Now, those who are at all conversant with this subject well know that it was not the custom of the primitive church to collect shoes and stockings, &c., for relics, and also that for five hundred years after the death of the Virgin Mary there was never any talk of such things. It really seems as if these well-known facts would be sufficient to prove the absurdity of all these relics of the Virgin; but her worshippers, not merely satisfied with the articles I have just enumerated, endeavour to ascribe to her a love of dress and finery. A comb of hers is shown in the church of St Martin at Rome, and another in that of St Jean-le-Grand at Besançon, besides others that may be shown elsewhere. Now, if this be not a mockery of the Virgin, I do not know what that word implies. They have not forgotten her wedding-ring, which is shown at Perusa. As it is now the custom for a husband to present his bride with a ring at the marriage ceremony, they imagined it to be so in the time of the Virgin, and in her country, consequently, they show a splendid ring as the one used at her wedding, forgetting the state of poverty in which she lived. Rome possesses four of her gowns, in the churches of St John of the Lateran, St Barbara, St Maria _supra Minervam_, and St Blasius; whilst at Salvatierra they boast of having fragments of a gown belonging to her. I have forgotten the names of other towns where similar relics are shown.(141) It is sufficient to examine the materials of these vestments in order to see the falsehood of their claims, for their exhibitors give to the Virgin the same sort of robes with which they dress up her images. It remains now to speak of her images—not of the common ones, of which there are so many everywhere, but of those which are distinguished from the rest by some particular claims. Thus at Rome there are four, which they pretend were painted by St Luke the evangelist. The principal one is in the church of St Augustine, which they say St Luke had painted for his own use; he always carried it about his person, and it was buried with him. Now, is it not a downright blasphemy to turn thus a holy evangelist into a perfect idolater? And what reason had they for believing that St Luke was a painter? St Paul calls him a physician. I do not know from whence they obtained this notion; but supposing it was so, is it possible to admit that he would have painted the Virgin for the same purpose as the Pagans did a Jupiter, a Venus, or any other idol? It was not the custom of the primitive Christians to have images, and it only became so a long while afterwards, when the Church was corrupted by superstition. Moreover, the whole world is filled with representations of the Blessed Virgin, which are said to have been painted by the same evangelist.(142) I shall not say any thing about St Joseph, whose shoes at Aix-la-Chapelle I have already mentioned, and whose other similar relics are preserved in many places.(143) ST MICHAEL.