This system, however, could not be continued without my coming under the notice of the Inquisition. In fact, when I was called to answer to the charges against me, I was accused of having acted with contempt towards religion--_in spretum religionis_--since I had not observed the laws and ordinances of the Church. At last I was tired of living in the midst of opposition. My conscience daily alienated me more and more from the practices of popery, whilst my soul expanded to the convictions of pure Christianity. I had taken an aversion to image worship, to the adoration of relics, the patronage of saints, and their whole catalogue of miracles. In Viterbo, I had often ridiculed the history of the monastery di Gradi, in which it is asserted, that in or about the year 1220, while St. Domenico di Guzman was on his way through those parts, staying in the house of Cardinal Capoccio, bishop of that city, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, one night appeared to both the cardinal and the saint, and conducted them in spirit to the site of the present church of the monastery di Gradi, where at that time stood a forest; and here, addressing the two holy men, she said, "It is my desire to have a convent established in this place for my dear brethren the _Predicatori_, [Preachers,] where I shall be honoured, and my rosary preached up by them." So saying, she burnt a circle in the wood with a lighted torch, marking out the boundary of the future building. Now, as the vision appeared to each of them, in the morning they compared notes, and setting out together to the wood, found there a circle actually marked out by fire. This history, which is entered in the chronicles of the monastery, is received by the monks as a fifth gospel. Was it possible that I should longer give credence to such a story? There is also, in Viterbo, another monastery of Dominican monks, called _La Madonna della Quercia_; the history of which is, that an image painted on a tile, and placed in an oak-tree, in the midst of a wood, began performing miracles about the commencement of the fifteenth century. Devout supplicants thronged from all parts, and the graces that were bestowed, and the miracles that were performed, according to report, surpassed the most sanguine expectations. Thousands were said to have been healed of various infirmities; thousands to have received, in various ways, assistance from Providence; in dangers, in persecutions, in recovering lost property, and in retrieving their honour. But the greatest and most astounding miracles of all were those performed on persons who had been blind from their birth, and instantaneously recovered their sight, by the virtue of that same picture; and on others who eight days after death had returned to life.