Madonna of great popularity at Marseilles, which a newspaper of the city professes to have copied, verbatim et literatim, from the original in that church. It comprises

Now it need hardly be said that a single case, well authenticated, of an amputated limb restored would be worth more, as matter of evidence, than hundreds of such instances as these taken together. But this simple, obvious, and convincing kind of miraculous cure is precisely that of which no example is ever offered us. A pregnant truth, if we would but attend to it. But those who disbelieve in existing miraculous agencies do not require it. Those who do, are long past caring for it. A remark which, we fear, is of equal force as regards the facts and speculations which we wish in this article to communicate, concerning one of the most popular and high class 'devotions' of the present day-that which inspired the recent pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial.

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Everyone remembers the interest which this curious manifestation of medieval tendencies in an age like ours excited only a few months ago. The railway carriages which conveyed the pilgrims were thronged with three very different classes of votaries with the really devout, who had addicted themselves in earnest to that 'culte' of the Sacred Heart of Jesus which has acquired such predominance during the present century, and of which the original well-spring oozed gradually from the soil at Paray-le-Monial, like the sacred fountain of Lourdes; with the curious, busy, half-serious mob who followed the fashion from mere love of excitement, and in order to say that they were there;' and lastly, with political zealots, or schemers, who were anxious to make political capital of the occurrence. The little town of Paray-le-Monial—said. traditionally, to have lost all its commerce and industry by the expulsion of its Protestants after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and to have taken monasticism in exchangetowards which their course was directed, is placed amidst local associations well calculated to stimulate both the political and the spiritual fervour of the disciples. The seignorial castles of the Bourbonnais-the cradles of the house which still affects to rule France by divine right-flank it on the one side. On the other, just over the bleak ridges of the Charolais, lies Cluny, the ancient metropolis of the Benedictines, in its secluded valley. Within an easy distance is Lyons,

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the modern head-quarters and workshop of French Catholic devotion. And it does so happen-though we mention this only in passing, as our concern is not with politics-that the worship of the Sacred Heart, whatever it may have been besides, has been from the outset associated with high-flown legitimist notions in Church and State. It was started in the seventeenth century by the Jesuits and their courtly supporters; treated with suspicion or aversion by the Opposition in general; by Jansenists, Parliaments, and Bishops of the oldfashioned Gallican type. When the Revolution approached, the Sacred Heart' became a rallying signal of Royalism. The brave Vendeans marched against the Republican cannon under its insignia. When their leader Charette was taken and carried to trial, he 6 wore a heart of Jesus em'broidered on his dress.' The Restoration made of it a political emblem more than ever. There is a story in M. Lemontey's history of the Regency (a work to which we shall have to direct more particular attention presently) which we can only present subject to the obscurity in which that author himself leaves it. The Jesuitical party, he says, fabricated and 'made public, through the most popular newspapers, pretended writings of Louis XVI., in which he protested against different acts of his reign, and proceeded to devote himself 'and his kingdom to the Sacred Heart.' The following is part of a declaration thus attributed to Louis XVI., but so evidently a gross invention that it is difficult to conceive what purpose could have been served by promulgating it:

1. I solemnly promise to take, within the interval of a year, counting from the day of my deliverance, both with the Pope and with the bishops of my kingdom, all measures necessary for establishing, with due observation of canonical forms, a solemn feast in honour of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; which shall be celebrated for ever throughout the whole of France, the first Friday after the octave of the Holy Sacrament, and always followed by a general procession, in reparation of the outrages and profanations committed in our holy temples during the recent troubles by schismatics, heretics, and bad Christians.

2. To go in person, within three months, counted from the day of my deliverance, to the church of Notre Dame at Paris, or any other principal church of the place where I may happen to be; and to pronounce there, on a Sunday or feast day, at the foot of the high altar, after the offering of the Mass, and between the hands of the celebrant, a solemn act of consecration of my person, my family, and my kingdom, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus; with the promise to give to all my subjects an example of the worship (culte) and devotion which are due to that adorable Heart.' (Lemontey, Euvres, vii. 446.)

Our present concern, however, with the Devotion of the Sacred Heart does not relate, as we have said, to its political significance, whatever that may be. We must deal with another, and to millions of devout believers a more important feature of the subject. We pursue our quotations from M. Lemontey, premising, in justice, that he writes as an unbeliever and an enemy. M. de Belsunce, of whom he speaks, is the famous Bishop of Marseilles, renowned for his self-devotion at the time of the Great Plague of that city, the last notorious visitation of that disease in Western Europe, but not less distinguished (according to Saint-Simon and others of the anti-Jesuit party) for his credulity and fanaticism than for his Christian courage. He was the first ecclesiastic of rank who patronised, in a public manner, the revelations of Margaret Marie Alacoque.

'In order to appreciate the motives which engaged M. de Belsunce to consecrate his diocese to the Heart of Jesus, it is necessary to know the origin of this mystical devotion, of which some of the details are not wanting in singularity. The first person who conceived the idea of rendering worship to that part of the human body in which the Word became incarnate, was an Armenian sectary, the famous Godwin, chaplain and confidential agent of Cromwell, and President of Magdalen College at Oxford. Some of the fanatics with whom England then abounded mingled this novelty with their other superstitions. It is known that the Stuarts brought back with them an escort of Jesuits, whose evil counsels were the principal cause of their ruin. Among these monks was a certain Father La Colombière, confessor of the Duchess of York, and as great an intriguer as that celebrated Queen of St. Germain's. He heard the invention of Godwin spoken of, and saw at a glance the use which might be made of this coarse image (grossière) fit to captivate the senses of the multitude. He determined to introduce it into France, where he made frequent journeys for the interests of his Society. The Jesuits, accustomed to make themselves popular all over the world by borrowing rites from any quarter, set themselves to propagate this novelty, in spite of its heterodox origin.' (Lemontey, Euvres, vol. vii. p. 443.)

According to the testimony of English writers,' adds M. Lemontey, this figurative worship originated in the brutal 'superstition of some partisans of the regicide Cromwell; and I am not surprised at it.'

We have sought in vain, for our own part, for the English 'writers' to whom M. Lemontey avows himself indebted for this suggestion. But we find that a German man of lettersTheodore Wenzelburger, in a paper contributed to the periodical Unsere Zeit of the 15th November last, on the subject of the Sacred Heart,' has the following notice of

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the claims of the divine whom he like Lemontey-calls 'Godwin.'

'Godwin himself wrote an essay on the subject, which seems to have attracted some attention, since soon after its appearance it was translated into German at Heidelberg. The mysticism of Godwin had no further consequences for Protestantism; for since, in his conception, the Heart of Jesus had much more of symbolical than of realistic meaning, no further consequences could be deduced from it. But the thought of Godwin was destined to reappear in another place, in a far more realistic and more comprehensible fashion.'

These are very imperfect indications, but they may be pursued much further. The comparison between Puritan and Jesuit mysticism, to which our attention is thus directed, is extremely curious, and, as will be seen, suggestive, to say the least, of a strange connexion between the extravagances of opposite creeds, and of a very heterodox' origin (to use M. Lemontey's own words) for the most fashionable devotion of modern Romanism. Into this intricate question in the history of religious revivals we propose now to institute a somewhat closer inquiry.

For the outlines of the subject with which we have to deal we chiefly rely on the most modern English publication to which it has given rise: the Life of Blessed Margaret Mary, 'with some account of the Devotion of the "Sacred Heart," 'by Father George Tickell.' It is of course a compilation from older authorities. The beatified nun of Paray-le-Monial, 'the depositary of the treasure of the Sacred Heart,' was born in 1647, entered Paray-le-Monial as a daughter of the Visitation of the Holy Mary in 1671, and died there in 1690, after twenty years of a life of extreme mortification and asceticism. During these years, and particularly in the earlier part of them, she received those impressions-supernatural revelations, or visionary delusions, as they are severally judged by friends or enemies-which have rendered her name famous throughout the Catholic world. We refrain from entering into the well-known details respecting them, as this is not necessary for our immediate purpose, and as we might inflict, most unwillingly, unnecessary pain on readers who cannot without sensitiveness witness the handling of such topics by the indifferent or hostile. Suffice it to say that she was favoured by repeated appearances of the Virgin, ordering her

We understand that articles to somewhat similar effect have appeared in a Swiss newspaper, the 'Journal de Genève;' but have not been able to meet with them.

to urge on mankind the special worship of the Sacred Heart of her Son. She died in repute of sanctity. The first 'miracle' wrought through her intercession (the cure of a paralysed inmate of the convent) occurred in 1713. In 1715, the Bishop of Autun, at the solicitations of the Superior of her convent, caused a process of inquiry to be instituted into her life and miraculous exhibitions of power. Owing, how'ever,' (says Father Tickell) to the absorbing character of 'the public events which affected so closely the interests of the 'Church at this time, springing from Jansenism, the false 'philosophy of the period, and the Revolution, the cause remained for some time suspended at the first stage.' We have seen already that this is a somewhat superficial way of putting the case: that, in point of fact, the honours claimed for Margaret Mary became the cause of vehement polemics in the French Church; that they gave origin, as it were, to a separate chapter in the great quarrel of pro-Jesuits and anti-Jesuits. This dispute was terminated, so far as the Catholic community is concerned-as so many other burning' questions have been for the present terminated-by the decision of the present Pope. In 1856 the long-contested beatification' of Sister Margaret Mary took place; and the office and Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, already instituted in some localities, was finally extended to the world by Pius IX. in 1854. Rome has spoken.

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To return now to M. Lemontey's singular statement as to the foreign Puritan element which he alleges to have been imported at the commencement into this great Catholic worship. It will be observed at once, by anyone at all familiar with the subject, that the statement in question is very careless and full of errors. There could not be a greater mistake than to suppose that either 'le fameux Godwin,' or Father de la Colombière, or Marie Alacoque, was the first who invented' the practice of directing thought in prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.' The writings of fathers, and schoolmen, and ecstatic divines are full of allusions, more or less metaphorical, more or less expressive of substantial belief, to this peculiar form of pious meditation as a stimulant to religious fervour. St. Francis de Sales is said to have many passages allusive to it in his manuscript remains. He founded an establishment of Filles du Sacré Cœur de 'Jésus.' One Father Eudes (1643) had already established at Caen a congregation devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary.' In ages long preceding, St. Bernard, or the author of the anonymous work on the Passion' which is attributed to him, had made mention of devotion to the same mystical

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