Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/93

Rh requesting him to give his official opinion, as to the possibility of such a miracle. The bishop was in a quandary. He knew that the soldier's statement was false and absurd, but he could not say so without contradicting the teachings and traditions of the Church and impeaching the testimony of the saints and all the records of hagiology. In his report he was therefore compelled to admit that the prayer may have been answered in the manner described. On the strength of this "expert evidence" Frederick annulled the sentence of the court-martial, but forbade the soldier on penalty of death to offer henceforth petitions of this kind to any image of the Virgin.

One of the most characteristic as well as anachronistic exhibitions of religious folly and frenzy in our day is the Springprocession, or procession of jumpers, which takes place yearly at Echternach, in Luxemburg, on the first Tuesday after Whitsunday, and is popularly regarded as a sure cure for epilepsy, St. Vitus's dance, syntexis, murrain, and other maladies of men and cattle. A full description of this performance was given in a book published more than twenty years ago and entitled Die Springprocession und die Wallfahrt zum Grabe des heiligen Willibrord in Echternach (Luxemburg, Brück, 1871), the author of which, J. B. Krier, a priest and religious instructor in the Echternach preparatory school, expresses his firm belief in its therapeutic efficacy and general wonder-working power. "We can not but envy these people," he says, "on account of their living faith, and in our inmost soul praise God, who in our cold and indifferent age has kept alive such a fire in the hearts of our fellowmen." A few Catholics of superior culture, like Prof. Froschammer, of Munich, vigorously protested against the glorification of such crass fanaticism, but it received the approval and encouragement of the episcopate, and, instead of disappearing in the light of the nineteenth century, as one would expect such a survival of mediævalism to do, has been growing stronger ever since. On May 15, 1894, 16,905 persons, including one bishop, 140 clergy, 267 musicians, 3,213 prayers, 2,448 singers, and 11,836 springers, took part in the strange ceremony. This number, which has been derived from official documents, is the largest on record, and furnishes a drastic illustration of the manner in which the patronage of the Church contributes to the promotion of superstition.

The "springprocession" is, in fact, one of the queerest sights that have been witnessed in Christendom since the Flagellants of the thirteenth century made the streets of Italian cities hideous with their scourgings and howlings. The men, women, and children who are to join in the choral dance—which an ancient Greek or Roman, if he should rise from the dead, might easily mistake for a Bacchanalian orgy—assemble on a meadow near the town,