Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/58

46 souls in purgatory are directly tortured by the devil, are questions, he says, which are quite pertinent in this connection, but somewhat difficult to answer. Whatever doubts may arise, however, are removed by the testimony of eyewitnesses, such as the blessed Maria Anna Lindmayr, to whom her friend Maria Becher and the mother of the latter appeared and left on her feet scars which were produced by contact with their persons, and were not only visible but quite painful for weeks afterward. Another instance, tending to edify the faithful and to confound the skeptical, occurred on November 16, 1859, at ten o'clock in the morning in the cloister of the nuns of St. Clare at Foligno, where a recently deceased sister appeared enveloped in smoke and earnestly entreated the superior, Anna Felice, to intercede in her behalf; in token of her presence she left the imprint of her hand burned into the door. The tourist in the Tyrol, who visits a little church in a place of pilgrimage near Innsbruck, will be shown by the sexton a similar mark of a man's hand on a wooden door. The deceased, we are informed, had been noted for his piety, and his widow could hardly believe the woeful tale of his purgatorial sufferings as he related them to her on one occasion, begging her at the same time to hasten his release by having additional masses said for his soul. In order to convince her of the truth of his statements, he pressed his hand against the door and left his "sign manual" there for all time.

Professor Bautz is equally certain as regards the locality of hell, which, he says, is not in Mars or in the moon or in the sun, but in the innermost parts of our own globe; volcanoes are its flues and earthquakes are produced by the movement of its fiery waves when it is especially active owing to the arrival of a large number of the damned. When the ground begins to tremble under our feet and the habitations of men "nod from high and totter to their fall" we now know the reason why. The seismometer thus acquires a new and most appalling significance as a means not only of measuring the concussions and vibrations transmitted in the material of the earth's crust, but also of registering the intensity of the sufferings endured by the denizens of hell. In the light of this doctrine we see the smoke of their torment ascending from every volcanic crater, and discern in the earthquake a moral admonition and spiritual meaning of which "science falsely so called" has not the slightest appreciation.

Professor Bautz tells us, furthermore, that souls in hell are beyond redemption and therefore without means of grace. In purgatory, on the contrary, sacred rites are performed and sanctuary privileges are enjoyed. The "poor souls" go to church (perhaps as a part of their punishment), and the services are conducted by