IN

CHAPTER IX.

RELICS, SHRINES, AND PILGRIMAGE.

N the life of St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, written by his friend and deacon Pontius, who attended him in exile and witnessed his death, we are told that the brethren spread linen cloths and napkins on the ground before him,' for the purpose, of course, of preserving the blood that should flow during his decapitation. Nay, that, prior to this, when exhausted with a rapid journey to the place of judgment, he was perspiring profusely, an officer offered him change of raiment, in the hopes of possessing himself of the garments damp with what is called 'the now bloody sweat of the martyr on his road to God.'

Whether this custom, begun in pious zeal, ever degenerated into the gross and disgusting usage so flippantly and so coarsely described by Erasmus,1 I cannot tell. There did not lack warnings even in those early days, from the fathers of the Church, as to the danger of abuses arising from the, originally,

1 Colloquia, De Peregrinatio Religionis Ergo. A wellknown passage in this dialogue, too coarse for transcription here.

innocent and pure reverence for the remains of martyrs. What could be more pure, more becoming, than reverent care for the abused, shattered, and often widely scattered remains of those who had sealed their testimony with their blood under torturing irons and dislocating instruments used by the heathen persecutors, or who were torn to pieces by the fangs of raging wild beasts in the public theatre !

Nothing, however, is more ancient than the custom of collecting the limbs, or blood, or vestments of the martyrs ; and it is recorded that seven women were put to death for collecting drops of the blood of St. Blaise, during his torments.

When St. Germain, Bishop of Auxerre, was in England in the year A.D. 429, deputed by a Gallic Council to extirpate the Pelagian heresy, he visited the shrine of St. Alban, took up some of the earth on which the blood of our first martyr had fallen, and carried it back with him to France as a holy treasure.

So great was the zeal to possess some of the soil where the body of King Oswald1 lay, that people taking a small portion, a few grains only, perhaps, from the spot where he fell, and putting it into water to give to their sick friends-that even ab

1 A celebrated monarch of Northumberland in the seventh century.

stracted in these small quantities, a hole had been made five or six feet deep. This Bede records. This king was as charitable and pious as he was brave; and he was canonized. Many miracles were supposed to have been wrought at his tomb. He was killed in a great battle against the then pagan Mercians, and his last uttered word is said to have been a prayer for mercy on the souls of his slayers. Hence, from "Lord have mercy on their souls,' as Oswald said when he fell in battle,' a saying in the time of the Venerable Bede, is said to have originated our old country distich

When the bell begins to toll,

Lord have mercy on the sowl.1

The practice of collecting articles of attire did not appertain merely to the identical garments worn by the martyr. Linen and other substances which had touched his remains came to be considered as valuable as the original vestments. Bodies and remains originally were deposited in a kind of crypt, under the altar, into which apertures were so contrived, that the relics themselves might be touched by cloth or palls let down upon them. And so we are told that at the tombs of the martyrs the Christians let down veils, &c., to touch the remains deposited there, ‘qua

1 Bede, Hist. Ecc., 1. iii. c. 9 and 12.

pro magna benedictione accipiebant.' Nay, even copies and images of relics were, after being touched to the real, considered with equal respect.

But this supposed influence, so like that of the magnet on the steel, does certainly in some degree account for the innumerable thorns of the crown,' 'bits of the true cross,' &c. &c., which have inundated the world. It is not, I fancy, generally understood that anything which had touched a relic was considered of equal virtue with the original.

Of the surpassing holiness attributed to relics we have a very striking illustration in our own history, in reference to Harold, our last Saxon king. He had entered into an agreement before Edward's death to support the claims of William the Norman to the throne, and the astute bastard chose to have the arrangement ratified on oath, with all possible solemnity. Accordingly Harold stands between two altars, covered with cloth of gold, placing a hand on each whilst he utters it as stipulated. Then, the oath irrevocably taken, we learn that the wily Norman had sent for all the holy bodies thither, and put so many of them together as to fill a whole chest, and then covered them with a pall; but Harold neither saw them nor knew of their being there, for nought was shown or told to him about it; and over all was a phylactery, the best that he could select. When

Harold placed his hand upon it, the hand trembled and the flesh quivered; but he swore, and promised upon his oath—so help him God and the holy relics there (meaning the Gospels, for he had none idea of any other). Many cried, 'God grant it!' and when Harold had kissed the saints, and had risen upon his feet, the duke led him up to the chest, and made him stand near it; and took off the chest the pall that had covered it, and showed Harold upon what holy relics he had sworn, and he was sorely alarmed at the sight.'

'The hand trembled, and the flesh quivered.' There needs no farther illustration of the superstitious reverence in which relics were held in the eleventh century. Utterly unconscious Harold was of their presence, yet did (he all unknowing the while)-yetso is it said—did 'the hand tremble—the flesh quiver.'

Edward the Confessor, a very superstitious monarch, the predecessor of Harold and William, re-erected the Abbey at Westminster, originally founded by Sebert, who had presented to it the beam of Christ's

manger and other relics. Edward gave to this monastery part of the manger where Christ was born; of the sponge, the lance, the scourge wherewith he was tortured; of the sepulchre and grave cloth; some crumbs of Mounts Golgotha and Calvary; numberless relics of the Virgin Mary. These indeed