1875.| Human Levitation. 59 
25, who was heir to either that Protestant state or Hanover, 
whichever might first fall vacant, and who afterward suc- 
ceeded to both, was now on an Europeantour: Having heard 
of the wonderful monk of Assisi, his curiosity led him from 
Rome to visit that place. With two counts, a Catholicanda 
Lutheran, he arrived there on a Saturday, begging one inter- 
view with Friar Joseph, and intending to depart the same 
day. The superior, who had been warned of the arrival, 
and well instructed how to act, lodged them, and prevented 
any sight of Joseph till the next day, when they were intro- 
duced by a secret door into the chapel where he, uninformed 
that any stranger was present, had to perform mass. As 
had been expected, an impressive part of the service over- 
came the speaker, he became unconscious, and, as frequently 
happened in these trances, rose and floated some time in 
the air. Questioned afterwards by the superior, but still 
unaware that strangers were listening, he could only tell 
that he had fainted; that before the swoon he had been 
trying in vain to break the holy wafer; that afterwards he 
broke it, but with difficulty; and that this preternatural 
hardness, he had no doubt, indicated some hard-hearted 
heretic to have been present, for whose conquest let them 
all pray. The prince’s curiosity, growing with what he had 
seen, kept him there another day. On Monday, Joseph, 
while elevating the host, again swooned, and was seen to 
rise following it, and remained suspended with his knees 
and feet one palm (or by another account a foot) from the 
floor; while the clear face of the wafer, visible throughout 
so small a chapel, became marked with a cross of jet-black 
—in short, as clear a case of what is now called ‘“ direct 
spirit-drawing ” as Mr. Dale Owen has ever described. The 
friar, in an insensible state, yet holding up the monstrance 
over his head, hung immovable in the air an eighth part of 
an hour. The Lutheran count said, ‘‘It was a cursed day that 
I came into Italy. At home I always enjoyed a quiet mind ; 
but in this country, puzzles about faith and conscience keep 
pursuing me.” The prince sought more interviews with 
Joseph, and before a third day had elapsed, he had solemnly 
promised to believe ‘‘ all that the Catholic Church believes,” 
and as soon as he could satisfactorily dispose matters in his 
states to that end, to return and be formally received ; 
which accordingly he fulfilled in about a year, at the same 
place, on his knees, before two cardinals and Friar Joseph. 
After this the friar had to be removed successively to 
more and more secluded mountain convents, to avoid the 
excessive crowding of people to Assisi, and wherever he 
