Persons are easily persuaded that all miraculous narratives are false,
though the Church guarantees the truth of many; and when this same
Church pronounces on dogmatical facts, declaring: such and such
propositions to be heretical which are in such and such a book, and
exacts an interior submission of heart and mind, do these doubters
show more docility? Do they not cloak their disobedience by a respectful
silence, always ill kept and finally broken through by open rebellion?
Do we not see persons in the world speaking irreverently of relics,
purgatory, indulgences, and even of the holy mysteries, after having
treated contemptuously the marvels of the Lives of the Saints?

Certain critics admit these marvels, but have imbibed the idea that
falsehood is so mixed up with the truth, that they cannot be separated
but by using certain rules, which they take upon themselves to lay
down. This prejudice is not less dangerous, nor less unreasonable than
the other.

Because some inconsiderate writers, who cannot be too severely censured,
have given scope to their imagination in certain legends, and have
employed fiction for the embellishment of their narratives, the doubters
pretend that the whole history of the saints is full of impostures;
nevertheless, pure sources have been the basis of their authentic acts,
in the works of the Fathers, and in an infinity of authors well worthy
of credit, and in the Bulls of Canonization. An Asiatic priest, as
related by St. Jerome, who quotes Tertullian, composed false acts of
St. Thecla through an ill-understood sentiment of devotion:--does it
follow from that that the truth of many other acts which were there
read, and which we still possess, is to be set aside? Moreover, the
Church has remedied the evil; she has rejected the false prodigies;
she has expunged from the legends the indiscreet additions; a new