Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1874-02-06
Snnerstitlon.

!. TO my son, let him keep as tatsma
the seal | used to wear attached 70 M
watch" The ancient Romans degrade
7 a priest because his inter fell, and III
made dictator because rat squeakec
Caesar crossed the Rubicon, because, OF
the opposite bank, he saw man with q
+ fine figure. His nephew felt confden
of winning the battle Of Aotium, be-
cause he met a peasant of the name Of
Nicolaus mounted on an ass. Wolsey
was warned Of his doom by a crosier
head Sejanus, by fight of crows
DR.. johnson objected to going under
ladder Montague avoided giving hi-
left foot priority in putting ON his stock
ings. Alexander was believed TO have
united the Gordian knot with a slice OF
his sword. For good luck's sake, Au-
gustus wore some portion of sea-calf ;
Charlemangne, some trinket of unknown
value. Mohammed was all Fate; Boz
naparte all Star and Destiny. Cromwell
believed in September 3, and Louis Ma
poleon in December 2. Sulla called
himself Felix, the favored Child of For
tune, and Timoleon turned his house in
to Temple of Chance. Alexander, if
we may credit the account given by
Quintius Curtius, was terrified by blood
flowing from inside his soldiers bread
during the Seige of Tyre in 332 B. c.
His seer, Aristander, foresaw in this
crimson effiux of the vital stream out Of
the commissariat happy issue for the
MacedoDians and the warriors thus
nerved, took Tyre. From the year 1904
the alarming spectacle of the bleeding
Host, and bread, as well as the bewitch-
Ell bloody milk, several times in each
century gave simple folk a scare thus
it was noticed in 1864, under Urban ",
at Bolsena, not far from Civita Vecchia
and Raphael has taken this for the sub
ject of his picture called the Mtrac,tlo
de BoLsena which is at all events, mir
acle ofthe pencil. In 1873, when Helm
rich Won Bulow destroyed the village
and church at Wilsnack, drops of blood
were found eight days afterwards on the
Host placed on the altar But the vic
tins of superstition have the bump of
casualty remarkably developed; and in
1910, SO Jews were burned to ashes be-
cause they had tortured the consecrated
Host until it bled. Again, the sight
was seen on the Mozelle in 1924 and in
1848 the famous Gutenberg analysed
the terrible bread, cheese and potatoes,
this savant declared that they are caused
by small monads or vibrios, which have
a red color, and are so minute that from
As, 656, 900, 900 to 1874, 736, 900, 000, 900
distinct beings adorn the of space one Gu,
bic inch.
Unfortunately, when,in 1910, thirty
eight Israeiites, as we have seen, we're
burnt to ashes, no scientific Ehrenberg
existed to point out their superstitious
butchers that what they called a proof
Of the consecrated Host being tortured
until it bled, was merely due to exager-
alton of hungry, red insects. No doubt
there was deal of imposture in alchemy;
no doubt, too the wish for gold was faith
er to the thought of alchemy; but this
in itself will not account for Henry ~. |
prohibiting alchemy, for God-fearing
Henry vi. eagerly encouraging it (; for
Pope John XXI, being an alchemist
for Louis XIII. of France making a
franciscan monk his grand almoner, as
the reward Of hundred years reign
promised to his credulity by that pre-
tender to the discovery of the grand
elixir or for Jean de Lisle ex plating by
an early death in the Bastille his bold
attempts to persuade Louis XIV. and
his ministers that he possessed the gold
making stone. Among the wide circle
of influential believers that alchemy
thus entranced were Roger Bacon, AL
bertus Magnus, and st. Thomas Aqui- |
mas and even the transcendent intellects
of Leibnitz, Spinoza, and Verulam.-
However, in the pursuit of this phan-
tom, Roger Bacon easily stumbled on the
composition of gunpowder; Geber, on
the properties of acids; Van Helmont,
on the nature Of gas geist or spirit and
DIR. Glauber of amsterdam, on the uses
of the salt which bears his name. Thus
was the alchemist the slave of supersti-
ton, the worshipper o. science, the con-
querer of power. How much of alche-
my was an imposture, how much of it
was an enthusiasm, it is impossible to
say.