He once induced a flock of sheep to enter the
chapel, and while he recited to them the litany, it was observed with
amazement that "they responded at the proper place to his verses - he
saying Sancta Maria, and they answering, after their manner, Bah!"
I am not disguising from myself that an incident like the last-named may
smack of childishness to a certain austere type of northern Puritan.
Childishness! But to go into this question of the relative hilarity and
moroseness of religions would take us far afield; for aught I know it
may, at bottom, be a matter of climatic influences, and there we can
leave it. Under the sunny sky of Italy, who would not be disposed to see
the bright side of things?
Saint Joseph of Copertino performed a variety of other miracles. He
multiplied bread and wine, calmed a tempest, drove out devils, caused
the lame to walk and the blind to see - all of which are duly attested by
eye-witnesses on oath. Though "illiterate," he had an innate knowledge
of ecclesiastical dogma; he detected persons of impure life by their
smell, and sinners were revealed to his eyes with faces of black colour
(the Turks believe that on judgment day the damned will be thus marked);
he enjoyed the company of two guardian angels, which were visible not
only to himself but to other people. And, like all too many saints, he
duly fell into the clutches of the Inquisition, ever on the look-out for
victims pious or otherwise.
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