Whether the opposition monk, Sixtus, intended by this decree to assert that no such miracle was performed on Catherine, or that it ought not to have been performed in justice to St. Francis, or that having been unfortunately performed, nothing ought to be said about it, is left to the very unsatisfactory conjectures of indiscreet inquirers. The tendency observable in many of the austerities and miracles related of St. Catherine, to outdo the austerities and miracles of other saints, is especially remarkable in this of the _stigmata_. The degree in which it served the purpose of the Dominicans, is the measure of the suspicion attaching to it. But as there is nothing incredible in the supposition that Catherine may have imagined all she related in her trance, so it is by no means unlikely that such diseased dreamings may have been the natural product of a waking fancy filled with, and dwelling on this much envied manifestation. Perhaps the condition so providently introduced, as it seems, that the scars were not to be visible, may be suggestive of a fraudulent intention. But, on the other hand, it should seem, that if fraud had been planned, it would have been very easy, for one who subjected her body to so much self-inflicted torment, to submit to the required wounds beforehand. [Sidenote: OTHER MIRACLES.] In another instance there seems to be emulation of a higher model. Wishing to give wine away to the poor against the desire of her family, she miraculously causes a barrel to become for a long while inexhaustible, the wine drawn from it being, at the same time, of a much superior quality to that originally put into it. Many details are recorded of her ministry to the sick; but, strangely enough, the most prominent circumstances in each case, are those which go to prove her readiness to encounter whatever was most loathesome; and some of the particulars of her victories over the natural repugnances of mind and body in this respect—often of a nature in no wise conducive to, or connected with the well-being of her patient—are far too revolting for reproduction on any English page. The reader has now an abundant—perhaps he may think a superfluously abundant—specimen of that part of Catherine's history which the Church most loves to preserve, contemplate, and enlarge on, and of the kind of teaching she draws from it—draws from it, be it again observed, for this is an important part of the subject—at this present day. The morality set forth by example in the tales of the Saint abstracting the property of her relatives to give it to any mendicant who begged of her, is more largely and accurately reduced to systematic precept in the "Manual for Confessors," now in use as the rule for those who have the guidance of the popular conscience. It is there laid down, that a wife or son may "take" from the goods of a husband or father, who will not give for the purpose, what is requisite for "good works!"