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Updated: May 15, 2025
Now will it be believed that this writer suppresses the fact that the miracles of St. Walburga are treated by the author of her Life as mythical? yet that is the tone of the whole composition. This writer can notice it in the Life of St. Neot, treat the stories openly as legends and myths, and tell them as they stand, without asking the reader, or themselves, to believe them altogether.
I could not simply accept them as facts, but I could not reject them in their nature; they might be true, for they were not impossible: but they were not proved to be true, because there was not trustworthy testimony. However, as to St. Walburga, I made one exception, the fact of the medicinal oil, since for that miracle there was distinct and successive testimony.
My assailant, in the passage which I just now quoted from him, made some distinction, which was apparently intended to save St. Neot, while it condemned St. Walburga. He said that legends are "dangerous enough, when they stand side by side with stories told in earnest like St. Walburga." He will find he has here Dr.
Walburga, intersecting in mid-air, and apparently defying the laws of gravity, are as delicate a dream as the mind of architect could conceive, and they give to the whole an airy grace which cannot be described.
He remained a long time plunged in thought; but he was startled from his reverie by a vehicle which dashed along near him, and by the call of the driver warning him of his danger. He stepped aside and looked around him, as though seeking a way of escape from the wharf and the crowd of workmen. He walked slowly towards the church of Saint Walburga, and around the wall enclosing the cemetery.
Milman's decision justifies me in putting this down as Blot twenty-four. However, there is one miraculous account for which this writer makes me directly answerable, and with reason; and with it I shall conclude my reply to his criticisms on the "Lives of the English Saints." It is the medicinal oil which flows from the relics of St. Walburga.
All the houses on the "Place" have red tiled roofs, and gables in the Renaissance style very varied in form, and each one with a characteristic window above, framed richly en coquille, and decorated with arabesques. Behind these houses is what remains of the ancient Church of St. Walburga, half buried in the thick verdure of the garden.
I gave the testimonies in full, tracing them from the saint's death. I said, "She is one of the principal Saints of her age and country." Then I quoted Basnage, a Protestant, who says, "Six writers are extant, who have employed themselves in relating the deeds or miracles of Walburga."
His curious and vaulting imagination began to construct vast philosophical fabrics out of the writings of ancient monks, and to dally with visions of angelic visitations and the efficacy of the oil of St Walburga; his emotional nature became absorbed in the partisan passions of a University clique; and his subtle intellect concerned itself more and more exclusively with the dialectical splitting of dogmatical hairs.
The method is harmless enough, if the legends had stood alone; but dangerous enough, when they stand side by side with stories told in earnest, like that of St. Walburga." p. 22. Now, first, that the miraculous stories are treated, in the Life of St. Walburga, as legends and myths.
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