The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others

Georgiana Fullerton

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• Publié par: zeliv
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 107
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of St.
Frances of Rome, and Others by Georgiana
Fullerton
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Title: The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and OthersAuthor: Georgiana Fullerton
Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8495] [Yes, we
are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This
file was first posted on July 16, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK LIFE OF ST. FRANCES AND OTHERS ***
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and
the Online Distributed Proofreading TeamTHE LIFE
OF
ST. FRANCES OF ROME,
BY
LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON;
OF
BLESSED LUCY OF NARNI,
OF
DOMINICA OF PARADISO
AND OF
ANNE DE MONTMORENCY:
WITH
An Introductory EssayON THE MIRACULOUS LIFE OF THE SAINTS,
BY J. M. CAPES, ESQ. N.B. The proprietorship of
this Series is secured in all countries where the
Copyright is protected. The authorities on which
the History of St. Frances of Rome rests are as
follows:
Her life by Mattiotti, her Confessor for ten years.
Mattiotti enjoined her, as a matter of obedience, to
relate to him from time to time her visions in the
minutest detail. He was a timid and suspicious
man, and for two or three years kept a daily record
of all she told him; afterwards, as his confidence in
her sanctity and sanity grew complete, he
contented himself with a more general account of
her ecstasies, and also put together a private
history of her life. After her death, he wrote a
regular biography, which is now to be found in the
Bollandist collection (Venice, 1735, vol. ii.).
Early in the seventeenth century, Ursinus, a Jesuit,
wrote a life, which was highly esteemed, but which
was never printed, and, except in certain
fragments, is now lost.
In 1641, Fuligato, a Jesuit, wrote the second life, in
the Bollandist collection, which contains particulars
of events that happened after Mattiotti's time.
Other well-written lives have since appeared:
especially a recent one by the Vicomte de
Bussière, in which will be found various details too
long to be included in the sketch here presented tothe English reader. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.
THE MIRACULOUS LIFE OF THE SAINTS.
In presenting to the general reader a newly-written
Life of so extraordinary a person as St. Frances of
Rome, together with the biographical sketches
contained in the present volume, it may be useful
to introduce them with a few brief remarks on that
peculiar feature in the histories of many Saints,
which is least in accordance with the popular ideas
of modern times. A mere translation, or
republication of a foreign or ancient book, does not
necessarily imply any degree of assent to the
principles involved in the original writer's
statements. The new version or edition may be
nothing more than a work of antiquarian or literary
interest, by no means professing any thing more
than a belief that persons will be found who will,
from some motive or other, be glad to read it.
Not so, however, in the case of a biography which,
though not pretending to present the results of
fresh researches, does profess to give an account
new in shape, and adapted to the wants of the day
in which it asks its share of public attention. In this
case no person can honourably write, and no editor
can honourably sanction, any statements but such
as are not only possible and probable, but, allowing
for the degree of authenticity in each case claimed,
on the whole historically true. No honest man, who
absolutely disbelieves in all documents in which the
original chronicler has mingled accounts ofsupernatural events with the record of his own
personal knowledge, could possibly either write or
edit such Lives as those included in the following
pages; still less could they be made public by one
who disbelieves in the reality of modern miracles
altogether.
In presenting, then, the present and other similar
volumes to the ordinary reader, I anticipate some
such questions as these: "Do you really put these
stories into our hands as history? Are these
marvellous tales to be regarded as poetry,
romance, superstitious dreaming, or as historical
realities? If you profess to believe in their truth,
how do you reconcile their character with the
universal aspect of human life, as it appears to us
and to our friends? And finally, if you claim for
them the assent to which proved facts have a right
from every candid mind, to what extent of detail do
you profess to believe in their authenticity?" To
these and similar questions I reply by the following
observations:
The last of these questions may be answered
briefly. The lives of Saints and other remarkable
personages, which are here and elsewhere laid in a
popular form before the English public, are not all
equally to be relied on as undoubtedly true in their
various minute particulars. They stand precisely on
the same footing as the ordinary events of purely
secular history; and precisely the same degree of
assent is claimed for them that the common
reason of humanity accords to the general
chronicles of our race. No man, who writes or editsa history of distant events, professes to have
precisely the same amount of certainty as to all the
many details which he records. Of some his
certainty is all but absolute; of others he can say
that he considers them highly probable; of a third
class he only alleges that they are vouched for by
respectable though not numerous authorities., Still,
he groups them together in one complete and
continuous story, and gives them to the world as
history; nor does the world impute to him either
dishonesty, ignorance, credulity, or shallowness,
because in every single event he does not specify
the exact amount of evidence on which his
statement rests.
Just such is the measure of belief to be conceded
to the Life of St. Frances, and other biographies or
sketches of a similar kind. Some portions, and
those the most really important and prominent, are
well ascertained, incontrovertible, and substantially
true. Others again, in all likelihood, took place very
much, though not literally, in the way in which they
are recorded. Of others, they were possibly, or
even probably, the mere colouring of the writer, or
were originally adopted on uninvestigated rumour.
They are all, however, consistent with known facts,
and the laws on which humanity is governed by
Divine Providence; and therefore, as they may be
true, they take their place in that vast multitude of
histories which all candid and well-informed
persons agree in accepting as worthy of credit,
though in various degrees.
Supposing, then, that miraculous events may anddo occur in the present state of the world's history,
it is obvious that these various degrees of assent
are commanded alike by the supernatural and the
natural events which are here so freely mingled
together. Some are undoubtedly true, others are
probably either fictitious or incorrectly recorded.
The substance rests on the genuine documents,
originally written by eye-witnesses and perfectly
competent judges; and as such, the whole stands
simply as a result of the gathering together of
historical testimony.
Here, however, the ordinary English reader meets
us with the assertion, that the supernatural
portions of such lives are simply impossible. He
assumes—for I am not exaggerating when I say
that he never tries to prove—that these marvellous
interruptions of the laws of nature never take
place. Consequently, in his judgment, it is purely
ridiculous to put forth such stories as history; and
writers who issue them are guilty either of folly,
ignorance, superstition, or an unprincipled
tampering with the credulity of unenlightened
minds. Of those who thus meet the question of
historical evidence by an assumption of a universal
abstract impossibility, I earnestly beg an
unprejudiced attention to the following
considerations:
If it be once admitted that there is a God, and that
the soul is not a mere portion of the body, the
existence of miracles becomes at once probable.
Apart from the records of experience, we should in
fact have expected that events which are nowtermed miraculous would have been perhaps as
common as those which are regulated by