maid at St. Wilfrid's
presbytery, in this town, one Alice Holderness. She was a comely
woman and pious; but she fell one day on some steps leading to the
presbytery, hurt one of her legs--broke the knee cap of it, we
believe--and had to be carried straight to bed. Medical aid was
obtained; but the injured knee was obstinate, wouldn't be mended,
and when physic and hope alike had been abandoned, so far as the leg
of Alice was concerned, the Rev. Father Norris, who, in conjunction
with the Rev. Father Weston, was at that time stationed at St.
Wilfrid's, was struck with a somewhat bright thought as to the
potency of St. Walburge's oil. A little of that oil was procured,
and this is what a sister of the injured woman says, in a letter
which we have seen on the subject, viz.:--That Father Norris dipped
a pen into the oil and dropped a morsel of it upon her knee,
whereupon "the bones immediately snapped together and she was
perfectly cured, having no longer the slightest weakness in the
broken limb."

This is a strange tale, which people can either believe or
disbelieve at their own pleasure. All Protestants--ourselves
included--will necessarily be dubious; and if any polemical lecturer
should happen to see the story he will go wild with delight, and
consider that there is material enough in it for at least six good
declamatory and paying discourses. Well, whether correct or false,
the priests at St. Wilfrid's believed in the "miraculous cure," and
decided forthwith to agitate for a church in honour of St. Walburge.
That church is the one we now see on Maudlands--a vast and
magnificent pile, larger in its proportions than any other Preston
place of worship, and with a spire which can only be equalled for
altitude by two others in the whole country. What a potent
architectural charm was secreted in that mystic oil with which
Father Norris touched the knee of Alice! In the "Walpurgis dance of
globule and oblate spheroid," there may be something wonderful, but
through this drop of oil from the Walpurgian shrine an obstreperous
knee snapped up into compact health instantly, and then a large
church, ornamental to Preston and creditable to the entire Catholic
population, arose. There used to be a hospital, dedicated to Mary
Magdalen, either actually upon or very near the site occupied by St.
Walburge's Church; but that building disappeared long ago, and no
one can tell the exact character of it. Prior to, and until the
completio