hich are
consecrated to it, is a meritorious work, which ensures its protection to
the contributor. By this fiction the people have been made to believe
that every human complaint, every one of the misfortunes that can occur
in life, depends on some particular saint who defends their respective
devotees against it. Saint Ramon favours women in the season of
parturition; Saint Demas preserves travellers on their journeys from
robbers; Saint Apollonius cures the toothache; Saint Lucy heals diseases
of the eyes; Saint Lazarus cures the leprosy; Saint Roque the plague;
Saint Joseph protects carpenters; Saint Casianus and Saint Nicholas
preserve children; Saint Luis Gonzaga, young people; Saint Hermenegild,
soldiers; Saint Thomas Aquinas, students; Saint Gloi, silversmiths; and
Saint Rita, superior to all the celestial court, obtains, by her
mediation, the _realization of impossibilities_! {110}

And yet, after all, the most popular of all the saints which the power of
the Vatican has placed on its altars is Saint Anthony of Padua. The
miracles which he wrought in his life are quite out of the ordinary
course, and some of them appear rather preposterous and ludicrous to the
incredulous. On one occasion, when he was preaching by the sea-shore,
and his audience had gone away, the fishes came out to hear him.
Whenever he was present at a banquet, and a plate or a soup tureen was
accidentally broken, he joined the fragments so completely together that
the piece recovered its former integrity. The superior of his convent
forbade him to perform miracles; but, one day, seeing a man falling from
a high tower, he ordered him to remain suspended in the air until the
superior should give the saint permission to let him fall without injury.
The devotees of Saint Anthony treat him with great familiarity, and even
punish him when he does not satisfy their desires. When they wish to
obtain some favour from his protection,--for example, to draw a prize in
a lottery, to find a lost cow, or to find a husband for a damsel,--they
burn tapers before his image, and adorn it with flowers. If they do not
still obtain his favour, they place the image with its face towards the
wall, in the darkest corner of the house, and even treat it with other
indignities, of which decency forbids the mention.

The solemnity of the day of San Anton Abad, the protector of all horses
and mules, is of a different kind, and is considered as one of the most
noi