554 RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT -III 



stone walls of the church, remains solid, but which, upon 

 being brought out into the hot, crowded chapel and fon 

 dled by the warm hands of the priests, gradually softens 

 and becomes liquid. It was curious to note, at the time 

 above mentioned, that even the high functionaries repre 

 senting the King looked at the miracle with awe : they evi 

 dently found &quot; joy in believing, &quot; and one of them assured 

 me that the only thing which could cause it was the direct 

 exercise of miraculous power. 



So, too, I had here an opportunity to study one of the 

 fundamental ideas of the prevalent theology namely, the 

 doctrine of &quot; intercession, &quot; which has played such a part 

 not only in Catholic but in Protestant countries, the 

 idea that, just as in an earthly court back-stairs influ 

 ence is necessary to secure favor, so it must be in the 

 heavenly courts. I was much edified by the way in which 

 this doctrine was presented in certain great pictures rep 

 resenting the intervention of the Almighty to save Naples 

 from the plague. One of them, as I remember it, repre 

 sented, on an enormous canvas, the whole transaction as 

 follows : In the immediate foreground the people of Na 

 ples were represented on their knees before their magis 

 trates, begging them to rescue the city from the pesti 

 lence; farther back the magistrates were represented as 

 on their knees before the monks, begging for their 

 prayers; the monks were on their knees before St. Jan- 

 uarius, begging him to intervene ; St. Januarius was then 

 represented as on his knees before the Blessed Virgin; 

 the Blessed Virgin was then pictured as beseeching her 

 divine Son ; and he at last was represented as presenting 

 the petition to a triangle in the heavens behind which 

 appeared the lineaments of a venerable face. 



One can understand, after seeing pictures of this kind, 

 what Erasmus was thinking of, five hundred years ago, 

 when he wrote his colloquy of &quot;The Shipwreck, &quot; the 

 most exquisite satire on mediaeval doctrine ever made. 

 After a most comical account of the petitions and prom 

 ises made by the shipwrecked to -various saints, Adolphus 



