time to examine what it really is,
and we are thus deceived for want of warning; but when we are warned, we
begin to think, and become quite astonished at our believing so easily
such an improbability. This is precisely what has taken place with the
subject in question. People were told, "This is the body of such a saint;
these are his shoes, those are his stockings;" and they believed it to be
so, for want of timely caution. But when I shall have clearly proved the
fraud which has been committed, all those who have sense and reason will
open their eyes and begin to reflect upon what has never before entered
their thoughts. The limits of my little volume forbid me from entering but
upon a small part of what I would wish to perform, for it would be
necessary to ascertain the relics possessed by every place in order to
compare them with each other. It would then be seen that every apostle had
more than four bodies,(128) and each saint at least two or three, and so
on. In short, if all the relics were collected into one heap, the only
astonishment would be that such a silly and clumsy imposition could have
blinded the whole earth.

As every, even the smallest Catholic church has a heap of bones and other
small rubbish, what would it be if all those things which are contained in
two or three thousand bishoprics, twenty or thirty thousand abbeys, more
than forty thousand convents, and so many parish churches and chapels,
were collected into one mass?(129) The best thing would be not merely to
name, but to visit them.

In this town (Geneva) there was formerly, it is said, an arm of St
Anthony; it was kissed and worshipped as long as it remained in its
shrine; but when it was turned out and examined, it was found to be the
bone of a stag. There was on the high altar the brain of St Peter; so long
as it rested in its shrine, nobody ever doubted its genuineness, for it
would have been blasphemy to do so; but when it was subjected to a close
inspection, it proved to be a piece of pumice-stone. I could quote many
instances of this kind; but these will be sufficient to give an idea of
the quantity of precious rubbish there would have been found if a thorough
and universal investigation of all the relics of Europe had ever taken
place. Many of those who look at relics close their eyes from
superstition, so that in regarding these they _see_ nothing; that is to
say, they dare not properly gaze at and consider what they properly may