dence_ for them. I could not simply accept
them as _facts_, but I could not reject them in their _nature_; they
_might_ be true, for they were not impossible: but they were _not
proved_ to be true, because there was not trustworthy testimony.
However, as to St. Walburga, I made _one_ exception, the fact of the
medicinal oil, since for that miracle there was distinct and
successive testimony. And then I went on to give a chain of
witnesses. It was my duty to state what those witnesses said in their
very words; and I did so; they were in Latin, and I gave them in
Latin. One of them speaks of the "sacrum oleum" flowing "de membris
ejus virgineis, maxime tamen pectoralibus;" and I so printed it;--if
I had left it out, this sweet-tempered writer would have accused me
of an "economy." I gave the testimonies in full, tracing them from
the saint's death. I said, "She is one of the principal Saints of her
age and country." Then I quoted Basnage, a Protestant, who says, "Six
writers are extant, who have employed themselves in relating the
deeds or miracles of Walburga." Then I said that her "renown was not
the mere natural _growth_ of ages, but begins with the very century
of the Saint's death." Then I observed that only two miracles seem to
have been "distinctly reported of her as occurring in her lifetime;
and they were handed down apparently by tradition." Also, that they
are said to have commenced about A.D. 777. Then I spoke of the
medicinal oil as having testimony to it in 893, in 1306, after 1450,
in 1615, and in 1620. Also, I said that Mabillon seems not to have
believed some of her miracles; and that the earliest witness had got
into trouble with his bishop. And so I left it, as a question to be
decided by evidence, not deciding anything myself.

What was the harm of all this? but my critic has muddled it together
in a most extraordinary manner, and I am far from sure that he knows
himself the definite categorical charge which he intends it to convey
against me. One of his remarks is, "What has become of the holy oil
for the last 240 years, Dr. Newman does not say," p. 25. Of course I
did not, because I did not know; I gave the evidence as I found it;
he assumes that I had a point to prove, and then asks why I did not
make the evidence larger than it was. I put this down as Blot
_twenty-five_.

I can tell him more about it now; the oil still flows; I have had
some of it in my possession; it is medicinal; some think it