One reason why those beings who are known to us as saints are so little understood is, that their lives are usually written in one of two ways, both equally unsuited to popular appreciation. Either they are presented in a dry, bare, matter-of-fact manner, which requires all the knowledge and sympathy of the initiated to give it vital meaning; or else they are surrounded with an appanage of portents, visions, miracles, legends--spread before the reader without discrimination or explanation--which confuse the mind and soul, and absolutely repel all who do not share the faith of the subject and the biographer. As a matter of fact, no Catholic is obliged to accept these legends and traditions literally, except in those cases where the authorities of the Church, after a scrutiny, which is always deliberate and searching, declare that a miracle was wrought. But every Catholic, by the very nature of his belief in the actual presence of the Divinity among men, must acknowledge and maintain that miracles have been wrought by that supernatural power constantly, ever since apostolic times; that they may and do occur, through the same power, at any moment to-day; and always will occur. In the ordinary gossip of the world, men hold to the maxim that if reports are current, all pointing to one particular fact, there must be truth in them. "Where there is so much smoke there is sure to be some fire." We should at least accord the same, if not a greater, degree of probability and of credence to stories of the saints which have been carefully, competently examined. "The love of the marvellous," says Chavin de Malin, in his book on St. Francis, "is but a remnant of our original greatness. Man was created to contemplate the wonders of the Divinity; and, until he clearly beholds them, he is borne onward by an interior desire to love and admire everything which bears the slightest resemblance to them.... _A person utterly ignorant of the practices of a spiritual life can no more do justice to the life of a saint, than a blind man could adjudicate on the merits or demerits of a painting._" He adds that, with regard to the religious occupations of the Middle Ages, "the positive bounds of history could not be kept, digressions were made on all sides, and thus around the true history of saints, like a poetic wreath, wonder and amazement were both entwined. Christianity has had its denominated legendary tales, which invariably are based on truth, and should not be rejected by the historian without serious reflection and profound study."