eir faith is an active working
principle, fashioning all their actions, and mingling with all their
thoughts. Their superstitions, like all simple-minded and secluded
people's, are many; their ignorance is not to be denied; mayhap the
Church has fostered the one, and done little to enlighten the other:
still, if Romanism had no heavier sin to account for, no darker score to
clear up, than her dealings in these mountains, there would be much to
forgive in a creed that has conferred so many good gifts, and sowed the
seeds of so few bad ones.

These pious emblems find their way, too, into places where one would
scarce look for them--over the doors of village inns, and as signs to
little wine and beer-houses: and frequently the Holy personages are
associated with secular usages, strangely at variance with the saintly
character. Thus I have seen, in the village beside me, a venerable St.
Martin engaged in the extraordinary operation of shoeing a horse;
though what veterinary tastes the saint ever evinced, or why he is so
represented, I can find no one to inform me. On the summit of steep
passes, where it is usual, by a police regulation, to prescribe the
use of a drag to all wheel carriages, the board which sets forth the
direction is commonly ornamented by a St. Michael, very busily applying
the drag to a heavy waggon, while the driver thereof is on his knees
hard by, worshipping the saint, in evident delight at his dexterity. In
the same way many venerable and holy men are to be seen presiding over
savoury hams and goblets of foaming beer, and beaming with angelic
beatitude at a party of hard-drinking villagers in the distance. Our
present business is, however, less with the practice in general, than
a particular instance, which is to be met with in the Bavarian Tyrol,
mid-way between the villages of Murnou and Steingaden, where over the
door of a solitary little way-side inn hangs a representation of the
Virgin, with a starling perched upon her wrist. One has only to remark
the expression of unnatural intelligence in the bird's look, to be
certain that it was not a mere fancy of the artist to have placed
her thus, but that some event of village tradition, or history, is
interwoven with her presence.

The motto contributes nothing to the explanation. It is merely a line
from the Church Litany, "Maria, Mutter Grottes, huelf uns,--Mary, Mother
of God, help us!"

There is then a story connected with the painting, and we sh