The names and a few leading lines of life of saints given, scholars were to fill up, as their imaginations could supply detail; consequently we see many of them to be of a puerile and even infantine fancy, and taken from nursery tales enlarged--a kind of 'raw-head and bloody-bones'--children boiled in a pot, the Thyestean supper, and the children leaping whole out of the dish. And here we would ask the Romish clergy, who certainly in their accredited books propagate fables scarcely less ridiculous, if the being ridiculous is not a test of their falsity? We cannot, while we are reasonable, suppose otherwise than that the Author of miracles would at least guard them from contempt of this kind; that, as they are intended for the conversion of mankind, they should not present themselves in a ridiculous posture, or under ridiculous coincidences. Such was not the pattern of the Scripture miracles. We would, however, make a great distinction between the fraudulent (that is, having a fraudulent purpose) legends, and those which are merely exaggerations or repetitions, readily and naturally applied under congenial circumstances, and for the most part allegorical of the Christian charities, and inculcating Christian virtues. Shall we shock the reader if we add, too, that there may be a very innocent superstition? Since bloody persecution has ceased, superstition in the eyes of this wise-growing age is like the dog that the member of a Peace Society rebuked thus, "Friend, I won't beat thee, but I'll cry mad dog." Should a child, now-a-days, on lying down in bed, say, as children did say in our younger days-- "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Bless the bed that I lie on,"