But the Roman Catholic clergy have had another motive for promoting a belief in such things, viz., the immense wealth which they draw from them in the name of oblations, alms, and legacies. To contribute money to the adornment of a saint, and to the celebration of rites which 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.