n hearing of some
of the practices that {149} some are said to give themselves up to. He
does not say even that sorcerers can shut up devils in mirrors,
finger-rings and phials, but uses the hypothetical expression that in
these things, by magic art, evil spirits are to be enclosed. The bull
has no reference at all to the killing of men and women by a magic
word, and where President White found that Pope John declares in this
bull that sorcerers had tried to kill him by piercing a waxen image of
him with needles in the name of the devil, it is impossible to
understand; I should like very much to know what his authority is,
because then it could be refuted in its source. As it is, Dr. White
said it was in the bull, and now every one can see for himself that it
is not.

Let us go a step further and take President White's single sentence,
"One would suppose from the doctor's (Dr. Walsh's) account that this
Pontiff was a kindly and rational scholar seeking to save the people
from the clutch of superstition," and let us illustrate the phrase "a
kindly and rational scholar" by some documents issued by Pope John
XXII. Take for instance the special bull issued by him for the
confirmation of the establishment of chairs in canon and civil law,
and the founding of masterships in medicine and in arts in the
University of Perugia by which he also conveyed the authority to
confer the degrees of doctor and bachelor in all these faculties on
those who were found worthy after careful examinations. In the
preamble of this bull we shall find abundant evidence of Pope John's
kindly and rational scholarship, of his eminent desire to encourage
education in all its forms, literary and scientific, and to make the
people of his time understand how valuable he considered education,
not only for the sake of the {150} individuals who might acquire it,
but also for the Church and for the cause of religion.

This bull was issued Feb. 18, 1321:

"While with deep feelings of solicitous consideration we mentally
resolve how precious the gift of science is and how desirable and
glorious is its possession, since through it the darkness of
ignorance is put to flight and the clouds of error completely done
away with so that the trained intelligence of students disposes and
orders their acts and modes of life in the light of truth, we are
moved by a very great desire that the study of letters in which the
priceless pearl of knowledge is