Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/101

Rh that the ignorant and credulous peasantry of southern Italy should fall into gross fetichism of this sort; the astonishing thing is that the priests of a Church which sends missionaries to Africa should encourage such crass superstition at home, and, instead of seeking to enlighten the minds of the masses, should march in procession to the scene of the supposed miracle with banners and censers, singing hymns and chanting litanies, and displaying all the pomp and paraphernalia of an imposing religious ritual in confirmation of a vulgar delusion.

In August, 1894, the population of one of the suburbs of Vienna was thrown into intense excitement by the rumored apparition of the Virgin Mary, who was said to have been seen at sundry times sitting on the branch of a tree in an old cemetery and holding the child in her arms. The throng became so great as to require the intervention of a squadron of police in order to prevent a complete interruption of the city traffic. Not only was the reality of the supernatural appearance generally believed, but several persons turned it to practical account by noting the exact time of the occurrence, hour, day, month, and year, so as to secure lucky numbers for the lottery, and even attributed the presence of the police to the anxiety of the Austrian Minister of Finance lest, by a happy combination of these numbers, some one should win a tern and thus deplete the state treasury. A workman from a neighboring factory, who chanced to pass by, endeavored to demonstrate the impossibility of such phenomena, and urged the crowd not to give credence to idle tales of this sort; but this laborer was the only one who acted the part of Paul on Mar's Hill and reproved the multitude for being "too superstitious." Not a representative of the clergy, from the humblest ecclesiastic to the highest dignitary of the Church, has ever been known to improve occasions of this kind for the religious instruction and intellectual elevation of the people. Indeed, it would be difficult for them to do so, in view of the fact that the literature which the Catholic Church still publishes and disseminates for the promotion of piety consists chiefly of similar legends; and it would not surprise us if a full and authentic account of the Vienna apparition should appear in the columns of the Innsbrück periodical. Monthly Roses to the Honor of the Immaculate Mary, Mother of God, as an incentive to more ardent adoration of the Virgin.

Some years ago, in the month of May, I was walking up the Ludwigstrasse, in Munich, with a German friend well known as a genial poet and earnest Catholic. Just then a procession of maidens dressed in white, with wreaths of flowers on their heads and an image of the Virgin borne aloft, came out of the church and passed through the garden, in which are the stations with Fortner's frescoes representing the life and passion of Christ.