able of walking.
Offended by this, Rodaja exclaimed, "Let none forget the words of Holy
Scripture, '_Nolite tangere Christos meos_;' and, becoming still more
heated, he bade those around him reflect a little, when they would see,
that of the many saints canonised, and placed among the number of the
blessed by the Church within a few years in those parts, none had been
called the Captain Don Such a one, or the Lawyer Don So and So, or the
Count Marquis, or Duke of Such a Place; but all were brother Diego,
brother Jacinto, or brother Raimundo: all monks and friars, proceeding,
that is to say, from the monastic orders." "These," he added, "are the
orange-trees of heaven, whose fruits are placed on the table of God." Of
evil-speakers Rodaja said, that they were like the feathers of the eagle
which gnaw, wear away, and reduce to nothing, whatever feathers of
other birds are mingled with them in beds or cushions, how good soever
those feathers may be.

Concerning the keepers of gaming-houses he uttered wonders, and many
more than can here be repeated--commending highly the patience of a
certain gamester, who would remain all night playing and losing; yea,
though of choleric disposition by nature, he would never open his mouth
to complain, although he was suffering the martyrdom of Barabbas,
provided only his adversary did not cut the cards. At a word, Rodaja
uttered so many sage remarks, that, had it not been for the cries he
sent forth when any one approached near enough to touch him, for his
peculiar dress, slight food, strange manner of eating, and sleeping in
the air, or buried in straw, as we have related, no one could have
supposed but that he was one of the most acute persons in the world.

He remained more than two years in this condition; but, at the end of
that time, a monk of the order of St. Jerome, who had extraordinary
powers in the cure of lunacy, nay, who even made deaf and dumb people
hear and speak in a certain manner; this monk, I say, undertook the care
and cure of Rodaja, being moved thereto by the charity of his
disposition. Nor was it long before the lunatic was restored to his
original state of judgment and understanding. When the cure was
effected, the monk presented his patient with his previous dress of a
doctor of laws, exhorting him to return to his earlier mode of life, and
assuring him that he might now render himself as remarkable for the
force of his intellect, as he had before done for his s