John Huss, born 1369, became a stirring preacher, and was appointed in 1401 to officiate at the chapel of Bethlehem, where poor people chiefly attended. The archbishop of that time was anxious to check some of the current superstitions, and used Huss as a means to that end. One matter caused great wonder. A knight had destroyed a church some years before, but left a stone altar standing. In one of the cavities were found three wafers coloured red, as if with blood. Though such a colour is naturally produced in bread and similar substances long exposed to moisture, there being a fungus gradually formed, which under the microscope is easily seen, but to the naked eye having a close resemblance to blood, the ignorant multitude at once accepted this as a miracle, symbolical of the blood of Christ; and extraordinary excitement grew up, and pilgrimages were made from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Hungary, Poland, and Bohemia, in order to view it. The monks and clergy encouraged the wonder. The archbishop, shocked by such a scandal, appointed a committee of three, one of whom was Huss, to examine and report. Huss drew up a report reflecting on this and many similar relics as entire delusions, and hinting that they were put forward merely by greedy ecclesiastics for base purposes. He reviewed the history of these impostures, and also exposed another fraud, about a silver hand hung up by a citizen of Prague in a church, and which was long believed to be in testimony of a lame hand of the donor being miraculously cured, though there had been really no cure, as hundreds could attest. POWER OF THE CRUCIFIX DURING THE PLAGUE (A.D. 1649). The extent to which images and their makers have produced effects on excitable crowds was shown during the plague of Malaga in 1649. A certain statue of Christ at the column carved for the cathedral by Giuseppe Micael, an Italian, performed prodigies of healing, and bade fair to rival that holy crucifix sculptured at Jerusalem by Nicodemus, and possessed by the Capuchins of Burgos, which sweated on Fridays and wrought miracles all the week. While the pestilence was yet raging, the sculptor stood one evening musing near the door of the sanctuary where his work was enshrined, but with so sorrowful a countenance that a friend, hailing him from afar, according to the usages of plague-stricken society, inquired the cause of his sadness. "Think you," said the artist, "that I have anything more to look for on earth after seeing and hearing the prodigies and marvels of this sovereign image which my unworthy hands have made? It is an old tradition among the masters of our craft that he shall soon die to whom it is given to make a miraculous image." And Giuseppe erred not in his presentiment; his chisel's task was done. Within eight days the dead-cart carried him to the gorged cemetery of Malaga. His fame was long preserved by his statue, which obtained the name of the "Lord of Health."