rets_ to pass unhurt
these singular trials. Voltaire mentions one for undergoing the ordeal
of boiling water. Our late travellers in the East have confirmed this
statement. The Mevleheh dervises can hold red-hot iron between their
teeth. Such artifices have been often publicly exhibited at Paris and
London. Mr. Sharon Turner observes, on the ordeal of the Anglo-Saxons,
that the hand was not to be immediately inspected, and was left to the
chance of a good constitution to be so far healed during three days (the
time they required to be bound up and sealed, before it was examined) as
to discover those appearances when inspected, which were allowed to be
satisfactory. There was likewise much preparatory training, suggested by
the more experienced; besides, the accused had an opportunity of _going
alone into the church_, and making _terms_ with the _priest_. The few
_spectators_ were always _distant_; and cold iron might be substituted,
and the fire diminished, at the moment.

They possessed secrets and medicaments, to pass through these trials in
perfect security. An anecdote of these times may serve to show their
readiness. A rivalship existed between the Austin-friars and the
Jesuits. The father-general of the Austin-friars was dining with the
Jesuits; and when the table was removed, he entered into a formal
discourse of the superiority of the monastic order, and charged the
Jesuits, in unqualified terms, with assuming the title of "fratres,"
while they held not the three vows, which other monks were obliged to
consider as sacred and binding. The general of the Austin-friars was
very eloquent and very authoritative:--and the superior of the Jesuits
was very unlearned, but not half a fool.

The Jesuit avoided entering the list of controversy with the
Austin-friar, but arrested his triumph by asking him if he would see one
of his friars, who pretended to be nothing more than a Jesuit, and one
of the Austin-friars who religiously performed the aforesaid three vows,
show instantly which of them would be the readier to obey his
superiors? The Austin-friar consented. The Jesuit then turning to one of
his brothers, the holy friar Mark, who was waiting on them, said,
"Brother Mark, our companions are cold. I command you, in virtue of the
holy obedience you have sworn to me, to bring here instantly out of the
kitchen-fire, and in your hands, some burning coals, that they may warm
themselves over your hands." Father Mark instantl