ply
accept them as _facts_, but I could not reject them in their
_nature_;--they _might_ be true, for they were not impossible; but they
were _not proved_ to be true, because there was not trustworthy
testimony. However, as to St. Walburga, I repeat, I made _one_
exception, the fact of the medicinal oil, since for that miracle there
was distinct and successive testimony. And then I went on to give a
chain of witnesses. It was my duty to state what those witnesses said in
their very words; so I gave the testimonies in full, tracing them from
the Saint's death. I said, "She is one of the principal Saints of her
age and country." Then I quoted Basnage, a Protestant, who says, "Six
writers are extant, who have employed themselves in relating the deeds
or miracles of Walburga." Then I said that her "renown was not the mere
natural _growth_ of ages, but begins with the very century of the
Saint's death." Then I observed that only two miracles seem to have been
"distinctly reported of her as occurring in her lifetime; and they were
handed down apparently by tradition." Also, that such miracles are said
to have commenced about A.D. 777. Then I spoke of the medicinal oil as
having testimony to it in 893, in 1306, after 1450, in 1615, and in
1620. Also, I said that Mabillon seems not to have believed some of her
miracles; and that the earliest witness had got into trouble with his
Bishop. And so I left the matter, as a question to be decided by
evidence, not deciding any thing myself.

What was the harm of all this? but my Critic muddled it together in a
most extraordinary manner, and I am far from sure that he knew himself
the definite categorical charge which he intended it to convey against
me. One of his remarks is, "What has become of the holy oil for the last
240 years, Dr. Newman does not say," p. 25. Of course I did not, because
I did not know; I gave the evidence as I found it; he assumes that I had
a point to prove, and then asks why I did not make the evidence larger
than it was.

I can tell him more about it now: the oil still flows; I have had some
of it in my possession; it is medicinal still. This leads to the third
head.

3. Its _miraculousness_. On this point, since I have been in the
Catholic Church, I have found there is a difference of opinion. Some
persons consider that the oil is the natural produce of the rock, and
has ever flowed from it; others, that by a divine gift it flows from the
relics; and othe