to the fifteenth of October, together with all the acts of canonization, papal bulls, and other ancient documents belonging thereto, with learned treatises and notes ; and that not in the style of popular legends, but in the tone of thorough historical investigation and free criticism, so far as a general accordance with the Ko- man Catholic system of faith would allow." It was interrupt- ed in 1773 by the abolition of the order of the Jesuits, then again in 1794, after a brief resumption of labor and the publi- cation of two more volumes (the fifty-second and fifty-third), by the French Revolution and invasion of the Netherlands and the partial destruction of the literary material; but since 1845 (or properly since 1837) it has been resumed at Brussels under tlie ' When Rosweyd's prospectus, wliich contemplated only 1*7 volumes, was shown to Cardinal Bellarmine, he asked : " What is the man's age ? " " Perhaps forty." "Does he expect to live two hundred years?" More than 250 years have passed ?ince, and still the work is unfinished. The relation of the principal authors is indi- cated in the following verse : " Quod Rosweydus praspararat. Quod Bollandus inchoarat. Quod Ilenschenius formarat, Perfecit (?) Papenbroekius." ' The work was even violently persecuted at times in the Romish Church. Pa- I)enbroek, for proving that the prophet Elijah was not the founder of the Carmelite order, was stigmatized as a heretic, and the Acta condemned by the Spanish Inqui- sition, but the condemnation was removed by papal interference in 1715. The Bol- landists took holy revenge of the Carmelites by a most elaborate biography and vin- dication of St. Theresa, the glory of that order, in the fifty-fourth volume (the first of the new series), 1845, sub Oct. loth, pp. lOO-TTe. § 87. WORSHIP OF RELICS. DOGMA OF THE RESURRECnOX, 449 auspices of the same order, though not with the same historical learning and cntical acumen, and proceeds tediously toward completion.' This colossal and amazing work of more than two centuries of pious industry and monkish learning will al- ways remain a rich mine for the system of martyr and saint- worship and the history of Christian life. § 87. Worship of Relics. Dogma of the Resurrection. Miracles of Relics. Comp. the Literature at § 84. Also J. Mabillox (E. C.) : Observationes de sanctorum reliquiis (Praef. ad Acta s. Bened. Ordinis). Par. 1669. Baerington and Kirk (E. 0.) : The Faith of Catholics, &c. Lond. 1846. Vol. iii. pp. 250-307. On the Protestant side, J. H. Jung : Disquisitio antiquaria de reliqu, et profanis et sacris earumque cultu, ed. 4. HannoY. 1783. The veneration of martyrs and saints had respect, in the hrst instance, to their immortal spirits in heaven, but came to be extended, also, in a lower degree, to their earthly remains or relics." By these are to be understood, first, their bodies, or rather parts of them, bones, blood, ashes; then all which was in any