and came to Padre Filippo to ask him to pray for her that she might have one. Padre Filippo promised to pray for her; but instead of a child there was only a shapeless thing. She sent for Padre Filippo once more, therefore, and said:

‘There! that’s all your prayers have brought!’

‘Oh never mind!’ said Padre Filippo; and he took it and shaped it (the narrator twisted up a large towel and showed how he formed first one leg then the other, then the arms, then the head, as if she had seen him do it). Then he knelt down by the side and prayed while he told them to keep silence, and it opened its eyes and cried, and the mother was content.

[His winning and practical ways of dealing with his penitents afford an endless theme of anecdote, but some have grown to most extravagant proportions. The following shows how, as in all legends, mysteries are made to wear a material form. The fact that on some occasions he satisfied some, whom no one else could satisfy, of the boundless mercy of God, is brought to proof in such a tangible way as to provoke the denial it was invented to silence.]

4There was a man who was dying, and would not have a priest near him. He said he had so many sins on him it was impossible God could forgive him, so it was no use bothering himself about confessing. His wife and his children begged and entreated him to let them send for a priest, but he would not listen to them.So they sent for Padre Filippo, and as he was a friend he said:‘If he comes as a visitor he may come in, but not as a priest.’Good Philip sat down by his side and said:‘A visitor may ask a question. Why won’t you let me come as a priest?’The sick man gave the same answer as before.‘Now you’re quite mistaken,’ said St. Philip, ‘and I’ll show you something.’Then he called for paper and pen and wrote a note.‘Padre Eterne!’ he wrote. ‘Can a man’s sins be forgiven?’ and he folded it, and away it went of itself right up to heaven.An hour later, as they were all sitting there, another note came back all by itself, written in shining letters of gold, and it said:—‘Padre Eterne forgives and receives everyone who is penitent.’The sick man resisted no longer after that; he made his confession and received the sacrament, and died consoled in ‘good Philip’s’ arms.

4

There was a man who was dying, and would not have a priest near him. He said he had so many sins on him it was impossible God could forgive him, so it was no use bothering himself about confessing. His wife and his children begged and entreated him to let them send for a priest, but he would not listen to them.So they sent for Padre Filippo, and as he was a friend he said:‘If he comes as a visitor he may come in, but not as a priest.’Good Philip sat down by his side and said:‘A visitor may ask a question. Why won’t you let me come as a priest?’The sick man gave the same answer as before.‘Now you’re quite mistaken,’ said St. Philip, ‘and I’ll show you something.’Then he called for paper and pen and wrote a note.‘Padre Eterne!’ he wrote. ‘Can a man’s sins be forgiven?’ and he folded it, and away it went of itself right up to heaven.An hour later, as they were all sitting there, another note came back all by itself, written in shining letters of gold, and it said:—‘Padre Eterne forgives and receives everyone who is penitent.’The sick man resisted no longer after that; he made his confession and received the sacrament, and died consoled in ‘good Philip’s’ arms.

There was a man who was dying, and would not have a priest near him. He said he had so many sins on him it was impossible God could forgive him, so it was no use bothering himself about confessing. His wife and his children begged and entreated him to let them send for a priest, but he would not listen to them.

So they sent for Padre Filippo, and as he was a friend he said:

‘If he comes as a visitor he may come in, but not as a priest.’

Good Philip sat down by his side and said:

‘A visitor may ask a question. Why won’t you let me come as a priest?’

The sick man gave the same answer as before.

‘Now you’re quite mistaken,’ said St. Philip, ‘and I’ll show you something.’

Then he called for paper and pen and wrote a note.

‘Padre Eterne!’ he wrote. ‘Can a man’s sins be forgiven?’ and he folded it, and away it went of itself right up to heaven.

An hour later, as they were all sitting there, another note came back all by itself, written in shining letters of gold, and it said:—

‘Padre Eterne forgives and receives everyone who is penitent.’

The sick man resisted no longer after that; he made his confession and received the sacrament, and died consoled in ‘good Philip’s’ arms.

5Padre Filippo was walking one day through the streets of Rome when he saw a great crowd very much excited. ‘What’s the matter?’ asked ‘good Philip.’‘There’s a man in that house up there beating his wife fit to kill her, and for nothing at all, for she’s an angel of goodness. Nothing at all, but because she’s so ugly.’Padre Filippo waited till the husband was tired of beating her and had gone out, and all the crowd had dispersed. Then he went up to the room where the poor woman lived, and knocked at the door. ‘Who’s there?’ said the woman.‘Padre Filippo!’ answered ‘good Philip,’ and the woman opened quickly enough when she heard it was Padre Filippo who knocked.But good Philip himself started back with horror when he saw her, she was so ugly. However, he said nothing,but made the sign of the cross over her, and prayed, and immediately she became as beautiful as she had been ugly; but she knew nothing, of course, of the change.‘Your husband won’t beat you any more,’ said good Philip, as he turned to go; ‘only if he asks you who has been here send him to me.’When the husband came home and found his wife had become so beautiful, he kissed her, and was beside himself for joy; and she could not imagine what had made him so different towards her. ‘Who has been here?’ he asked.‘Only Padre Filippo,’ answered the wife; ‘and he said that if you asked I was to tell you to go to him;’ the husband ran off to him to thank him, and to say how sorry he was for having beaten her.But there lived opposite a woman who was also in everything the opposite of this one. She was very handsome, but as bad in conduct as the other was good. However, when she saw the ugly wife become so handsome, she said to herself, ‘If good Philip would only make me a little handsomer than I am, it would be a good thing for me;’ and she went to Padre Filippo and asked him to make her handsomer.Padre Filippo looked at her, and he knew what sort of woman she was, and he raised his hand and made the sign of the cross over her, and prayed, and she became ugly; uglier even than the other woman had been!‘Why have you treated me differently from the other woman?’ exclaimed the woman, for she had brought a glass with her to be able to contemplate the improvement she expected him to make in her appearance.‘Because beauty was of use to her in her state of life,’ answered PadreFilippo. ‘But you have only used the beauty God gave you as an occasion of sin; therefore a stumbling-block have I now removed out of your way.’And he said well, didn’t he?One Easter there came to him a young man of good family to confession, and Padre Filippo knew that every one had tried in vain to make him give up his mistress, and that to argue with him about it was quite useless. So he tried another tack. ‘I know it is such a habit with you to go to see her youcan’tgive it up, so I’m not going to ask you to. You shall go and see her as often as you like, only will you do something to please me?’The young man was very fond of good Philip, and there was nothing he would have not done for him except to give up his mistress; so as he knew that was not in question, he answered ‘yes’ very readily.‘You promise me to do what I say, punctually?’ asked the saint.‘Oh, yes, father, punctually.’‘Very well, then; all I ask is that though you go to her as often as you like, you just pass by this way and come up and pull my bell every time you go; nothing more than that.’The young man did not think it was a very hard injunction, but when it came to performing it he felt its effect. At first he used to go three times a day, but he was so ashamed of ringing the saint’s bell so often, that very soon he went no more than once a day. That dropped to two or three times a week, then once a week, and long before next Easter he had given her up and had become all his parents could wish him to be.

5

Padre Filippo was walking one day through the streets of Rome when he saw a great crowd very much excited. ‘What’s the matter?’ asked ‘good Philip.’‘There’s a man in that house up there beating his wife fit to kill her, and for nothing at all, for she’s an angel of goodness. Nothing at all, but because she’s so ugly.’Padre Filippo waited till the husband was tired of beating her and had gone out, and all the crowd had dispersed. Then he went up to the room where the poor woman lived, and knocked at the door. ‘Who’s there?’ said the woman.‘Padre Filippo!’ answered ‘good Philip,’ and the woman opened quickly enough when she heard it was Padre Filippo who knocked.But good Philip himself started back with horror when he saw her, she was so ugly. However, he said nothing,but made the sign of the cross over her, and prayed, and immediately she became as beautiful as she had been ugly; but she knew nothing, of course, of the change.‘Your husband won’t beat you any more,’ said good Philip, as he turned to go; ‘only if he asks you who has been here send him to me.’When the husband came home and found his wife had become so beautiful, he kissed her, and was beside himself for joy; and she could not imagine what had made him so different towards her. ‘Who has been here?’ he asked.‘Only Padre Filippo,’ answered the wife; ‘and he said that if you asked I was to tell you to go to him;’ the husband ran off to him to thank him, and to say how sorry he was for having beaten her.But there lived opposite a woman who was also in everything the opposite of this one. She was very handsome, but as bad in conduct as the other was good. However, when she saw the ugly wife become so handsome, she said to herself, ‘If good Philip would only make me a little handsomer than I am, it would be a good thing for me;’ and she went to Padre Filippo and asked him to make her handsomer.Padre Filippo looked at her, and he knew what sort of woman she was, and he raised his hand and made the sign of the cross over her, and prayed, and she became ugly; uglier even than the other woman had been!‘Why have you treated me differently from the other woman?’ exclaimed the woman, for she had brought a glass with her to be able to contemplate the improvement she expected him to make in her appearance.‘Because beauty was of use to her in her state of life,’ answered PadreFilippo. ‘But you have only used the beauty God gave you as an occasion of sin; therefore a stumbling-block have I now removed out of your way.’And he said well, didn’t he?One Easter there came to him a young man of good family to confession, and Padre Filippo knew that every one had tried in vain to make him give up his mistress, and that to argue with him about it was quite useless. So he tried another tack. ‘I know it is such a habit with you to go to see her youcan’tgive it up, so I’m not going to ask you to. You shall go and see her as often as you like, only will you do something to please me?’The young man was very fond of good Philip, and there was nothing he would have not done for him except to give up his mistress; so as he knew that was not in question, he answered ‘yes’ very readily.‘You promise me to do what I say, punctually?’ asked the saint.‘Oh, yes, father, punctually.’‘Very well, then; all I ask is that though you go to her as often as you like, you just pass by this way and come up and pull my bell every time you go; nothing more than that.’The young man did not think it was a very hard injunction, but when it came to performing it he felt its effect. At first he used to go three times a day, but he was so ashamed of ringing the saint’s bell so often, that very soon he went no more than once a day. That dropped to two or three times a week, then once a week, and long before next Easter he had given her up and had become all his parents could wish him to be.

Padre Filippo was walking one day through the streets of Rome when he saw a great crowd very much excited. ‘What’s the matter?’ asked ‘good Philip.’

‘There’s a man in that house up there beating his wife fit to kill her, and for nothing at all, for she’s an angel of goodness. Nothing at all, but because she’s so ugly.’

Padre Filippo waited till the husband was tired of beating her and had gone out, and all the crowd had dispersed. Then he went up to the room where the poor woman lived, and knocked at the door. ‘Who’s there?’ said the woman.

‘Padre Filippo!’ answered ‘good Philip,’ and the woman opened quickly enough when she heard it was Padre Filippo who knocked.

But good Philip himself started back with horror when he saw her, she was so ugly. However, he said nothing,but made the sign of the cross over her, and prayed, and immediately she became as beautiful as she had been ugly; but she knew nothing, of course, of the change.

‘Your husband won’t beat you any more,’ said good Philip, as he turned to go; ‘only if he asks you who has been here send him to me.’

When the husband came home and found his wife had become so beautiful, he kissed her, and was beside himself for joy; and she could not imagine what had made him so different towards her. ‘Who has been here?’ he asked.

‘Only Padre Filippo,’ answered the wife; ‘and he said that if you asked I was to tell you to go to him;’ the husband ran off to him to thank him, and to say how sorry he was for having beaten her.

But there lived opposite a woman who was also in everything the opposite of this one. She was very handsome, but as bad in conduct as the other was good. However, when she saw the ugly wife become so handsome, she said to herself, ‘If good Philip would only make me a little handsomer than I am, it would be a good thing for me;’ and she went to Padre Filippo and asked him to make her handsomer.

Padre Filippo looked at her, and he knew what sort of woman she was, and he raised his hand and made the sign of the cross over her, and prayed, and she became ugly; uglier even than the other woman had been!

‘Why have you treated me differently from the other woman?’ exclaimed the woman, for she had brought a glass with her to be able to contemplate the improvement she expected him to make in her appearance.

‘Because beauty was of use to her in her state of life,’ answered PadreFilippo. ‘But you have only used the beauty God gave you as an occasion of sin; therefore a stumbling-block have I now removed out of your way.’

And he said well, didn’t he?

One Easter there came to him a young man of good family to confession, and Padre Filippo knew that every one had tried in vain to make him give up his mistress, and that to argue with him about it was quite useless. So he tried another tack. ‘I know it is such a habit with you to go to see her youcan’tgive it up, so I’m not going to ask you to. You shall go and see her as often as you like, only will you do something to please me?’

The young man was very fond of good Philip, and there was nothing he would have not done for him except to give up his mistress; so as he knew that was not in question, he answered ‘yes’ very readily.

‘You promise me to do what I say, punctually?’ asked the saint.

‘Oh, yes, father, punctually.’

‘Very well, then; all I ask is that though you go to her as often as you like, you just pass by this way and come up and pull my bell every time you go; nothing more than that.’

The young man did not think it was a very hard injunction, but when it came to performing it he felt its effect. At first he used to go three times a day, but he was so ashamed of ringing the saint’s bell so often, that very soon he went no more than once a day. That dropped to two or three times a week, then once a week, and long before next Easter he had given her up and had become all his parents could wish him to be.

7‘There was another such case; just such another, only this man had a wife too, but he was so infatuated with the other, he would have it she loved him the better of the two.’‘Yes; and the other was a miniature-painter,’ broke incorroboratively a kind of charwoman who had come in to tidy the place while we were talking.‘Yes, she was a miniature-painter,’ continued the narrator; ‘but it’s I who am telling the story.’‘Padre Filippo said, “How much do you allow her?”’‘Twenty pauls a day,’ broke in the charwoman.‘Forty scudi a month,’ said the narrator positively.‘There’s not much difference,’ interposed I, fearing I should lose the story between them. ‘Twenty pauls a day is sixty scudi a month. It doesn’t matter.’‘Well, then, Padre Filippo said,’ continued the narrator,‘“Now just to try whether she cares so much about you, you give her thirty scudi a month.”’‘Fifteen pauls a day,’ interposed the charwoman.‘Thirty scudi a month!’ reiterated the narrator.‘Never mind,’ said I. ‘Whatever it was, it was to be reduced.’‘Yes; that’s it,’ pursued the narrator; ‘and he made him go on and on diminishing it. She took it very well at first, suspecting he was trying her, and thinking he would make it up to her afterwards.’‘But when she found he didn’t,’ said the charwoman,‘She turned him out,’ said the narrator, putting her down with a frown. ‘He was so infatuated, however, that even now he was not satisfied, and said that in stopping the money he had been unfair, and she was in the right. So good Philip, who was patience itself, said, “Go and pay her up, and we’ll try her another way. You go and kill a dog, and put it in a bag, and go to her with your hands covered with blood, and let her think you have got into trouble for hurting some one, and ask her to hide you.” So the man went and killed a dog.’‘It was a cat he killed, because he couldn’t find a dog handy,’ said the irrepressible charwoman.‘Nonsense; of course it was a dog,’ asseverated the narrator. ‘But when he went to her house and pretendedto be in a bad way, and asked her to have pity on him, she only answered: “Not I, indeed! I’m not going to get myself into a scrape6with the law, forhim!” and drove him away. And he came and told Padre Filippo.‘“Now,” said good Philip, “go to your wife whom you have abandoned so long. Go to her with the same story, and see what she does for you.”‘The man took the dead dog in the bag, and ran to the lodging where his wife was, and knocked stealthily at her door. “It is I,” he whispered.‘“Come in, husband,” exclaimed the wife, throwing open the door.‘“Stop! hush! take care! don’t touch me!” said the husband. “There’s blood upon me. Save me! hide me! put me somewhere!”‘“It’s so long since you’ve been here, no one will think of coming after you here, so you will be quite safe. Sit down and be composed,” said the wife soothingly; and she poured him out wine to drink.‘But the police were nearer than he fancied. He had thought to finish up the affair in five minutes by explaining all to her. But “the other,” not satisfied with refusing him shelter, had gone and set the police on his track; and here they were after him.‘The wife’s quick ears heard them on the stairs. “Get into this cupboard quick, and leave me to manage them,” she said.‘The husband safely stowed away, she opened the door without hesitation, as if she had nothing to hide. “How can you think he is here?” she said when they asked for him. “Ask any of the neighbours how long it is since he has been here.”‘“Oh, three years,” “four years,” “five,” said various voices of people who had come round at hearing the police arrive.‘“You see you must have come to the wrong place,”she said. And the husband smiled as he heard her standing out for him so bravely.‘Her determined manner had satisfied the police; and they were just turning to go when one of them saw tell-tale spots of blood on the floor that had dropped from the dead dog. The track was followed to the cupboard, and the man dragged to prison. It was in vain that he assured them he had killed nothing but a dog.‘“Ha! that will be the faithful dog of the murdered man,” said the police. “We shan’t be long before we find the body of the man himself!”‘The wife was distracted at finding her husband, who had but so lately come back to her, was to be taken away again; and he could discern how real was her distress.‘“Go to Padre Filippo, and he will set all right,” said the husband as they carried him away. The woman went to Padre Filippo, and he explained all, amid the laughter of the Court. But the husband went back to his wife, and never left her any more after that.’[The story was told me another time with this variation, that the penitent was a peasant7who came up to Rome with his ass, and tied it to a pillar set up for the purpose outside the church, while he went in to confess. The first time he went, St. Philip told him he must have nothing more to do with the occasion of sin, who in this case was a spinner instead of a miniature-painter. The peasant was so angry with the advice that he stayed away from confession a whole year. At the end of the year he came back. St. Philip received him with open arms, saying he had been praying ever since for his return to a better mind. The sum that formed the sliding-scale that was to open his eyes to the mercenary nature of the affection he had so much prized, was calculated at a lower rate than the other; but the rest of the story was the same.]

7

‘There was another such case; just such another, only this man had a wife too, but he was so infatuated with the other, he would have it she loved him the better of the two.’‘Yes; and the other was a miniature-painter,’ broke incorroboratively a kind of charwoman who had come in to tidy the place while we were talking.‘Yes, she was a miniature-painter,’ continued the narrator; ‘but it’s I who am telling the story.’‘Padre Filippo said, “How much do you allow her?”’‘Twenty pauls a day,’ broke in the charwoman.‘Forty scudi a month,’ said the narrator positively.‘There’s not much difference,’ interposed I, fearing I should lose the story between them. ‘Twenty pauls a day is sixty scudi a month. It doesn’t matter.’‘Well, then, Padre Filippo said,’ continued the narrator,‘“Now just to try whether she cares so much about you, you give her thirty scudi a month.”’‘Fifteen pauls a day,’ interposed the charwoman.‘Thirty scudi a month!’ reiterated the narrator.‘Never mind,’ said I. ‘Whatever it was, it was to be reduced.’‘Yes; that’s it,’ pursued the narrator; ‘and he made him go on and on diminishing it. She took it very well at first, suspecting he was trying her, and thinking he would make it up to her afterwards.’‘But when she found he didn’t,’ said the charwoman,‘She turned him out,’ said the narrator, putting her down with a frown. ‘He was so infatuated, however, that even now he was not satisfied, and said that in stopping the money he had been unfair, and she was in the right. So good Philip, who was patience itself, said, “Go and pay her up, and we’ll try her another way. You go and kill a dog, and put it in a bag, and go to her with your hands covered with blood, and let her think you have got into trouble for hurting some one, and ask her to hide you.” So the man went and killed a dog.’‘It was a cat he killed, because he couldn’t find a dog handy,’ said the irrepressible charwoman.‘Nonsense; of course it was a dog,’ asseverated the narrator. ‘But when he went to her house and pretendedto be in a bad way, and asked her to have pity on him, she only answered: “Not I, indeed! I’m not going to get myself into a scrape6with the law, forhim!” and drove him away. And he came and told Padre Filippo.‘“Now,” said good Philip, “go to your wife whom you have abandoned so long. Go to her with the same story, and see what she does for you.”‘The man took the dead dog in the bag, and ran to the lodging where his wife was, and knocked stealthily at her door. “It is I,” he whispered.‘“Come in, husband,” exclaimed the wife, throwing open the door.‘“Stop! hush! take care! don’t touch me!” said the husband. “There’s blood upon me. Save me! hide me! put me somewhere!”‘“It’s so long since you’ve been here, no one will think of coming after you here, so you will be quite safe. Sit down and be composed,” said the wife soothingly; and she poured him out wine to drink.‘But the police were nearer than he fancied. He had thought to finish up the affair in five minutes by explaining all to her. But “the other,” not satisfied with refusing him shelter, had gone and set the police on his track; and here they were after him.‘The wife’s quick ears heard them on the stairs. “Get into this cupboard quick, and leave me to manage them,” she said.‘The husband safely stowed away, she opened the door without hesitation, as if she had nothing to hide. “How can you think he is here?” she said when they asked for him. “Ask any of the neighbours how long it is since he has been here.”‘“Oh, three years,” “four years,” “five,” said various voices of people who had come round at hearing the police arrive.‘“You see you must have come to the wrong place,”she said. And the husband smiled as he heard her standing out for him so bravely.‘Her determined manner had satisfied the police; and they were just turning to go when one of them saw tell-tale spots of blood on the floor that had dropped from the dead dog. The track was followed to the cupboard, and the man dragged to prison. It was in vain that he assured them he had killed nothing but a dog.‘“Ha! that will be the faithful dog of the murdered man,” said the police. “We shan’t be long before we find the body of the man himself!”‘The wife was distracted at finding her husband, who had but so lately come back to her, was to be taken away again; and he could discern how real was her distress.‘“Go to Padre Filippo, and he will set all right,” said the husband as they carried him away. The woman went to Padre Filippo, and he explained all, amid the laughter of the Court. But the husband went back to his wife, and never left her any more after that.’[The story was told me another time with this variation, that the penitent was a peasant7who came up to Rome with his ass, and tied it to a pillar set up for the purpose outside the church, while he went in to confess. The first time he went, St. Philip told him he must have nothing more to do with the occasion of sin, who in this case was a spinner instead of a miniature-painter. The peasant was so angry with the advice that he stayed away from confession a whole year. At the end of the year he came back. St. Philip received him with open arms, saying he had been praying ever since for his return to a better mind. The sum that formed the sliding-scale that was to open his eyes to the mercenary nature of the affection he had so much prized, was calculated at a lower rate than the other; but the rest of the story was the same.]

‘There was another such case; just such another, only this man had a wife too, but he was so infatuated with the other, he would have it she loved him the better of the two.’

‘Yes; and the other was a miniature-painter,’ broke incorroboratively a kind of charwoman who had come in to tidy the place while we were talking.

‘Yes, she was a miniature-painter,’ continued the narrator; ‘but it’s I who am telling the story.’

‘Padre Filippo said, “How much do you allow her?”’

‘Twenty pauls a day,’ broke in the charwoman.

‘Forty scudi a month,’ said the narrator positively.

‘There’s not much difference,’ interposed I, fearing I should lose the story between them. ‘Twenty pauls a day is sixty scudi a month. It doesn’t matter.’

‘Well, then, Padre Filippo said,’ continued the narrator,‘“Now just to try whether she cares so much about you, you give her thirty scudi a month.”’

‘Fifteen pauls a day,’ interposed the charwoman.

‘Thirty scudi a month!’ reiterated the narrator.

‘Never mind,’ said I. ‘Whatever it was, it was to be reduced.’

‘Yes; that’s it,’ pursued the narrator; ‘and he made him go on and on diminishing it. She took it very well at first, suspecting he was trying her, and thinking he would make it up to her afterwards.’

‘But when she found he didn’t,’ said the charwoman,

‘She turned him out,’ said the narrator, putting her down with a frown. ‘He was so infatuated, however, that even now he was not satisfied, and said that in stopping the money he had been unfair, and she was in the right. So good Philip, who was patience itself, said, “Go and pay her up, and we’ll try her another way. You go and kill a dog, and put it in a bag, and go to her with your hands covered with blood, and let her think you have got into trouble for hurting some one, and ask her to hide you.” So the man went and killed a dog.’

‘It was a cat he killed, because he couldn’t find a dog handy,’ said the irrepressible charwoman.

‘Nonsense; of course it was a dog,’ asseverated the narrator. ‘But when he went to her house and pretendedto be in a bad way, and asked her to have pity on him, she only answered: “Not I, indeed! I’m not going to get myself into a scrape6with the law, forhim!” and drove him away. And he came and told Padre Filippo.

‘“Now,” said good Philip, “go to your wife whom you have abandoned so long. Go to her with the same story, and see what she does for you.”

‘The man took the dead dog in the bag, and ran to the lodging where his wife was, and knocked stealthily at her door. “It is I,” he whispered.

‘“Come in, husband,” exclaimed the wife, throwing open the door.

‘“Stop! hush! take care! don’t touch me!” said the husband. “There’s blood upon me. Save me! hide me! put me somewhere!”

‘“It’s so long since you’ve been here, no one will think of coming after you here, so you will be quite safe. Sit down and be composed,” said the wife soothingly; and she poured him out wine to drink.

‘But the police were nearer than he fancied. He had thought to finish up the affair in five minutes by explaining all to her. But “the other,” not satisfied with refusing him shelter, had gone and set the police on his track; and here they were after him.

‘The wife’s quick ears heard them on the stairs. “Get into this cupboard quick, and leave me to manage them,” she said.

‘The husband safely stowed away, she opened the door without hesitation, as if she had nothing to hide. “How can you think he is here?” she said when they asked for him. “Ask any of the neighbours how long it is since he has been here.”

‘“Oh, three years,” “four years,” “five,” said various voices of people who had come round at hearing the police arrive.

‘“You see you must have come to the wrong place,”she said. And the husband smiled as he heard her standing out for him so bravely.

‘Her determined manner had satisfied the police; and they were just turning to go when one of them saw tell-tale spots of blood on the floor that had dropped from the dead dog. The track was followed to the cupboard, and the man dragged to prison. It was in vain that he assured them he had killed nothing but a dog.

‘“Ha! that will be the faithful dog of the murdered man,” said the police. “We shan’t be long before we find the body of the man himself!”

‘The wife was distracted at finding her husband, who had but so lately come back to her, was to be taken away again; and he could discern how real was her distress.

‘“Go to Padre Filippo, and he will set all right,” said the husband as they carried him away. The woman went to Padre Filippo, and he explained all, amid the laughter of the Court. But the husband went back to his wife, and never left her any more after that.’

[The story was told me another time with this variation, that the penitent was a peasant7who came up to Rome with his ass, and tied it to a pillar set up for the purpose outside the church, while he went in to confess. The first time he went, St. Philip told him he must have nothing more to do with the occasion of sin, who in this case was a spinner instead of a miniature-painter. The peasant was so angry with the advice that he stayed away from confession a whole year. At the end of the year he came back. St. Philip received him with open arms, saying he had been praying ever since for his return to a better mind. The sum that formed the sliding-scale that was to open his eyes to the mercenary nature of the affection he had so much prized, was calculated at a lower rate than the other; but the rest of the story was the same.]

8‘Ah, there’s plenty to be said about Padre Filippo,’ said the charwoman; and I should have liked to put herunder examination, but that it would have been a breach of hospitality, as the other evidently did not like the interruption; so I was obliged to be satisfied with the testimony she had already afforded of the popularity of the saint. ‘Ha, good Padre Filippo, he was content to eat “black bread” like us’; and she took a hunch out of her pocket to show me; (it was only like our ‘brown bread.’)‘There was no lack where he was. Once I know, with half a rubbio8of corn, he made enough to last all the community ten years,’ she, however, ran on to say before she could be dismissed.

8

‘Ah, there’s plenty to be said about Padre Filippo,’ said the charwoman; and I should have liked to put herunder examination, but that it would have been a breach of hospitality, as the other evidently did not like the interruption; so I was obliged to be satisfied with the testimony she had already afforded of the popularity of the saint. ‘Ha, good Padre Filippo, he was content to eat “black bread” like us’; and she took a hunch out of her pocket to show me; (it was only like our ‘brown bread.’)‘There was no lack where he was. Once I know, with half a rubbio8of corn, he made enough to last all the community ten years,’ she, however, ran on to say before she could be dismissed.

‘Ah, there’s plenty to be said about Padre Filippo,’ said the charwoman; and I should have liked to put herunder examination, but that it would have been a breach of hospitality, as the other evidently did not like the interruption; so I was obliged to be satisfied with the testimony she had already afforded of the popularity of the saint. ‘Ha, good Padre Filippo, he was content to eat “black bread” like us’; and she took a hunch out of her pocket to show me; (it was only like our ‘brown bread.’)

‘There was no lack where he was. Once I know, with half a rubbio8of corn, he made enough to last all the community ten years,’ she, however, ran on to say before she could be dismissed.

9One day Padre Filippo was going over Ponte S. Angelo, when he met two little boys who seemed to attract his notice. ‘Forty-two years hence you will be made a cardinal,’ he said to one, as he gave him a friendly tap with his walking-stick. ‘And that other one,’ he added, turning to his companion, ‘will be dead in two years.’And so it came true exactly.

9

One day Padre Filippo was going over Ponte S. Angelo, when he met two little boys who seemed to attract his notice. ‘Forty-two years hence you will be made a cardinal,’ he said to one, as he gave him a friendly tap with his walking-stick. ‘And that other one,’ he added, turning to his companion, ‘will be dead in two years.’And so it came true exactly.

One day Padre Filippo was going over Ponte S. Angelo, when he met two little boys who seemed to attract his notice. ‘Forty-two years hence you will be made a cardinal,’ he said to one, as he gave him a friendly tap with his walking-stick. ‘And that other one,’ he added, turning to his companion, ‘will be dead in two years.’

And so it came true exactly.

10There was another peasant who, when he came into Rome on a Sunday morning, always went to the church where St. Philip was.9‘You quite weary10one with your continual preaching about the Blessed Sacrament. I’m so tired of hearing about it, that I declare to you I don’t care so much about it as my mule does about a sack of corn.’ Padre Filippo preferred convincing people in some practical way to going into angry discussions with them; so he did not say very much in answer to the countryman’s remarks, but asked him the name of his village. Not long after he went down to this village to preach; and had a pretty little altar erected on a hill-side, and set up the Blessed Sacrament in Exposition. Then he went and found out the same countryman, and said, ‘Now bringa sack of corn near where the altar is, and let’s see what the mule does.’ The countryman placed a sack of corn near the altar, and drove the mule by to see what it would do.The mule kicked aside the sack of corn, and fell down on its knees before the altar; and the man, seeing the token, went to confession to St. Philip, and never said anything profane any more.

10

There was another peasant who, when he came into Rome on a Sunday morning, always went to the church where St. Philip was.9‘You quite weary10one with your continual preaching about the Blessed Sacrament. I’m so tired of hearing about it, that I declare to you I don’t care so much about it as my mule does about a sack of corn.’ Padre Filippo preferred convincing people in some practical way to going into angry discussions with them; so he did not say very much in answer to the countryman’s remarks, but asked him the name of his village. Not long after he went down to this village to preach; and had a pretty little altar erected on a hill-side, and set up the Blessed Sacrament in Exposition. Then he went and found out the same countryman, and said, ‘Now bringa sack of corn near where the altar is, and let’s see what the mule does.’ The countryman placed a sack of corn near the altar, and drove the mule by to see what it would do.The mule kicked aside the sack of corn, and fell down on its knees before the altar; and the man, seeing the token, went to confession to St. Philip, and never said anything profane any more.

There was another peasant who, when he came into Rome on a Sunday morning, always went to the church where St. Philip was.9‘You quite weary10one with your continual preaching about the Blessed Sacrament. I’m so tired of hearing about it, that I declare to you I don’t care so much about it as my mule does about a sack of corn.’ Padre Filippo preferred convincing people in some practical way to going into angry discussions with them; so he did not say very much in answer to the countryman’s remarks, but asked him the name of his village. Not long after he went down to this village to preach; and had a pretty little altar erected on a hill-side, and set up the Blessed Sacrament in Exposition. Then he went and found out the same countryman, and said, ‘Now bringa sack of corn near where the altar is, and let’s see what the mule does.’ The countryman placed a sack of corn near the altar, and drove the mule by to see what it would do.

The mule kicked aside the sack of corn, and fell down on its knees before the altar; and the man, seeing the token, went to confession to St. Philip, and never said anything profane any more.

11There were two other fellows11who were more profane still, and who said one to the other, ‘They make such a fuss about Padre Filippo and his miracles, I warrant it’s all nonsense. Let’s watch till he passes, and one of us pretend to be dead and see if he finds it out.’So said so done. ‘What is your companion lying on the ground for?’ said St. Philip as he passed. ‘He’s dead! Father,’ replied the other. ‘Dead, is he?’ said Padre Filippo; ‘then you must go for a bier for him.’ He had no sooner passed on than the man burst out laughing, expecting his companion to join his mirth. But his companion didn’t move. ‘Why don’t you get up?’ he said, and gave him a kick; but he made no sign. When he bent down to look at him he found he was really dead; and he had to go for the bier.[Cancellieri has collected some curious incidents (‘Morcato,’ p. 210–12, Appendix N. xxii.) concerning an attempt which was made by Princess Anne Colonna to obtain from Urban VIII. the authority to remove a part of the Saint’s body to her chapel at Naples. The Fathers of the Oratory and the people were greatly averse to dividing it, as it was very well preserved in its entirety. By a fatality, which the people readily believed to be providential, Monsig. Moraldo, who was charged to bring the matter under the Pope’s notice, forgot it every time he was in attendance on the Pope, though it was the most important thing he had to say. At last he put the Bull concerning it out on his desk that he might be sure to remember it, though otherwise he would have kept it concealed, for it bore the endorsement, ‘Per levare (to remove) parte del corpo di S. Filippo Neri.’ While he was talking about it to one of the papal secretaries standing near the window, a priest, who had come about other matters, was shown in, and thus happened to pass by the side of the table when the endorsement of the Bull caught his eye. With all a Roman’s desire to preserve the body to Rome intact, he immediately gave notice at the Oratory, and two courageous young fathers took upon themselves to hide the body. When the prelates, therefore, came shortly after to claim the fulfilment of the Bull, the Rector opened the shrine in good faith, but the body was not there, and the report ran among the vulgar that it had been miraculously removed. Subsequently the Rector gave themthe heart, and drew a tooth of the Saint, which was a verbal compliance with the terms of the Bull, being certainly ‘a part of the body.’ Some years after, the body was restored to its shrine, and in 1743 Prince Chigi provided it with velvets and brocades to the value of 1,000 scudi.]

11

There were two other fellows11who were more profane still, and who said one to the other, ‘They make such a fuss about Padre Filippo and his miracles, I warrant it’s all nonsense. Let’s watch till he passes, and one of us pretend to be dead and see if he finds it out.’So said so done. ‘What is your companion lying on the ground for?’ said St. Philip as he passed. ‘He’s dead! Father,’ replied the other. ‘Dead, is he?’ said Padre Filippo; ‘then you must go for a bier for him.’ He had no sooner passed on than the man burst out laughing, expecting his companion to join his mirth. But his companion didn’t move. ‘Why don’t you get up?’ he said, and gave him a kick; but he made no sign. When he bent down to look at him he found he was really dead; and he had to go for the bier.[Cancellieri has collected some curious incidents (‘Morcato,’ p. 210–12, Appendix N. xxii.) concerning an attempt which was made by Princess Anne Colonna to obtain from Urban VIII. the authority to remove a part of the Saint’s body to her chapel at Naples. The Fathers of the Oratory and the people were greatly averse to dividing it, as it was very well preserved in its entirety. By a fatality, which the people readily believed to be providential, Monsig. Moraldo, who was charged to bring the matter under the Pope’s notice, forgot it every time he was in attendance on the Pope, though it was the most important thing he had to say. At last he put the Bull concerning it out on his desk that he might be sure to remember it, though otherwise he would have kept it concealed, for it bore the endorsement, ‘Per levare (to remove) parte del corpo di S. Filippo Neri.’ While he was talking about it to one of the papal secretaries standing near the window, a priest, who had come about other matters, was shown in, and thus happened to pass by the side of the table when the endorsement of the Bull caught his eye. With all a Roman’s desire to preserve the body to Rome intact, he immediately gave notice at the Oratory, and two courageous young fathers took upon themselves to hide the body. When the prelates, therefore, came shortly after to claim the fulfilment of the Bull, the Rector opened the shrine in good faith, but the body was not there, and the report ran among the vulgar that it had been miraculously removed. Subsequently the Rector gave themthe heart, and drew a tooth of the Saint, which was a verbal compliance with the terms of the Bull, being certainly ‘a part of the body.’ Some years after, the body was restored to its shrine, and in 1743 Prince Chigi provided it with velvets and brocades to the value of 1,000 scudi.]

There were two other fellows11who were more profane still, and who said one to the other, ‘They make such a fuss about Padre Filippo and his miracles, I warrant it’s all nonsense. Let’s watch till he passes, and one of us pretend to be dead and see if he finds it out.’

So said so done. ‘What is your companion lying on the ground for?’ said St. Philip as he passed. ‘He’s dead! Father,’ replied the other. ‘Dead, is he?’ said Padre Filippo; ‘then you must go for a bier for him.’ He had no sooner passed on than the man burst out laughing, expecting his companion to join his mirth. But his companion didn’t move. ‘Why don’t you get up?’ he said, and gave him a kick; but he made no sign. When he bent down to look at him he found he was really dead; and he had to go for the bier.

[Cancellieri has collected some curious incidents (‘Morcato,’ p. 210–12, Appendix N. xxii.) concerning an attempt which was made by Princess Anne Colonna to obtain from Urban VIII. the authority to remove a part of the Saint’s body to her chapel at Naples. The Fathers of the Oratory and the people were greatly averse to dividing it, as it was very well preserved in its entirety. By a fatality, which the people readily believed to be providential, Monsig. Moraldo, who was charged to bring the matter under the Pope’s notice, forgot it every time he was in attendance on the Pope, though it was the most important thing he had to say. At last he put the Bull concerning it out on his desk that he might be sure to remember it, though otherwise he would have kept it concealed, for it bore the endorsement, ‘Per levare (to remove) parte del corpo di S. Filippo Neri.’ While he was talking about it to one of the papal secretaries standing near the window, a priest, who had come about other matters, was shown in, and thus happened to pass by the side of the table when the endorsement of the Bull caught his eye. With all a Roman’s desire to preserve the body to Rome intact, he immediately gave notice at the Oratory, and two courageous young fathers took upon themselves to hide the body. When the prelates, therefore, came shortly after to claim the fulfilment of the Bull, the Rector opened the shrine in good faith, but the body was not there, and the report ran among the vulgar that it had been miraculously removed. Subsequently the Rector gave themthe heart, and drew a tooth of the Saint, which was a verbal compliance with the terms of the Bull, being certainly ‘a part of the body.’ Some years after, the body was restored to its shrine, and in 1743 Prince Chigi provided it with velvets and brocades to the value of 1,000 scudi.]

1‘Grascia e annòna’ are two old words meaning all kinds of meat and vegetable (including grain) food. It was the title of one department of the local administration. There was a great dearth in Rome in the year 1590–1, mentioned in the histories of the times. It is probable the people would ascribe to the head of the department the fault of the calamity.↑2These people generally call the popes by their family names. This ‘Papa Medici’ would be Pius IV., who reigned from 1559 to 1566.↑3‘Brutte anime,’ ‘ugly souls.’↑4All legends have doubtless some foundation in fact; but unfortunately for the detail of this one, the arms up in the façade of the said Churches, ‘Dei Miracoli’ and ‘di Monte Santo’—are the arms of a Cardinal Gastaldi or Castaldi, who rebuilt them about a hundred years later than St. Philip’s time. Alexander VII. having rebuilt the Flaminian Gate, or Porta del Popolo, the insignificance of these two churches became more noticeable than before; buthe did not survive to carry out his intention of rebuilding them. This was subsequently performed by Cardinal Gastaldi.—Maroni, xii. 147, xxviii. 185; Panciroli, 169; Melchiorri, 254 and 420.↑5‘Impicciare,’ ‘entangle myself with,’ ‘interfere with’—a very favourite Romanism.↑6‘Impicciare,’ again here.↑7‘Campagnola,’ a peasant of the Campagna near Rome.↑8Arubbiois between four and five acres.↑9St. Philip lived and taught for thirty-three years at the Church of S. Girolamo della Carità, not very far from the vegetable market in Campo de’ Fiori, all the streets about containing shops much frequented by the country people when they come up to Rome with their vegetables.↑10‘Scocciare,’ to persevere to weariness; to din.↑11‘Vassalli,’ in the older dictionaries ‘vassallo’ is only defined as a vassal; but in modern Roman parlance it means a scamp, a vagabond.↑

1‘Grascia e annòna’ are two old words meaning all kinds of meat and vegetable (including grain) food. It was the title of one department of the local administration. There was a great dearth in Rome in the year 1590–1, mentioned in the histories of the times. It is probable the people would ascribe to the head of the department the fault of the calamity.↑

2These people generally call the popes by their family names. This ‘Papa Medici’ would be Pius IV., who reigned from 1559 to 1566.↑

3‘Brutte anime,’ ‘ugly souls.’↑

4All legends have doubtless some foundation in fact; but unfortunately for the detail of this one, the arms up in the façade of the said Churches, ‘Dei Miracoli’ and ‘di Monte Santo’—are the arms of a Cardinal Gastaldi or Castaldi, who rebuilt them about a hundred years later than St. Philip’s time. Alexander VII. having rebuilt the Flaminian Gate, or Porta del Popolo, the insignificance of these two churches became more noticeable than before; buthe did not survive to carry out his intention of rebuilding them. This was subsequently performed by Cardinal Gastaldi.—Maroni, xii. 147, xxviii. 185; Panciroli, 169; Melchiorri, 254 and 420.↑

5‘Impicciare,’ ‘entangle myself with,’ ‘interfere with’—a very favourite Romanism.↑

6‘Impicciare,’ again here.↑

7‘Campagnola,’ a peasant of the Campagna near Rome.↑

8Arubbiois between four and five acres.↑

9St. Philip lived and taught for thirty-three years at the Church of S. Girolamo della Carità, not very far from the vegetable market in Campo de’ Fiori, all the streets about containing shops much frequented by the country people when they come up to Rome with their vegetables.↑

10‘Scocciare,’ to persevere to weariness; to din.↑

11‘Vassalli,’ in the older dictionaries ‘vassallo’ is only defined as a vassal; but in modern Roman parlance it means a scamp, a vagabond.↑

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