delusion altogether evaporated, though the sect is by no means powerful
or strong; the first impressions are still retained by her half frantic
and ridiculous devotees, who are only to be met with among the very
lowest and illiterate orders of society.

The farce of the convert of Newhall, near Chelmsford, is of still more
recent date. Here we have a miracle performed by the holy Prince
Hohenlohe, at a distance of at least three hundred miles from the
presence of his patient. Hearing of the wonderful cures performed by
this prince, one of the nuns in the above convent, who had been
afflicted for a considerable length of time with a swelling and
inflammation extending from the ball of the thumb along the fore arm,
and up as high as the armpit, wrote to Prince Hohenlohe--having
previously been attended by the most eminent practitioners in London
without any apparent benefit--to relieve her from her sufferings. This
he willingly undertook to do, but accompanied his consent with an
injunction that she should offer up her prayers on a certain day (May 3,
1824,) held in reverence by the catholics, and at a certain hour,
promising that he would be at his devotions at the same time. All this,
the afflicted nun attended to; immediately after her prayers, she
experienced a tingling sensation along the arm, and from that instant
the cure rapidly advanced until the diseased limb became as sound as the
other.

The days of priestcraft and superstition, it was hoped, had been fast
fleeting away before the luminous rays of science, even in those
countries where religious juggling had been most fostered and practised.
But for any man in this country to believe that such a miracle can be
wrought by human agency, is of itself an awfully convincing proof that
he is ignorant of the Scriptures, and that his own mind is likely to
become a prey to the wildest chimeras. Prince Hohenlohe's notoriety
however as a worker of miracles was not confined to Newhall. His mighty
prowess extended to the emerald isle; and several cures were performed
at as great, or even at a greater distance, than that wrought at
Newhall, and merely at the sound of his orisons. We hear of no miracles
being wrought by, or upon protestants; consequently we leave them to the
gloom of the cloister, whence they emanated, and where only they can be
of use in a cause which requires the aid of stratagem to support it.

A taste for the marvellous seems to be natural to man in e