as inhabited by Pontius Pilate. They are said to be the steps
which Jesus ascended and descended when brought into the presence of the
Roman governor. They are held in the greatest veneration at Rome: it is
sacrilegious to walk upon them. The knees of the faithful must alone touch
them in ascending or descending, and that only after the pilgrims have
reverentially kissed them.

Europe still swarms with these religious relics. There is hardly a Roman
Catholic church in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, or Belgium, without one
or more of them. Even the poorly endowed churches of the villages boast
the possession of miraculous thigh-bones of the innumerable saints of the
Romish calendar. Aix-la-Chapelle is proud of the veritable _chasse_, or
thigh-bone of Charlemagne, which cures lameness. Halle has a thigh-bone of
the Virgin Mary; Spain has seven or eight, all said to be undoubted
relics. Brussels at one time preserved, and perhaps does now, the teeth of
St. Gudule. The faithful, who suffered from the toothache, had only to
pray, look at them, and be cured. Some of these holy bones have been
buried in different parts of the Continent. After a certain lapse of time,
water is said to ooze from them, which soon forms a spring, and cures all
the diseases of the faithful.

It is curious to remark the avidity manifested in all ages, and in all
countries, to obtain possession of some relic of any persons who have been
much spoken of, even for their crimes. When William Longbeard, leader of
the populace of London in the reign of Richard I., was hanged at
Smithfield, the utmost eagerness was shewn to obtain a hair from his head,
or a shred from his garments. Women came from Essex, Kent, Suffolk,
Sussex, and all the surrounding counties, to collect the mould at the foot
of his gallows. A hair of his beard was believed to preserve from evil
spirits, and a piece of his clothes from aches and pains.

In more modern days, a similar avidity was shewn to obtain a relic of the
luckless Masaniello, the fisherman of Naples. After he had been raised by
mob favour to a height of power more despotic than monarch ever wielded,
he was shot by the same populace in the streets, as if he had been a mad
dog. His headless trunk was dragged through the mire for several hours,
and cast at night-fall into the city ditch. On the morrow the tide of
popular feeling turned once more in his favour. His corpse was sought,
arrayed in royal robes, and buried mag