Page:Purgatory proved, illustrated, and set forth in a clear light (2).pdf/19

 before our first fathers came into Italy, and found that all had happened as has been told.

A Jew blaspheming the holy sacrament, dared to say, that if the Christians would give it to his dog, he would eat it up, without showing any regard to their God. The Christians being very angry at this outrageous speech, and trusting in the Divine Providence, had a mind to bring it to a trial: so, spreading the napkin on a table, they laid on it many hosts, among which one only was consecrated. The hungry dog being put upon the same table, began to eat them all, but coming to that which had been consecrated, without touching it, he kneeled down before it, and afterwards fell with rage upon his master, catching him so closely by the nose that he took it quite away with his teeth.—The same which St. Matthew warns such like blasphemers, saying, 'Give not that which is holy unto dogs, lest they turn again and rend you.'

St. Anthony of Padua, disputing one day with one of the most obstinate hereticks that denied the truth of the holy sacrament, drove him to such a plunge, that he desired the saint to prove this truth by some miracle. St. Anthony accepted the condition, and said he would work it upon his mule. Upon this the heretick kept her three days without eating and drinking; and the third day, the saint having said mass, took up the host, and made him bring forth the hungry mule, to whom he spoke thus:—In the name of the Lord, I command thee to come and do reverence to thy Creator, and confound the malice of heretics.