328 Correspondence. LORD SHREWSBURY'S MIRACULOUS VIRGINS. To the Editor of the Churchman. SIR,-Having lately read Lord Shrewsbury's account of the Miraculous Virgins of the Tyrol, I could not but lament the sad abandonment of common sense his lordship displays. That a man so respectable and respected, should lend himself, on such slight grounds, to revive the impieties of the dark ages, is only to be accounted for by the fact, that the Roman Catholics, as a body, are but partially emerged from the darkness and thraldom of those times. Can Lord Shrewsbury be ignorant of the many pretenders to these stigmata? or that, in most of them, the imposture has been discovered? There is a book which is, or ought to be, in everybody's hands-D'Aubigne's "History of the Reformation." În p. 358-360, is the following anecdote : "The Dominicans and Franciscans had a strong feud respecting the immaculate conception. John Jetzer entered the Dominican convent, at Berne, as a lay brother. On the night of the festival of St. Matthias, a tall phantom, clothed in white, stood by his bedside: I am a soul from the fires of purgatory?' said a sepulchral voice. The lay brother answered-May God deliver you; I can do nothing.' On this the spirit drew nigh, and, seizing him by the throat, reprobated him with his refusal. The terrified Jetzer cried aloud, 'What can I do for your deliverance?' You must scourge yourself to blood during eight days, and be prostrate on the earth in the chapel of St. John.' This said, the apparition vanished. Jetzer related what had happened to his confessor, the convent preacher, and, by his advice, submitted to the discipline enjoined him. It was soon reported throughout the town, that a departed soul had applied to the Dominicans for its deliverance out of purgatory. The multitude deserted the Franciscans, and every one hastened to the Church where the holy man was seen stretched prostrate on the earth. The soul of the sufferer had announced that it would return in eight days. On the appointed night it reappeared, accompanied by two spirits tormenting it and howling fearfully Scot (said the voice)! Scot, the forger of the Franciscans' doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, is among those who suffer with me these horrible torments.' At this report, which soon circulated in Berne, the partisans of the Franciscans were still more appalled. But the soul had announced that the Virgin herself would make her appearance. Accordingly, on the day named the astonished brother beheld Mary appear in his cell; he could not believe his eyes. She approached him kindly, delivered to him three tears of Jesus, three drops of his blood, a crucifix, and a letter addressed to Pope Julius II. He is (said she) the man whom God hath chosen to abolish the festival of the Immaculate Conception.' Then coming close to the bed in which Jetzer lay, she announced in a solemn tone that a distinguished grace was about to be conferred upon him, and he felt his hand pierced with a nail; but Mary wrapped round the wound a linen cloth, worn, she said, by her son during his flight into Egypt. But this was not enough: that the glory of the Dominicans might equal that of the Franciscans, Jetzer was to have the five wounds of Christ and of St. Francis in his hands, feet, and side. The other four were inflicted: a sleeping potion was administered and he was placed in an apartment hung with tapestry representing the events of the passion. Here he passed days-his imagination becoming inflamed. Then the doors were thrown open to the public, who came in crowds to see the brother with the five wounds, extending his arms, with his head reclined, and imitating in his posture the crucifixion of our Lord; at intervals, losing his consciousness, he foamed at the mouth, and seemed to give up the ghost. 'He is suffering the cross of Christ,' whispered those who stood round him. Multitudes incessantly thronged the convent, and the Dominicans, from their pulpits, loudly extolled the glory with which God had covered their order." Here was abundant matter for a dozen letters such as that of my Lord Shrewsbury; and we can imagine some good "Catholic" writing to the Ambrose Philips of his day, with all the unction of his lordship, a second, or even third, edition of such wonders. But mark the sequel. "Jetzer, favoured with another vision of the Virgin, thought he recognized the voice of his confessor, and having given utterance to his suspicion Mary vanished! Soon after she again appeared to upbraid him with his incredulity: This time it is the prior,' cried Jetzer, rushing upon him with a knife. The Virgin hurled a pewter plate at his head, and again disappeared." The result of this was, the Dominicans, seeing that Jetzer had discovered the fraud, endeavoured to take him off by poison. They failed; and the four principal actors in the imposture were convicted and burnt on the 1st May, 1509. If you think this worth inserting, I shall not regret the trouble (but little) it has cost me to transcribe. W. E. G. THE RESTORATION OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL. To the Editor of the Churchman. SIR, I was extremely struck the other day by reading in Mr. Faber's work on the prophecies relative to the restoration of Judah and Israel, his expectation, as well as those of Bishop Horsley, drawn from the eighteenth chapter of Isaiah, that at some future time a great Protestant maritime nation would be instrumental in restoring the Jewish nation to their own country, by planting a Hebrew Christian Church on mount Zion. The venerable commentator on the prophecies, however, perhaps scarcely expected that he should actually live to see a very eminent part of his anticipation fulfilled, by the mission not merely of a bishop to represent the Church of England, and to be a rallying point for Protestantism in the east, but a Hebrew prelate, the head and representative of a Hebrew Church in the holy city. The literal fulfilments of so very remarkable an anticipation made thirty-five years ago; for the book now lying before me bears the date of 1808, is sufficient strongly to arrest the attention and interest of every one who reflects upon it, because, although indeed at present on a very small scale, it is the literal realization of an expectation that a Hebrew Christian Church should be planted on mount Zion, chiefly through the agency, and partly by the instrumentality of "the ships!"-of a great maritime Protestant power, which Mr. Faber even goes so far as to conjecture may possibly be England! !* Well may it be said in the report of the Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, that such a consummation as this was far beyond their most sanguine hopes, and almost beyond the contemplation of their prayers; though truly they do well at the same time to rejoice with trembling, when they reflect on the dreadful devastations by which that happy event-the restoration of the Jewish people to their allegiance to Messiah their King, and to the land of their forefathers is to be accompanied-a restoration which St. Paul tells us will be a blessing even as "life from the dead" to the world. It is consoling that in the midst of the many unfavourable and fearful signs of the times, there are some bright spots on which the eye of faith may rest in joyful, though trembling hope; and cordially do I join in saying with Mr. Bickersteth and Mr. Stowell," Blessed be God, a standard is raised on mount Zion, and the miracle of the age is, that God has brought a converted Jew to preside over the see of Jerusalem." The excellent Bishop Van Mildert in his Boyle's Lecture xii., p. 456, edit. fourth, says, that "nothing is more certain than that the Scriptures clearly foretell the conversion and restoration of the Jews;" and whoever will peruse all that Mr. Faber and Bishop Horsley have said on the subject, will be the more confirmed in that persuasion, and my belief is that it will exhibit such a stupendous attestation to the truth of prophecy, that it will rouse the attention of the whole world, and * It would detract very little from the wonder of the matter even if the Jerusalem establishment were now to be broken up and destroyed. Indeed Mr. Faber, speaking of the fearful devastations to be expected in the latter times, intimates the probability of some such event. The extraordinary fact that a great maritime Protestant power assisted by a smaller Protestant power (a circumstance also mentioned as likely in Mr. Faber's book) has seriously attempted to set up a Hebrew Church on mount Zion, remains unaffected thereby; and it forms an earnest in my mind, that even if destroyed now, it will be revived again and successfully established at some future, though, perhaps, remote period. Mr. Faber most emphatically dwells on those devastations and dreadful political convulsions; and are there not premonitory signs of such things? Is there not everywhere an uneasy feeling, a sort of presentiment that, if any serious disturbance should break out in Europe, it is less within human foresight than it ever was before to form any probable conjecture where and how it will end? It is a singular circumstance, that the Devastation should be the name of the vessel which took the Hebrew prelate out. thus be the instrument of bringing all nations to the Christian faith, and so the receiving of them (the Jews) will be to those who now sit in darkness and the shadow of death, "life from the dead' (Rom. xi.) Then will the time come, also, I humbly believe, when mankind by the proper use of all the means provided for, rightly understand the essentials of the Gospel, and with the aid of a larger effusion of the Holy Spirit, of which Mr. Faber speaks in the dedication of the work I have referred to, shall attain to a degree of unanimity in doctrine, and perfection in practice, which, though by no means absolutely perfect, will be far more so than has yet been seen, and will prevail on earth for a thousand years. This I conceive to be as much as can clearly be gathered from the Scriptures respecting the millennium, and, consequently, as much as can be soberly anticipated respecting it. The time when this period of blessedness will come, must, of course, be involved in much uncertainty previous to the event; I cannot, however, concur in Mr. Faber's opinion expressed in the "Sacred Calendar of Prophecy,"* that it will arrive in so brief a period as 1865; I cannot conceive how, except by miracle, so many important events (the destruction of Popery, Mohammedism, and Heathenism everywhere, and the general conversion of the Jews, with the prevalence of pure Christianity throughout the world) can be crowded together in so short a space as twenty-two years from the present time. I am rather inclined to name as the probable period, about the year 2000, and that for the reasons given in a curious work I met with some time ago at the house of a friend, "Fleming's Apocalyptical Key," originally written in the year 1701; for very remarkable indeed is the prediction therein contained, that the French royal house of Bourbon would be humbled in a signal and extraordinary manner in or about the year 1714!+ And now I am on the subject I will transcribe a still more curious document, which I found in MS. at the end of the aforesaid book; for I think it may be of considerable interest to some of your readers. I will transcribe it verbatim : "The following very curious prediction (dates and circumstances duly considered) we copy from the common-place book of a respectable person now at Bath. It appeared in the London General Evening Post, of the year 1775, from a portion of which paper...... "Prediction of St. Cesaire, Bishop of Arle, in the year 542. "This extract is literally taken from a book, entitled "Liber Mirabilis," printed in Gothic characters, and deposited in the Royal Library at Paris. "The administrators of this kingdom (France) shall be so blinded that they shall leave it without defenders; the hand of God shall extend itself over them and over all the rich! read. A most valuable work, however, which I strongly recommend every one to The author with very proper diffidence on such subjects takes care to have it understood throughout, that he advances no opinion on unfulfilled prophecy at all positively or dogmatically, but merely as a probable conjecture. The MS, itself which I copy bears no date. "All the nobles shall be deprived of their estates and their dignities. "A division shall spring up in the Church of God, and there shall be two husbands, the one true and the other adulterous. "The legitimate husband shall be put to flight; there shall be a great carnage and as great an effusion of blood as in the time of the Gentiles. "The universal Church and the whole world shall deplore the ruin and destruction of a most celebrated city, the capital and mistress of France. The altars of the temples shall be destroyed; the holy virgins outraged, shall fly from their monasteries; the Church pastors shall be driven from their seats, and the Church shall be stripped of her temporal goods. "But at length the Black Eagle and the Lion shall appear, arriving from far countries. "Misery be to thee O city of opulence; thou shalt at first rejoice, but thy end shall come. 666 Misery be to thee O city of Philosophy, thou shalt be subjected. "A captive king humbled even to confusion shall at last recover his crown, and shall destroy the children of Brutus.' "This prediction has been verified (authenticated, attested) at the King's library at Paris, where an antique original of the work is deposited. G. E. S." It will be seen that the MS. is imperfect in the beginning; but I thought it best to give a perfectly faithful copy of it. That a revolution of so extraordinary a nature should be predicted twelve hundred years before the event, to happen in the particular kingdom of France, will be deemed not a little extraordinary. Bishop Hurd, however, in his "Lectures on the Prophecies," adduces from ancient history two very similar curious predictions, one of which was also delivered twelve hundred years before it was verified. These lectures would be very useful at the present time, to counteract the poison spread by Romanizing teachers. My occupations up to the present instant have been so various and burdensome, that I have not looked yet at Mr. Faber's observations in the Churchman for April. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, PHOENIX. WHETHER TO BE CALLED THE ALTAR OR TABLE OF THE LORD? To the Editor of the Churchman. SIR, Many discourses have been printed, and many profitless discussions have been raised, whether that portion of our churches, at which the sacrament of the Lord's supper is administered, should be termed the altar or the Lord's table. It may not be without its use to consider briefly what are the facts of the case, which requires no depth of research, and no display of learning to elucidate. The term, I think, is perfectly indifferent; but, as on all points of doc |