This partiality of devils for flagellation can most probably be attributed to their horribly jealous disposition; for it is well known that the saints took great delight in fustigating, not only those who offended them, but their most faithful votaries. Flagellation was therefore the most grateful punishment that could be inflicted to propitiate the beatified; and we have several well-authenticated facts which prove that the Virgin was frequently appeased by this practice. Under the pontificate of Sextus IV., a heterodox professor of divinity, who had written against the tabernacle, was flogged publicly by a pious monk, to the great edification of the by-standers, more particularly the ladies. The description of this operation would lose materially by translation, I therefore give it in the original. "Apprehendens ipsum revolvit super ejus genua; erat enim valde fortis. Elevatis itaque pannis, quia ille minister contra sanctum Dei tabernaculum locutus fuerat, coepit cum palmis percutere _super quadrata tabernacula_ quae erant nuda, non enim habebat _femoralia vel antiphonam_; et quia ipse infamare voluerat beatam Virginem, allegando forsitan Aristotelem in libro priorum, iste praedicator _illum confutavit legendo in libro ejus posteriorum_: de hoc autem omnes qui aderant gaudebant. Tunc exclamavit _quaedam devota mulier_, dicens, '_Domine Praedicator, detis ei alios quatuor palmatus pro me_; et alia postmodum dixit, 'Detis ei etiam quatuor; sicque _multae aliae_ rogabant, ita quod si illarum petitionibus satisfacere voluisset, per totum diem aliud facere non potuisset." We need not seek for similar instances of the mighty power of proper fustigation in foreign parts. The Annals of Wales record a singular instance of the kind, which happened in the year 1188, as related by Silvester Gerald, in such a circumstantial manner that the most obdurate incredulity alone could doubt the fact:--"On the other side of the river Humber," he says, "in the parish of Hoeden, lived the rector of that church, with his concubine. This concubine, one day, sat rather imprudently on the tomb of St. Osanna, sister to King Osred, which was made of wood, and raised above the ground in the shape of a seat: when she attempted to rise from that place, she stuck to the wood in such a manner that she could not be parted from it, till, in the presence of the people who flocked to see her, she had suffered her clothes to be torn from her, and had received a severe discipline on her naked body, and that too to a great effusion of blood, and with many tears and devout supplications on her part; which done, and after she had engaged to submit to further penitence, she was divinely released."