RECENT RECRUDESCENCE OF SUPERSTITION. 83 



requesting him to give his official opinion as to the possibility 

 of such a miracle. The bishop was in a quandary. He knew 

 that the soldier's statement was false and absurd, but he could 

 not say so without contradicting the teachings and traditions of 

 the Church and impeaching the testimony of the saints and all 

 the records of hagiology. In his report he was therefore com- 

 pelled to admit that the prayer may have been answered in the 

 manner described. On the strength of this " expert evidence " 

 Frederick annulled the sentence of the court-martial, but forbade 

 the soldier on penalty of death to offer henceforth petitions of 

 this kind to any image of the Virgin. 



One of the most characteristic as well as anachronistic exhibi- 

 tions of religious folly and frenzy in our day is the Springpro- 

 cession, or procession of jumpers, which takes place yearly at 

 Echternach, in Luxemburg, on the first Tuesday after Whitsun- 

 day, and is popularly regarded as a sure cure for epilepsy, St. 

 Vitus's dance, syntexis, murrain, and other maladies of men and 

 cattle. A full description of this performance was given in a 

 book published more than twenty years ago and entitled Die 

 Springprocession und die Wallfahrt zum Grabe des heiligen 

 Willibrord in Echternach (Luxemburg, Briick, 1871), the author 

 of which, J. B. Krier, a priest and religious instructor in the Ech- 

 ternach preparatory school, expresses his firm belief in its thera- 

 peutic efficacy and general wonder-working power. " We can 

 not but envy these people," he says, " on account of their living 

 faith, and in our inmost soul praise God, who in our cold and in- 

 different age has kept alive such a fire in the hearts of our fellow- 

 men." A few Catholics of superior culture, like Prof. Froscham- 

 mer, of Munich, vigorously protested against the glorification of 

 such crass fanaticism, but it received the approval and encour- 

 agement of the episcopate, and, instead of disappearing in the 

 light of the nineteenth century, as one would expect such a sur- 

 vival of mediae valism to do, has been growing stronger ever since. 

 On May 15, 1894, 16,905 persons, including one bishop, 140 clergy, 

 267 musicians, 2,213 prayers, 2,448 singers, and 11,836 springers, 

 took part in the strange ceremony. This number, which has 

 been derived from official documents, is the largest on record, and 

 furnishes a drastic illustration of the manner in which the patron- 

 age of the Church contributes to the promotion of superstition. 



The " springprocession " is, in fact, one of the queerest sights 

 that hare been witnessed in Christendom since the Flagellants 

 of the thirteenth century made the streets of Italian cities hideous 

 with their scourgings and howlings. The men, women, and chil- 

 dren who are to join in the choral dance which an ancient Greek 

 or Roman, if he should rise from the dead, might easily mistake 

 for a Bacchanalian orgy assemble on a meadow near the town, 



