es,
and I see that the authorities now ruling the Catholics at Madras are
strong in disparagement of the special sanctity of the localities, and of
the whole story connecting St. Thomas with Mailapur. (_Greg. Turon. Lib.
Mirac._ I. p. 85; _Tr.R.A.S._ I. 761; _Assemani_, III. Pt. II. pp. 32,
450; _Novus Orbis_ (ed. 1555), p. 210; _Maffei_, Bk. VIII.; _Cathay_, pp.
81, 197, 374-377, etc.)

The account of the Saint's death was no doubt that current among the
native Christians, for it is told in much the same way by Marignolli and
by Barbosa, and was related also in the same manner by one Diogo
Fernandes, who gave evidence before the commission of Duarte Menezes, and
who claimed to have been the first Portuguese visitor of the site. (See
_De Couto_, Dec. V. Liv. vi. cap. 2, and Dec. VII. Liv. x. cap. 5.)

[Illustration: St. Thomas Localities at Madras.]

As Diogo de Couto relates the story of the localities, in the shape which
it had taken by the middle of the 16th century, both Little and Great
Mounts were the sites of Oratories which the Apostle had frequented;
during prayer on the Little Mount he was attacked and wounded, but fled to
the Great Mount, where he expired. In repairing a hermitage which here
existed, in 1547, the workmen came upon a stone slab with a cross and
inscription carved upon it. The story speedily developed itself that this
was the cross which had been embraced by the dying Apostle, and its
miraculous virtues soon obtained great fame. It was eventually set up over
an altar in the Church of the Madonna, which was afterwards erected on the
Great Mount, and there it still exists. A Brahman impostor professed to
give an interpretation of the inscription as relating to the death of St.
Thomas, etc., and this was long accepted. The cross seemed to have been
long forgotten, when lately Mr. Burnell turned his attention to these and
other like relics in Southern India. He has shown the inscription to be
_Pehlvi_, and probably of the 7th or 8th century. Mr. Fergusson considers
the architectural character to be of the 9th. The interpretations of the
Inscription as yet given are tentative and somewhat discrepant. Thus Mr.
Burnell reads: "In punishment (?) by the cross (was) the suffering to this
(one): (He) who is the true Christ and God above, and Guide for ever
pure." Professor Haug: "Whoever believes in the Messiah, and in God above,
and also in the Holy Ghost, is in the grace of Him who bore the pain of
th