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prescribing ao unchangeable model of faith , Seems to keep ner children at the greatest possible distance from the dangers of infidelity . This we believe to have been the case with the pious
Count Stolberg , whose conversion was the sutyect of a controversy which filled the German newspapers and periodical publications about two years since ; and the same motive appears to have influenced a descendant of the
celebrated Haller , who has lately published * an account of his secession from the Reformed Church of Switzerland to Popery . Others , like Frederic Schiegel , ( if indeed his conversion is not to be attributed to the baser
motive of worldly ambition , ) being men of taste and poetical feeling , find Protestantism too modern , cold and naked for them , and exchange it for the pomp , magnificence and antiquity of Popery . The vulgar , meanwhile , are assailed by their credulity , and an attempt has been recently made to revive the scenes exhibited at the
tomb Of Abbe * Paris , in the South of Germany , which , perhaps , only needed a violent interference of government to produce a delusion equally extensive and extravagant . The principal actors in this affair are a peasant of the name of Martin Michel , of Unterwittighausen , in the grand duch y of Baden , and an ecclesiastic of high rank , the Prince Alexander of Hohenlohe
Sehil-Iingsfiir 8 t . Michel appears to have recovered from some disorder , as he believed , by prayer , and afterwards to have applied the same remedy with the same success to other afflicted persons , till his fame spreading through the neighbourhood , he was persuaded
by the priests to consider his miraculous power as a proof of the divine authority of the Catholic Church , and as a manifestation of Divine power , designed for the seasonable purpose of convincing the world that this Church alone inherited the gifts of
healing promised to the apostles . The Prince of Hohenlohe , a very young roan , at the present time , we believe , not 28 years of age * residing in his nei ghbourhood , and having , it should
seem by his own account , discovered * U 8 own prayers to possess a similar virtue , and being equally zealous for the glory of the OatlJoUc Church , was naturall y led to join his operations with those of Michel Martin . Thus
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splendidly presented to the ; wof | ft » their wonder-working ^ powers efefry day attracted greater notice , and the fame of their cures spread far an 4 wide , so that on the Prince ' s arrival , in January 1821 , at Eichstadt , the whole country for fifty miles round was in commotion , and the roads were covered with patients afitieted with various maladies , travelling oa foot and on horseback , in carriages
and sledges , to be healed . Two illustrious personages were said to have been cured , the Princess of Schwaiv zenburg , and the Crown Prince of Bavaria , the former of debility in the limbs , the latter of a deafness which had afflicted him from his childhood .
Hitherto the cures had been performed by prayer and exorcism , between the party desiring relief and Michel and the Prince ; the police of Bamberg and Wiirzburg now interfered , very wisely not to forbid that any more miracles should be wrought , but to
prohibit secret proceedings between the workers of them and the patients , and to require that what was done should take place openly , and in the presence of scientific men . On June 28 , 1821 , accordingly the experiment was tried
on twenty patients in the Julius hospital at Wiirzburg , but without the smallest success , as is attested by a protocol regularly drawn up , although the faith of the common people was so strong that every one of them was believed to have been cured . At
Bamberg a commission was appointed for the purpose of investigating the reality of the alleged cures ; the Prince tried his gifts in their presence , upon a number of sick persons , without any effect ; and as reports continued to be
spread of miracles wrought by him in private families , each of these cases was separately inquired into , and the result was , that in none of them did any cure appear to have been effected . Of course the failures were all
attributed to want of faith , and those whom he could not heal , the Prince exhorted to come again , after confession and communion , with their minds in a better frame . The two cases which have excited the most
attention , those of the Princess of Sebwarzenburg , and the Crown Prince of Bavaria , when the circumstances are Qarefully examined , will appear to be any thing but miraculous . The
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Catholic Miracles in Germany . 4 $ Xk
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vol . xvu . 3 f
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1822, page 401, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2514/page/9/
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