The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others | Page 2

then, the present and other similar volumes to the
ordinary reader, I anticipate some such questions as these: "Do you
really put these stories into our hands as history? Are these marvellous
tales to be regarded as poetry, romance, superstitious dreaming, or as
historical realities? If you profess to believe in their truth, how do you
reconcile their character with the universal aspect of human life, as it
appears _to us and to our friends?_ And finally, if you claim for them
the assent to which proved facts have a right from every candid mind,
to what extent of detail do you profess to believe in their authenticity?"
To these and similar questions I reply by the following observations:
The last of these questions may be answered briefly. The lives of Saints
and other remarkable personages, which are here and elsewhere laid in
a popular form before the English public, are not all equally to be relied
on as undoubtedly true in their various minute particulars. They stand
precisely on the same footing as the ordinary events of purely secular
history; and precisely the same degree of assent is claimed for them
that the common reason of humanity accords to the general chronicles
of our race. No man, who writes or edits a history of distant events,
professes to have precisely the same amount of certainty as to all the
many details which he records. Of some his certainty is all but absolute;
of others he can say that he considers them highly probable; of a third
class he only alleges that they are vouched for by respectable though
not numerous authorities., Still, he groups them together in one
complete and continuous story, and gives them to the world as
_history;_ nor does the world impute to him either dishonesty,
ignorance, credulity, or shallowness, because in every single event he
does not specify the exact amount of evidence on which his statement
rests.
Just such is the measure of belief to be conceded to the Life of St.
Frances, and other biographies or sketches of a similar kind. Some
portions, and those the most really important and prominent, are well
ascertained, incontrovertible, and substantially true. Others again, in all
likelihood, took place very much, though not literally, in the way in
which they are recorded. Of others, they were possibly, or even
probably, the mere colouring of the writer, or were originally adopted

on uninvestigated rumour. They are all, however, consistent with
known facts, and the laws on which humanity is governed by Divine
Providence; and therefore, as they may be true, they take their place in
that vast multitude of histories which all candid and well-informed
persons agree in accepting as worthy of credit, though in various
degrees.
Supposing, then, that miraculous events may and do occur in the
present state of the world's history, it is obvious that these various
degrees of assent are commanded alike by the supernatural and the
natural events which are here so freely mingled together. Some are
undoubtedly true, others are probably either fictitious or incorrectly
recorded. The substance rests on the genuine documents, originally
written by eye-witnesses and perfectly competent judges; and as such,
the whole stands simply as a result of the gathering together of
historical testimony.
Here, however, the ordinary English reader meets us with the assertion,
that the supernatural portions of such lives are simply impossible. He
assumes--for I am not exaggerating when I say that he never tries _to
prove_--that these marvellous interruptions of the laws of nature never
take place. Consequently, in his judgment, it is purely ridiculous to put
forth such stories as history; and writers who issue them are guilty
either of folly, ignorance, superstition, or an unprincipled tampering
with the credulity of unenlightened minds. Of those who thus meet the
question of historical evidence by an assumption of a universal abstract
impossibility, I earnestly beg an unprejudiced attention to the following
considerations:
If it be once admitted that there is a God, and that the soul is not a mere
portion of the body, the existence of miracles becomes at once probable.
Apart from the records of experience, we should in fact have expected
that events which are now termed miraculous would have been perhaps
as common as those which are regulated by what we call the laws of
nature. Let it be only granted that the visible universe is not the whole
universe, and that in reality we are ever in a state of most intimate real
communion with Him who is its Creator; then, I say, we should have
expected to have been as habitually conscious of our intercourse with
that great Being, as of our intercourse with one another. The true
marvel is, that we are not thus habitually conscious of the