Apostolical See, for the canonization of new saints, (1) fresh miracles of a recent date continued to be proved with the highest degree of evidence, as I can testify from having perused on the spot the official printed account of some of them. (2) For the farther satisfaction of your friends, I will inform them that I have had-satisfactory proof, that the astonishing catastrophe of Louis XVI. and his Queen, in being beheaded on a Scaffold, was foretold by a nun of Fougeres, Soeur Nativité, twenty years before it happened; and that the banishment of the French Clergy from their country, long before it happened, was predicted by the holy French pilgrim, Benedict Labre, whose miracles caused the conversion of the late Rev. Mr. Thayer, an American clergyman, who, during his residence at Rome, was an occular witness to several of them. With respect to miraculous cures of a late date, I have the most respectable attestations of several of them, and I am well acquainted with four or five persons who have experienced them. The following facts are respectively attested, by the Rev. Thomas Sadler, of Trafford, near Manchester, and the Rev. J. Crathorne, of Garswood, near Wigan: Joseph Lamb of Eccles, near Manchester, on the 12th of August, 1814, fell from a hayrick, four yards and a half high, by which accident the spine of his back appears to have been broken. Certain it is, that he could neither walk nor stand without crutches, down to the 2nd of October, and that he describes himself as suffering the most exquisite pain in his back. On that day, having prevailed upon his father, who was

(1) Among the late canonizations are those, in 1807 and 1898, of S. F. Caracciolo, founder of the Regular Clerks; of St. Angela de Mercis, foundress of the Ursuline Nuns, of St. Mary of the Incarnation, Mlle. Acarie, &c. One of the latest beatifications is that of B. Alfonso Liguori, Bishop of St. Agata de Goti.

(2) One of these, proved in the process of the last-mentioned Saint, consisted in the cure and restoration of an amputated breast of a woman, who was at the point of death from a cancet.

then a Protestant, to take him in a cart with his wife and two friends, Thomas Cutler and Elizabeth Dooley, to Garswood, near Wigan, where the hand of F. Arrowsmith, one of the Catholic priests who suffered death at Lancaster for the exercise of his religion, in the reign of Charles I., is preserved, and has often caused wonderful cures; he procured himself to be conveyed to the altar rails of the chapel, and there to be signed, on his back, with the sign of the cross, by that hand; when feeling a particular sensation and total change in himself as he expressed it, he exclaimed to his wife-Mary, I can walk! This he did, without any help whatever, walking first into an adjoining room, and thence to the cart which conveyed him home. With his debility, his pains also left him, and his back has continued well ever since. (1) These particulars the above-named persons, all still living, are ready, as they were respectively witnesses of them, to declare upon oath. I have attestations of incurable cancers and other disorders being suddenly remedied by the same instrument of God's bounty; but it would be a tedious work to transcribe them, or the other attestations in my possession, of a similar nature.

Among those of my personal acquaintance who have experienced supernatural cures, I will mention Mary Wood, now living at Taunton Lodge, where several other witnesses of the facts which I am now going to state live with her. On March 15, 1809, Mary Wood, in attempting to open a sash window, pushed her left hand through a pane of glass, which caused a very large and 'deep transverse wound in the inside of the left arm, and divided the muscles and nearly the whole of the tendons that lead to the hand; from which accident, she not only suffered, at times, the most acute pain, but was from the (1) The Rev. Mr. Sadler's letter to me is dated Aug. 6, 1817.

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'period I first saw her (March 15) till some time in July, totally deprived of the use of her hand and arm.' (1) What passed between the latter end of July, when, as the Surgeon elsewhere says, 'he left his patient,' having no hopes of restoring her, till the 6th of August, on the night of which she was perfectly and miraculously cured, I shall copy from a letter to me, dated November 19, 1809, by her amanuensis, Miss Maria Hornyold. The Surgeon gave little or no hopes of her ever again having the use of her hand, I which, together with the arm, seemed withered and somewhat contracted; only saying, in some years nature might give her some little use of 'it, which was considered by her superiors as a mere delusive comfort. Despairing of farther human assistance towards her cure, she determined, with the approbation of her said superiors, to have recourse to God, through the inter'cession of St. Winefred, by a Novena.' (2) Accordingly, on the 6th of August, she put a piece of moss, from the Saint's Well, on her arm, continuing recollected and praying, &c., when, to her great surprise, the next morning she 'found she could dress herself, put her arm be'hind her and to her head, having regained the free use and full strength of it. In short she was perfectly cured!' In this state I myself saw her a few years afterwards, when I examined her hand; and in the same state she still continues, at the above-named place, with many other highly credible vouchers, who are ready respectively to attest these particulars. On the 16th of the month, the Surgeon was sent for, ' and being asked his opinion concerning Mary Wood's arm, he gave no hope of a perfect cure,

(1) This account is copied from a letter to Miss F. T. Bird, dated Sept. 30, 1809, by Mr. Woodford, an eminent Surgeon, of Taunton, who attended Mary Wood.

(2) Certain prayers continued during nine days.

and very little of her ever having even the least use of it; when, she being introduced to him and showing him the arm, which he thoroughly examined and tried, he was so affected at the sight and the recital of the manner of the cure, 'as to shed tears, and exclaim, It is a special inter"position of Divine Providence!'

I shall say little of the miraculous cure of Winefrid White, a young woman of Wolverhampton, on the 28th of June, 1805, at Holy-well, having published a detailed account of it, soon after it happened, which has been re-published in England and in Ireland. (1) Let it suffice to say, 1st, that the disease was one of the most alarming of a topical nature of any that is known, namely, a curvature of the spine, as her Physician and Surgeon ascertained, who treated it accordingly, by making two great issues, one on each side of the spine, of which the marks are still imprinted on the patient's back; 2dly, that, besides the most acute pains throughout the whole nervous system, and particularly in the brain, this disease of the spine produced a hemiplegia, or palsy on one side of the patient, so that when she could feebly crawl, with the help of a crutch under her right arm, she was forced to drag her left leg and arm after her, just as if they constituted no part of her body; 3dly, that her disorder was of long continuance, namely, of three years' standing, though not in the same degree till the latter part of that time, and that it was publicly known to all her neighbours and a great many others; 4thly, that having performed the acts of devotion which she felt herself called to undertake, and having bathed in the fountain, she in one instant of time, on the 28th of June, 1805, found herself freed from all pains and disabilities, so as to be able to walk, run, and jump like any other young

(1) By Grace, Dublin.

person, and to carry a greater weight with the left arm than she could with the right; 5thly, that she has continued in this state these thirteen years, down to the present time; and that all the above-mentioned circumstances have been ascertained by me in the regular examination of the several witnesses of them, in the places of their respective residence, namely, in Staffordshire, Lancashire, and Wales, they being persons of different counties, no less than of different religions and situations in life. The authentic documents of the examination, and of the whole process of the cure, are contained in the work referred to above. Several of the witnesses are still living, as is Winefrid White herself. (1) I am, Dear Sir, &c.

J. M.

LETTER XXIV.

To JAMES BROWN, Esq. &c.

DEAR SIR,

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

I SUBSCRIBE to the objection, which you say has been suggested to you by your learned friend, on the subject of miracles. Namely, I admit that a vast number of incredible and false miracles, as well as other fables, have been forged by some, and believed by other Catholics in every age of the Church, including that of the Apostles. (2) I agree with him and you in rejecting

(1) She has since departed this life, namely, on the 13th of January, 1824, being the 19th year since the cure of her hemiplegia. She died of a consumption.

(2) St. Jerom, in rejecting certain current fables concerning St. Paul and St. Thecla, mentions a Priest who was deposed by St. John the Evangelist, for inventing similar stories. De Scrip. Apost.-Pope Ge