STIGMA TIZA TION. 6j i 



Innocent III as a madman, and undoubtedly half -crazy and fanat- 

 ical, lie pretended to the gifts of prophecy and miracles. Beggar 

 and nurse of lepers, pious and beneficent, he was still so deficient 

 in moral sense as to set filial duty and parental authority at defi- 

 ance, and to lure three imaginative sisters of rank and fortune 

 into a life similar to his own. Ascetic, unnatural, and a devotee, 

 he approached so near to utter insanity that the Mohammedan 

 Sultan of Egypt, whom he essayed to convert to his Christianity, 

 was fully warranted in tenderly dismissing him as a lunatic. 

 Blameless, gentle, loving, and fondly pantheistic in sentiment, his 

 energies were wholly consecrated to the support of the endangered 

 papacy, and the establishment of its claims against all dissenters. 

 Such a miracle as that he affirmed would, in a grossly superstitious 

 age, be a patent aid to him in his work. Great good and no small 

 evil were blended in one and the same man ; good that voiced 

 itself in many memorable sayings, and induced him to conceal 

 what he himself seems to have doubted — the marks on his hands 

 by covering them with his habit, and on his feet by wearing shoes 

 and stockings. There is no known limit to human credulity, and 

 particularly in an age so illiterate and unscientific. The ecclesi- 

 astics had an adequate motive in their claim to complete domi- 

 nance over the human race for bolstering up his pretensions, and 

 for elevating the abnormal experiences of a kindly monomaniac 

 to the rank of a miracle. Not less powerful is the motive that 

 Belgian ecclesiastics have for upholding the claims of Louise 

 Lateau, whose personal reward is in notoriety, rich presents, and 

 the lavish praises of wily or superstitious advisers. 



Modern medical science asserts the naturalness of the stigmata. 

 In harmony with Neander's suggestion, it looks upon the story of 

 St. Francis, of Lateau, and of others, as one " with regard to which 

 it still needs and deserves inquiry to what extent, in certain 

 eccentric states of the system, a markedly overexcited fancy 

 might react on the bodily organism." The closest attention has 

 been paid to Louise Lateau. M. Warlomont, commissioned by 

 the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium to examine her, accom- 

 panied by several friends, made a careful examination of her per- 

 son. The subject went through her regular programme. At six 

 o'clock on Friday morning blood was freely flowing from all the 

 stigmata. Then, as also at other times, there was no apparent ex- 

 ternal excitation of the haemorrhage. The blood effused was of 

 normal character, excepting the excessive amount of white cor- 

 puscles. So far, all seemed to be genuine. She did, however, 

 when closely questioned, confess to short periods of forgetfulness 

 at night. A cupboard in her room contained bread and fruit, and 

 her chamber communicated directly with the yard at the back of 

 the house. M. Warlomont concluded that the ecstasies and stig- 



