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witnesses mentioned by Thomas de Celano; and one of them is easily disposed of. For Rufinus is one of the three companions who composed the second biography of the Saint, which appeared in 1247, when doubts had been already expressed as to the fact of the miracle, and after Pope Gregory himself had needed a vision to convince him of the wound in the side. Notwithstanding none of the three companions declare that they themselves had been witnesses of the miracle they describe. They spoke of the care with which the Saint hid the wounds from view, and that all his care could not keep them from the knowledge of bis intimate associates; but neither Rufinus nor the others anywhere say, "We ourselves saw them and touched them; that which our eyes have seen and our hands have handled, declare we unto you." The statement of Thomas, to say the least of it, can scarcely be held authoritative in such circumstances.

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There remains only one alleged witness, Elias of Cortona. Let us consider his position and character. At first it might seem that there could be no higher or more competent witness. For Elias was the close friend and companion of the Saint. Apprehending his decease, he repaired to him at Sienna, had him conveyed to Cortona, and thence to Assisi. He watched over him with almost maternal care, was with him in his last moments, and received his dying benediction. He succeeded him, moreover, in the government of the order. All this might seem to give his testimony a peculiar value, and especially when we consider that it is not merely the statement of Thomas de Celano on the subject that we have, but moreover a statement by Elias himself. In announcing to the society the death of its founder, he at the same time announces to them "a great joy, even a new miracle. Never has the world seen such a sign, except in the person of the Son of God. A little before death (non diu ante mortem) our Father and Brother appeared to be one crucified, bearing on his body the five wounds which are the stigmata of Christ; for his hands and his feet had as it were punctures of nails (quasi puncturas clavorum) on each side, preserving the appearance of scars and showing the blackness of the nails; while his side appeared pierced by a lance and frequently gave forth blood."*

This statement seems sufficiently explicit. There can be no doubt of the meaning it was intended to convey. At the same time it invites examination in certain particulars. It makes no mention, it will be observed, of the peculiar fleshly excrescences in the form of nails, upon which the later accounts dwell. Then, so far from pointing back the occurrence of the miracle to a previous remarkable epoch in the life of the Saint, it says that the appearances manifested themselves a little before his death

It is well to notice the exact form of the language here:-"Quasi puncturas clavorum . . . reservantes cicatrices et nigritudinem clavorum ostendentes latus vero ejus lanceatum apparuit et sæpe sanguinem evaporavit."

non diu ante mortem. The phrase is no doubt indefinite; but it does not seem likely that the writer would have spoken of an event, which is alleged to have occurred fully two years before, as having occurred "not long before" the death of one whose full age was only forty-five years. There is a curious coincidence between this statement and that of Matthew Paris, the Benedictine historian, whose work is only of slightly posterior date to the death of St. Francis. It was completed in 1250. He says that when St. Francis was about to leave the world and receive the reward of his earthly labours, there appeared "on the 15th day before his death" the wounds of Christ upon hands and feet.

What are we to say to such statements? At any rate they give no countenance to the stories of the vision at Alverno. It is obvious indeed that we have reached in the statement of Elias of Cortona the primary source of authority for the miracle of the stigmata, and that the later versions of its origin are to be explained by this statement. The Saint's prayerful rapture at Alverno, and the vision of the seraph, of which there is no hint in the words of Elias, are plainly the after-thoughts of the spiritual imagination as it dwelt upon the great mystery and sought some explanation of it. The one bit of genuine evidence for the mystery is the statement of Elias; and so it becomes necessary to scan his statement, not only in itself but in the light of the character of the man from whom it

comes.

So far we have noticed its discrepancy with the story given in the lives of St. Francis, and the title which it has from its undoubted originality to displace and set aside that story. But it is further deserving of notice, how guarded is the language employed by Elias. He does not affirm that he himself saw the wounds of which he speaks. He speaks indeed of a great and joyful mystery, but he does not add "whereof I am witness:" "I am the disciple which testifieth of this thing." His language, on the contrary, is quite general, although, as we have already said, there can be no doubt that he designed to convey an assurance of the miracle. Yet there is a special caution even in his assurance. The marks on the hands and feet of the Saint are not definitely pronounced to be what they appeared to be, and what he wished them to be believed to be. They were only "quasi marks of nails showing the blackness of the iron, while the side appeared lanced or pierced with a spear. (See Note.)

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The question arises therefore, what was the real state of the case? What is the most probable explanation of the alleged marvel? This Elias of Cortona is plainly responsible for its conceptionis the only original authority for it. Were there really certain marks on the body of St. Francis, which his excited faith easily converted into the alleged wounds? Was the whole matter a pure invention of his unscrupulous brain, for the glory of his order and the exaltation of its power? Unhappily for the miracle, the character of the successor of St. Francis

was such as to render even the last supposition by no means improbable. It must be remembered, also, that the boundaries between fact and fiction were but faintly divided in those times, especially in all that pertained to the advancement or glory of the Church. Men believed readily what they wished to believe. The appetite for marvel was insatiable. It gave no shock to their sense of truth to hear that the bones of saints which never touched Italian soil were deposited in spots whither worshippers thronged in pious credulity. To this day many such traditions live in Italy, and apparently nurse piety without the shadow of a foundation to rest upon. There was nothing therefore calculated to excite unbelieving astonishment in the story of the Stigmata. All knew of the self-sacrifice of St. Francis' life; all knew how he had aimed "to put on the Lord Jesus" and to bear about "His dying" in the most literal manner; and it merely filled up the measure of the popular conception of him, to hear at length that he "bore on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus." The spiritual idea could not in such an age sustain itself by its own power; it was necessary that it should be incarnated in some material and visible form. It needed only in this case, as in others, that there should be sufficient hardiness of design to condense the popular conception, and set it forth in some shape adapted to the eager credulity on all sides.

Elias of Cortona, there can be little doubt, was the designer in the present case. He saw the advantage of the time, and he took it. Probably his own mind was not without vague thoughts of the truth of what he stated; but a very slight account of him will be enough to show that he was not a man likely to care for the exact truth of what suited his purposes. He had the hardy boldness to avail himself of the popular credulity; he had none of the scruples which would make him shrink from profiting by a falsehood.

The career of Elias sufficiently reveals his character. After the death of St. Francis he appeared the only man fitted, from his power of government, to become the head of the Order. His subsequent efforts to regain his position when deprived of it, prove how congenial its prominence and authority must have been to him; yet he made a feint of declining it under pretence of bodily weakness and incapacity to endure the rigours which the dignity demanded. He was assured that he might spare himself, and even "eat," according to the proverb, from " 'gold," if he would only assume the government, which no one could undertake but himself. Accordingly, he had no sooner entered upon his task, than he relaxed some of the more rigid conditions of the rule, in his own case at least, and busied himself mainly in organising vast subsidies for the construction of the great church at Assisi. He was in the habit of saying that "the rule could only be strictly obeyed by those who were very near to God, and the spiritual equals of the founder." Opposition very soon sprang up to such a governor. He was accused of violating the prin

ciples upon which the Order was founded. He retorted upon one of his prominent accusers by a severe punishment. The question was referred to Rome; a more formal accusation was there urged against Elias, and Gregory IX., after hearing his defence, resolved on his deposition. All this took place within three or four years after his accession. He submitted at first quietly to the sentence of the Pope; retired to his native town of Cortona; let his beard grow; and sought the reputation of an anchorite. Meantime he was diligently preparing for his return to office. Collecting his partisans in great numbers at a general meeting of the Order in 1236, they broke forth into loud complaints at his unjust deposition; his successor withdrew discomfited; and Elias, reducing his adversaries to silence, forced the Pope to recognise him once more at the head of the Order. The old complaints against him, however, were soon revived, especially by those who remembered the early days of the Order, and the spirit in which St. Francis himself lived. On his part Elias met the complainers by a high hand, expelling some and imprisoning others. He sought to represent them as men of an unquiet turn of mind, jealous of their personal intimacy with the founder, and desirous of living as sheep without a shepherd. For a while he kept his place in the face of opposition, but at length the complaints reached such a height, that the Holy Father convened a general chapter of the Order at Rome, and again deposed Elias. Then the true character of the man appeared. He had recourse no longer to a mock humility, but turned to the emperor, and espoused his cause against the Pope. The Order assented to his deposition, and expelled him from its ranks. He was even excommunicated, and appears henceforth to have passed a secular life, engaged in political affairs. Upon his deathbed he received the Church's absolution, but died without being readmitted to the Order which he had twice endeavoured to govern.

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Such was the man to whose word as its primary authority the miracle of the Stigmata is traced. may seem a harsh conclusion, but it is the one most probable and consistent with facts, that the miracle was the device of Elias. There was nothing in the device of too startling a character for such a scheming and busy brain. The only question seems to be, how he carried out the device, whether by mere hardihood of assertion, or also by actual manipulation of the body of the Saint, so that it really seemed to present the appearance of wounds to the devotees who beheld it after death. There is nothing improbable in this latter hypothesis, shocking as it may be to our ideas. The death of St. Francis was foreseen. Elias was, if not alone with him, the only person in charge of his death-bed. The physician had cauterised the temples of the dying Saint. The suggestion may have been enough; the same process performed on the hands and feet would give the black appearance of nails-nigritudinem clavorum. Let it not be supposed that there is anything incredible in this, horrible as it may seem.

Four

or five years after the death of St. Francis we find the crude and passionate devotion of the time maiming, in a manner not less shocking, the body of Elizabeth, the saint of Hungary.*

It is told by Bonaventura, that there was seen around the head of the Saint while yet alive, a cross in the form of a Tau (T), which marvellously transformed his visage. Elias would consider that he was merely giving material reality to this visionary glory. The idea of the cross, in its literal suffering not less than in its spiritual meaning, had become identified with the Saint in the devout imagination of the time. In giving outward expression to this idea, Elias may have seemed to himself to have been merely fulfilling at once the aspiration of the Saint and the faith of the people. Nor can we doubt that the resulting glory which would accrue to the Order from the credit of so great a marvel would have its force on a mind so fertile in ambition and so unscrupulous in the means of gratifying it.

May it not have been also that the wound in the side was real? According to a tradition which has not died out, the heart of the Saint was laid in the little church at Portiuncula, beneath the altar. Here it was, in the cloister attached to this little church, that he conceived the plan of his Order; here it was that he retired to die. The spot had possessed his heart in life, and the story is that it retained it in death. And if there is anything in this tradition, do we not see how the wound in the side may be accounted for, even a wound as large and deep as Matthew Paris describes.

If we finally bring into view for a moment, the facts attending the death of the Saint, the whole character of the supposed miracle will still more clearly appear. St. Francis died on Saturday, about an hour after sunset; and on the following Sunday, his body seems to have been exposed in the small dimly-lighted chapel at Portiuncula. Crowds came to look upon it as the news of the death spread. But no circumstances could have been more unfavourable to an honest inspection than a small darkened chamber, scarcely holding more than a dozen people, to and from which excited numbers were constantly passing. Why, if the miracle was genuine, should this have been all the opportunity

given of witnessing it? Why, before the close of Sunday, should preparations for the interment of his body have been already begun? Neither the custom of the time nor the temperature of October rendered such a course necessary. Not only so, but why was such jealous care taken of the body in its transference to the church of St. George, in Assisi, where it lay till the erection of the magnificent Franciscan church, in the crypt of which it was at length deposited? The nuns were only permitted to see it through the grating of a window; and at last, when conveyed to its final resting-place, the event appears to have been signalised by a combat between the monks and the people-the latter determined to see the body, the former determined to prevent their inspection of it. Startled at the scandal, the Pope laid his interdict upon Assisi. An event does not become more, but less credible which was thus carefully kept from verification. A miracle does not excite confidence, but rather suspicion, which needed the arm of the papal authority to vindicate it.

The conclusion to which we have come is perhaps a melancholy, but not the less an inevitable one, viz., that the miracle of the Stigmata is to be traced to the unscrupulous invention of St. Francis' successor. It is a painful illustration of the sad change apt to pass over every spiritual history. The living earnest thought of one age becomes the mere materialized symbol of another. The noble Truth is drained through corrupting soil into the mean falsehood. The pure aspiration of St. Francis, to be in all things like unto his Lord, became to Elias the likeness of nails upon his hands and feet, and a fleshly wound in his side. It is the same melancholy lesson which all Christian history teaches, that man cannot long hold the spiritual before him, without some adjunct of the material which debases while it condenses his higher thoughts. Constantly we see the process of degradation going on; but happily also a process of revival and reconstruction. It is man's mishap to be ever deteriorating the living waters; but it is the glory of God to be ever freshening them by renewed contact with human spirits, and by a fuller effluence from the Fountain of Life.

J. TULLOCH.

THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH.

In this article I shall not attempt to give a istory of the Atlantic Telegraph. The graphic and eloquent narrative published in the newspapers from the diaries of Dr. Russell and Mr. Deane; separate works by Dr. Henry Field, Dr.

"Plurimi devotione accensi partieulas pannorum incidebant, alii rumpebant, alii pilos capitis incidebant et ungues; quædam aures illius truncabat, etiam summitatem mamillarum ejus quidam præcidebant et pro reliquis sibi servabant. Lib. de Dict. quatuor Cancell." -Mencken, tom. ii, p. 2032

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Russell, and Mr. Bacon; and the article in the North British Review for October, 1858, by Sir David Brewster, contain valuable materials from which a connected history of the undertaking, from its commencement, could be written. I confine myself to giving explanations regarding some of the most interesting electrical circumstances connected with the working of the Atlantic Telegraph. The limits of the present communication prevent me from saying anything on the electric conditions which the cable must fulfil to work well, or on the

electric tests applied during the manufacture and submergence, in order that these conditions may be found fulfilled when the cable is laid; or on the mechanical appliances used for laying and lifting Atlantic Cables. The reader who desires to have practical information on these more technical matters, may consult, with advantage, an excellent article which has just appeared (Dec. 1866) in the North British Review.

In every kind of electric telegraph, long or short, aërial or submarine, a signal is sent from either end by causing electricity to flow through an insulated metal wire, and to produce a material effect at the other end, perceptible by an intelligible being stationed there to receive the communications. This effect may be direct upon the nerves of the receiver, and perceived by his electric sense.

Metaphysicians and physiologists have long agreed to add one to the popular number of five senses, and they give us a sense of heat, besides a sense of resistance, both included in what is commonly called the sense of touch. But they give no name to the sensation produced in the human body by an electric current.

sensibility the tongue far surpasses any receiving instrument in use in our inland telegraphic service. Thus I have ascertained that signals made precisely as described are perceptible through a length of wire resisting the electric current as much as does the whole of one of our Atlantic Cables; and by the kind permission of Mr. Tansley, superintendent of the British and Irish Magnetic Telegraph in Glasgow, I have tasted signals from Newcastle, Belfast, Greenock, and other distant places, when the currents conveying them were too feeble to move perceptibly the ordinary working instruments of the station. In these latter trials the ordinary telegraphic arrangement described below was used, with only the modification of substituting the tongue with two halfcrowns on it, for the receiving instrument in the circuit between "line" and "earth."

The reader need scarcely be told that no ordinary telegraphic work is conducted on the plan suggested above. The physiological result seems to have been first described by Sülzer, a German professor of mathematics, writing towards the end of last century on "a general theory of the fine arts;" and Any of our readers who please, may, with the to have been first distinctly proved to depend on simplest of instrumental appliances, make an electric electric currents, by Galvani and Volta. The telegraph, by which one may speak by his hands, to tongue, with the two dissimilar metals touching it, another who will receive the message on his tongue constitutes what we now call a voltaic or galvanic in the most distant room of a large house. Let two element; and, except in the character of the effect metal wires, of any convenient thickness, be laid from used by the receiver, and in some other details which one station to the other, and care taken that the I will explain presently, the system agrees perfectly wires do not touch one another, or any other metal with that of many of our city district telegraphs in or moist body, by which the communication between this country, and of some longer lines in America them could be affected. Let a half-crown, and a in which the battery is used at only one of the similar piece of zinc be soldered to the ends of the intercommunicating stations, and the "Morse telegraph wires at the receiving station. Let the alphabet" adopted. The electric action concerned receiver then place the two metal discs side by is explained thus by Volta, Davy, and Faraday. side on his tongue, without touching one another. Water is chemically composed of oxygen and hydroThe sender, in another room, holds his two ends of gen; that is, as presumed, it consists of groups of the wires in his hands, and alternately presses small highly condensed portions of these substances them into contact and separates them. If he held together by strong mutual attractions. When wishes to send the letter A, he makes contact for a two metals, such as zinc and silver, are immersed short time, and immediately afterwards he makes a in it, or laid on a moist porous* body like the tongue, second contact of twice or thrice as long duration; and connected with one another by a metal wire, the for the letter B he will make a long contact and water becomes decomposed by a superior attraction three short contacts in rapid succession; the letter of electric origin which the zinc plate in these circ, a long, a short, a long, a short; D, a long and cumstances exerts upon the oxygen, tearing it from two shorts; E, a single short contact; and so on. union with the hydrogen. Portions of the hydrogen, Every time a contact is made by the sender, the equivalent to those immediately left free by the receiver perceives a remarkable sensation, especially particles of oxygen taken off by the zinc, appear in on that part of the tongue which is touched by the bubbles of gas rising at the silver plate. The two zinc plate, as if the previously tasteless metal were constituents of water are, during their union, in suddenly converted into caustic. By this sensation opposite electric conditions, the hydrogen "positive, he learns what letters are sent through the wires, and the oxygen "negative;" and when they are and with a little practice he ean easily read long separated the hydrogen carries its positive elecmessages. An unskilled tongue, however, speedily tricity, and the oxygen its negative electricity, with becomes confused by the rapid succession of these it. variations of taste, and can only receive messages of any considerable length at a very slow rate. What degree of skill might be attained by continued practice it is impossible to discover without actual trial. But I have ascertained that in point of

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This causes a flow of the so-called positive

* The reader need scarcely be told that skin, muscle, blood-vessels, and nerves, in the living body, are all porous solids of dead vegetable or animal substance, when and thoroughly percolated by watery fluid. In general, thoroughly dried, become non-conductors of electricity.

electricity from the liquid out by the silver plate, and through the metal wire to the zinc plate, where it meets and neutralises the negative electricity continually brought there by the oxygen which combines with the zinc. It may be regarded as probable that there is a real electric fluid, and that this fluid really flows through the wire; but in the present state of electric science we cannot tell, or even conjecture on any ground of probability, whether the true positive electricity is that which is commonly so called, or whether it may not be, on the contrary, that which is carried by the oxygen to the zinc. But, having given this warning, I shall adhere to ordinary usage, and speak of the electric current as circulating in the direction-water, -silver, -connecting metal wire,-zinc,-water. Other metals may be substituted for those mentioned. Thus platinum or gold may be substituted for the silver with advantage; and copper, though not so good, has often been used on account of its cheapness. But for the positive plate no other metal has been found in any respect to answer, practically, so well as zinc.

A great improvement was, however, effected by the late Professor Daniell, which consists in using two liquids separated from one another by a moist porous partition, in one of which the zinc plate is immersed, and in the other the negative plate, which in his arrangement is always of copper. The liquid next the zinc was the same as that used in previous batteries, that is, generally, either plain water or water acidulated with sulphuric acid; on the other hand the copper plate was immersed in a solution of sulphate of copper (blue vitriol) kept always saturated (that is as strong as possible) by a properly placed tray or shelf immersed in the liquid, carrying crystals of sulphate of copper. In this battery, as long as it is in action, metallic copper is always being deposited ("electrotyped ") on the copper plate by decomposition of the sulphate of copper. No hydrogen is evolved, as the deposition of the metallic copper takes place instead, in the system of chemical actious and re-actions concerned; and thus the very troublesome variations of power, experienced in the simple voltaic element, are done away with. A simplified form of Daniell's battery, which was introduced in 1858, especially for sea service, in connection with the Atlantic Cable of that year, and which has since come into very general use in telegraph testing, is represented in the accompanying sketch. In it sawdust takes the place of the porous partition, by which the solution of sulphate of copper is kept away from the zinc plate. The sawdust also affords a support on which the latter rests, and, by preventing the liquid from splashing or spilling, it renders the battery very portable, and very convenient for use at sea. A common glass tumbler with crystals of sulphate of copper, and a round copper plate, laid in its bottom, and filled over that with sawdust pressed down on the top with a zinc weight, lastly filled up with plain water, makes a very effective galvanic element of this kind.

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the amount of the signals by which the messages are usually read. Any number of these "sawdust Daniells," as they have been called, may be connected together, as shown in the diagram, after the manner of Volta's "crown of cups," when it is desired to multiply the power derivable from any one of them alone. Thus, if four be used to send signals to the tongue through two pieces of silver or gold lying on it, a sensation in the eyes as of a flash of light is perceived at the instant the circuit is completed, and as long as the current flows a strong acrid taste is felt on the tongue. Again, a flash of light is perceived in the eyes at the instant the circuit is broken. A larger area of zinc and copper renders the supply of electricity more abundant, by affording a freer passage for the electricity through the cell itself, and so diminishing the resistance to the circulation of the current. Twenty cells arranged precisely as described below, and illustrated by a series of four only in the sketch, but with quart jars of gutta-percha instead of ordinary glass tumblers, constitute the battery by which telegraphic communication between Europe and America has been carried on in the year 1866. Before describing the arrangements which have been used, I must say a few words on the great electro-magnetic discovery made by Oersted, the Danish naturalist and philosopher, on which is founded the receiving instrument of every electric telegraph ever successfully worked in practice.

To discover the relation between electricity and magnetism, was an object kept in view by many of the most profound naturalists of last century: and their efforts for its attainment were stimulated by prizes and rewards offered by scientific academies. Oersted, after having tried for it many years, happily succeeded in obtaining the long-desired result in the year 1819. He found that a magnetic needle balanced on its centre of gravity, in the neighbourhood of a wire through which an electric current is

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