previous question: "How do you
know that the Lord saith it?" "How do you know that the Lord doeth
it?" and who is compelled to demand that rational ground for belief,
without which, to the man of science, assent is merely an immoral
pretence.

And it is this rational ground of belief which the writers of the
Gospels, no less than Paul, and Eginhard, and Fox, so little dream of
offering that they would regard the demand for it as a kind of
blasphemy.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] My citations are made from Teulet's _Einhardi omnia
quae extant opera_, Paris, 1840-1843, which contains a
biography of the author, a history of the text, with
translations into French, and many valuable
annotations.

[34] At present included in the Duchies of Hesse-Darmstadt
and Baden.

[35] This took place in the year 826 A.D. The relics were
brought from Rome and deposited in the Church of St.
Medardus at Soissons.

[36] Now included in Western Switzerland.

[37] Probably, according to Teulet, the present
Sandhoferfahrt, a little below the embouchure of the
Neckar.

[38] The present Michilstadt, thirty miles N.E. of
Heidelberg.

[39] In the Middle Ages one of the most favourite
accusations against witches was that they committed
just these enormities.

[40] It is pretty clear that Eginhard had his doubts about
the deacon, whose pledges he qualifies as _sponsiones
incertae_. But, to be sure, he wrote after events which
fully justified scepticism.

[41] The words are _scrinia sine clave_, which seems to mean
"having no key." But the circumstances forbid the idea
of breaking open.

[42] Eginhard speaks with lofty contempt of the "vana ac
superstitiosa praesumptio" of the poor woman's
companions in trying to alleviate her sufferings with
"herbs and frivolous incantations." Vain enough, no
doubt, but the "mulierculae" might have returned the
epithet "superstitious" with interest.

[43] Of course there is nothing new in this argument: but it
does not grow weaker by age. And the case of Eginhard
is far more instructive than that of Augustine, because
the former has so very frankly, though incidentally,
revealed to us not only his