Their conscientiousness in sifting and weighing the
depositions is sufficiently attested by the fact that ninety years were
allowed to elapse ere Joseph of Copertino was solemnly received into the
number of the Blessed. This occurred in 1753; and though the date may
have been accidentally chosen, some people will be inclined to detect
the hand of Providence in the ordering of the event, as a challenge to
Voltaire, who was just then disquieting Europe with certain doctrines of
a pernicious nature.
XI
BY THE INLAND SEA
The railway line to Grottaglie skirts the shore of the inland sea for
two or three miles, and then turns away. Old Taranto glimmers in lordly
fashion across the tranquil waters; a sense of immemorial culture
pervades this region of russet tilth, and olives, and golden corn.
They led me, at Grottaglie, to the only convent of males now in use, San
Francesco, recently acquired by the Jesuits. In the sacristy of its
church, where I was told to wait, a slender young priest was praying
rapturously before some image, and the clock that stood at hand recorded
the flight of twenty minutes ere his devotions were ended. Then he arose
slowly and turned upon me a pair of lustrous, dreamy eyes, as though
awakened from another world.
