From the following facts an inference may be drawn of the tendency of the Western church to a system of externals, applying itself solely to continual discipline and fasting, instead of the improvement of the heart. For the perusal of the sacred writings and spiritual lessons of the ancient fathers of the church, was substituted that of legends and decretals, and the Book of Canons, by which the whole Western church was governed. Images and relics of the saints acquired an excessive adoration; and continual discoveries were being made of the bodies of miracle-working saints. Impostors were to be found, appearing every day under new names and with fresh miracles, imposing on the credulity of the public, and amassing wealth by defrauding the pious multitude. Some of these impostors, too insolent in their practices, were discovered and punished, whilst others derived from them their whole fortune and subsistence. It went to such a pass, that an arm of St. Augustine was found and sold to William, Duke of Aquitaine, for 100 talents. The head of St. John the Baptist was dug up, and attracted an immense multitude of spectators, amongst whom was Robert, King of France.[3] [3] "One head of St. John the Baptist (for there are many, and John was at last [Greek: ekaton ta kephalas],) was found at the monastery of St. John of Angeli, at Saintange."--_Jortin's Remarks on Eccles. Hist._ ann. 1010. The principal supporters of this religious mania were the Crusaders; that is to say, those persons who went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. These persons, on their return to their own country, finding all their substance exhausted, exerted their utmost cunning to regain it; pretending that they had found some relics of the ancient martyrs or apostles, or some object relative to the life or death of our Saviour. By these means an immense number of persons, excited by religious curiosity, repaired to the places where these objects were exposed, and the churches and the provinces of which became enriched by them. With the same motive, in the year 1008, a portion of the rod of Moses was discovered in France, which attracted a vast number of visiters, both from that country and Italy. In 1014, some monks, on their return from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, brought with them a part of the napkin with which our Saviour wiped the feet of the apostles at the Last Supper; and, in order to prove its authenticity, they passed it uninjured through the flames. This kind of miracles, which were in such favour with the ignorant multitude in those days, produces no effect, since chemical science has enabled us to penetrate into the hidden secrets of nature; and if history is diligently examined, we shall perceive that the human mind was occupied in the discovery of that science at this period. The alchemists perhaps, although persecuted as the followers of the devil, were not altogether extinct, and still read some books which