eir lives are usually written in one of two ways,
both equally unsuited to popular appreciation. Either they are presented
in a dry, bare, matter-of-fact manner, which requires all the knowledge
and sympathy of the initiated to give it vital meaning; or else they are
surrounded with an appanage of portents, visions, miracles,
legends--spread before the reader without discrimination or
explanation--which confuse the mind and soul, and absolutely repel all
who do not share the faith of the subject and the biographer.

As a matter of fact, no Catholic is obliged to accept these legends and
traditions literally, except in those cases where the authorities of
the Church, after a scrutiny, which is always deliberate and searching,
declare that a miracle was wrought. But every Catholic, by the very
nature of his belief in the actual presence of the Divinity among men,
must acknowledge and maintain that miracles have been wrought by that
supernatural power constantly, ever since apostolic times; that they may
and do occur, through the same power, at any moment to-day; and always
will occur. In the ordinary gossip of the world, men hold to the maxim
that if reports are current, all pointing to one particular fact, there
must be truth in them. "Where there is so much smoke there is sure to be
some fire." We should at least accord the same, if not a greater, degree
of probability and of credence to stories of the saints which have been
carefully, competently examined. "The love of the marvellous," says
Chavin de Malin, in his book on St. Francis, "is but a remnant of our
original greatness. Man was created to contemplate the wonders of the
Divinity; and, until he clearly beholds them, he is borne onward by an
interior desire to love and admire everything which bears the slightest
resemblance to them.... _A person utterly ignorant of the practices of a
spiritual life can no more do justice to the life of a saint, than a
blind man could adjudicate on the merits or demerits of a painting._" He
adds that, with regard to the religious occupations of the Middle Ages,
"the positive bounds of history could not be kept, digressions were made
on all sides, and thus around the true history of saints, like a poetic
wreath, wonder and amazement were both entwined. Christianity has had
its denominated legendary tales, which invariably are based on truth,
and should not be rejected by the historian without serious reflection
and profound study."