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every one may realize who recalls the hymn beginning 

 "Come Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove," which will be sung 

 in perhaps hundreds of churches next Sunday. An old 

 and natural inference followed, that the devil cannot ever 

 take (by magic) the form of this celestial messenger. 



According to an apocryphal gospel the Holy Ghost in 

 the semblance of a dove, designated Joseph as the spouse 

 of the Virgin Mary by alighting on his head ; and in the 

 same manner, according to Eusebius, Fabian was indi- 

 cated as divinely appointed to be Pope in the third cen- 

 tury. It is said also that at the Council of Nice (A. D. 325 ) 

 the creed formulated there was signed by the Holy 

 Spirit, appearing as a dove — a legend that magnifies the 

 tremendous importance of that document. 



Again, there is the story of the miraculous dove at the 

 consecration of Clovis on Christmas Day, 496, at Rheims. 

 When Clovis and St. Remi, the bishop, reached the 

 baptistery the priest bearing the holy chrism was pre- 

 vented by the density of the crowd from reaching the 

 font. Then a dove, whiter than snow, brought a vial 

 (ampoule) filled with chrism sent from heaven; and the 

 bishop took it, and with this miraculous chrism perfumed 

 the baptismal water for the Frankish chief by whose vic- 

 tories over Germanic barbarians France was founded. 



The lives of medieval saints and martyrs — or at any 

 rate, the records of them — abound in such incidents of 

 supernatural recognition. Several devoted women on 

 taking the vow of virginity received their veils from 

 doves hatched in no earthly nest; bishops were more than 

 once given approval of public acts, especially when un- 

 popular, by similar manifestations of divine approbation, 

 doves alighting on their heads. "A dove is the special 

 emblem of Gregory the Great (A. D. 590-604), and its 



