the mass rolled with him into the valley below, which the poor man reached with his clothes torn and his body sadly bruised and lacerated; being unable to extricate himself from the snow, and night having come on, he remained in that forlorn situation till morning. The weather was uncommonly mild for the season, or he must have perished. He spent the whole of two following days in crawling to a deserted hovel, without having any thing to eat. Two of the monks of St. Bernard, on their way to the village about sun set, were warned by the barking of their dog, and descried the man at a distance; they hastened to his succour, they found him at the entrance of the hovel, where he lay as if unable to cross the threshold, and apparently in a dying state from hunger, fatigue, and loss of blood. They raised him on their shoulders and carried him to the village, a distance of five miles through the snow. The man was about the middle size and robust; so that, independantly of his helpless condition, it required a considerable portion of strength, as well as management, to the brothers to reach their destination. At the village of St. Pierre, the poor traveller received every attention and assistance that his situation required.

RELICS.

It was universally believed during the earlier and darker ages of Christianity, that without some sacred relics of the saints and martyrs, &c. no establishment could be expected to thrive; and so provident had the persons been, who laboured in their collection, that there was not a single religious house but could produce one or more of those invaluable remains; though, unless we are to believe that most relics, like the Holy Cross itself, possesssed the power of self-augmentation, we must either admit, that some of our circumspect forefathers were imposed upon, or that St. John the Baptist had more heads than that of which he was so cruelly deprived, as well as several of their favourite Saints having each kindly afforded them two or three skeletons of their precious bodies; circumstances that frequently occurred, because, says Father John Ferand, of Anecy, "God was "pleased so to multiply and re-produce them, "for the devotion of the faithful!"

Of the number of these relics that have been preserved, it is useless to attempt a description, nor, indeed could they be detailed in many volumes: yet it may gratify curiosity to afford a brief account of such as, in addition to the head of St. John the Baptist, were held in the greatest

repute, were it for no other reason than to show how the ignorance and credulity of the commonalty have, in former ages, been imposed upon.

A finger of St. Andrew

A finger of St. John the Baptist;

The thumb of St. Thomas;

A tooth of our Lord:

A rib of our Lord, or, as it is profanely styled, of the Verbum caro factum, the word made flesh;

The hem of our Lord's garment, which cured the diseased woman;

The seamless coat of our Lord:

A tear which our Lord shed over Lazarus ;-it was preserved by an angel, who gave it in a phial to Mary Magdalene;

The rod of Moses, with which he performed his miracles;

The spoon and pap dish of the Holy Child;

A lock of hair of Mary Magdalene;

A piece of the chemise of the Virgin Mary, still

to be seen in the cathedral of Sens;

A hem of Joseph's garment;

A feather of the Holy Ghost;

A finger of the Holy Ghost:
A feather of the angel Gabriel;
A finger of a Cherub;

The water-pots used at the marriage in Galilee; The slippers of the antediluvian Enoch:

The face of a Seraph, with only part of the nose; The snout of a Seraph, thought to have belonged to the preceding:

A coal that broiled St. Lawrence;

The square buckler, lined with 'red velvet,' and the short sword of St. Michael;

A phial of the sweat of St. Michael,' when he contended with Satan;

Some of the rays of the Star that appeared to the Magi;

Two handkerchiefs, on which are impressions of our Saviour's face; the one sent by our Lord himself as a present to Agbarus, Prince of Edessa; the other given at the time of his Crucifixion to a holy woman, named Veronica: With innumerable others, not quite consistent with decency to be here described.

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The miracles wrought by these and other such precious remains, have been enlarged upon by writers, whose testimony, aided by the protecting care of the Inquisition, no one durst openly dispute who was not of the Holy Brotherhood;' although it should appear, by the confessions of some of those respectable persons, that "in"stances have occurred of their failure," but that they always "recovered their virtue, when,"

as Galbert, a monk of Marchiennes, informs us, "they were flogged with rods, &c.!"

SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL.

The annals of the world scarcely furnish an instance of such a benefactor to humanity as St. Vincent de Paul. He was the son of a daylabourer in Gascony; and when about thirty years of age was taken prisoner, and carried to Tunis, where he continued two years a slave. Having escaped into France, he entered into holy orders, and devoted himself to the service of the unhappy persons condemned to the gallies. The reform which he effected, the decent and resigned demeanour which he produced in them, and the alleviation of their sufferings which his charitable exertions in their favour obtained, were truly surprising. On one occasion, a poor young man having for a single act of smuggling, been condemned to the gallies for three years, complained to him in such moving terms of his misfortunes, and of the distress to which it would reduce his wife and infant children, that St. Vincent substituted himself in his place, and worked in the gallies eight months, chained by the leg to the oar. The fact was then discovered and he was ransomed. This circumstance was judicially proved, and he always retained in one of his