has been such, that in Spain itself, in the face of that respect there
shown to the things pertaining to religion, there have not been wanting
pious men who have dared to doubt the authenticity of some of those
saints. In a certain city in Andalusia, in which are venerated the bones
of two Christian soldiers who were martyrs, and are the declared patrons
of that city, and as such to be worthy the devotion of the inhabitants,
it has been proved recently, from the examination of certain documents,
that those supposed martyrs were nothing more than two Roman soldiers who
had fallen in an action near the walls of that city.

But the lives of the saints are the great repositories of false miracles.
There is no extravagance which has not been resorted to by the authors of
those biographies. The miracles of their heroes occupy more space than
do their virtues. The Roman Church never canonises any human being, of
whatever eminence his piety may have been, if it is not proved _to its
satisfaction_ that he had the power of altering the laws of nature, and
availed himself of divine omnipotence in order to serve his friends, and
even to satisfy their caprice. For example: one saint has been able to
traverse the seas with no better vessel for his use than his own cloak;
another used to bring down rain from heaven in times of drought; almost
all of them cured the most dangerous maladies by merely their blessing;
and there are but few of them who have not even raised the dead with the
like facility. The famous _beata_ Maria de Agreda has written many
volumes, wherein she records the continuous revelations with which she
was favoured, and her familiar conversations with the Saviour, to whom
she always gives the title of spouse. On one occasion, when sweeping the
cloisters of her convent, she being unable through debility to take up
the dust, the infant Jesus came to perform that office for her. In the
work entitled, "_Conformidad de San Francisco con Dios_," it is said,
among other wonders, that the saint formed a statue of ice and breathed
life into it, in the same way that God did to Adam. That saint had his
hands and feet perforated like those of Jesus Christ on the cross, and
the Roman church consecrates a day in the calendar and a special festival
with its corresponding service to "the wounds or sores of St Francis"
(_Las Llagas de San Francisco_).

But all these extravagances of the imagination are exceeded by the
impiet