y, it can't even work a
miracle."

"Can your church work miracles?" I demanded.

"That was the very question," said the man in black, "which the ancient
British clergy asked of Austin Monk, after they had been fools enough to
acknowledge their own inability. 'We don't pretend to work miracles; do
you?' 'Oh! dear me, yes,' said Austin; 'we find no difficulty in the
matter. We can raise the dead, we can make the blind see; and to
convince you I will give sight to the blind. Here is this blind Saxon,
whom you cannot cure, but on whose eyes I will manifest my power, in
order to show the difference between the true and the false church;' and
forthwith, with the assistance of a handkerchief and a little hot water,
he opened the eyes of the barbarian. So we manage matters! A pretty
church, that old British church, which could not work miracles--quite as
helpless as the modern one. The fools! was birdlime so scarce a thing
amongst them?--and were the properties of warm water so unknown to them,
that they could not close a pair of eyes and open them?"

"It's a pity," said I, "that the British clergy, at that interview with
Austin, did not bring forward a blind Welshman, and ask the monk to
operate upon him."

"Clearly," said the man in black; "that's what they ought to have done;
but they were fools without a single resource." Here he took a sip at
his glass.

"But they did not believe in the miracle?" said I.

"And what did their not believing avail them?" said the man in black.
"Austin remained master of the field, and they went away holding their
heads down, and muttering to themselves. What a fine subject for a
painting would be Austin's opening the eyes of the Saxon barbarian, and
the discomfiture of the British clergy! I wonder it has not been
painted!--he! he!"

"I suppose your church still pet forms miracles occasionally?" said I.

"It does," said the man in black. "The Rev. . . . has lately been
performing miracles in Ireland, destroying devils that had got possession
of people; he has been eminently successful. In two instances he not
only destroyed the devils, but the lives of the people possessed--he! he!
Oh! there is so much energy in our system; we are always at work, whilst
Protestantism is supine."

"You must not imagine," said I, "that all Protestants are supine; some of
them appear to be filled with unbounded zeal. They deal, it is true, not
in lying miracles, but they propagate God's Wo