There is no disease that resists the
sign of the Cross. In a crowd, the suffering and the feeble are placed
together, that they may be cured in a mass, as if by a thunderbolt.
Death itself is conquered, and resurrections are so frequent that they
become quite an everyday affair. And when the saints themselves are
dead the wonders do not cease, but are redoubled, and are like perennial
flowers which spring from their tombs. It is said that from the head and
the feet of Nicholas flowed two fountains of oil which cured every ill.
When the tomb of Saint Cecilia was opened an odour of roses came up from
her coffin. That of Dorothea was filled with manna. All the bones of
virgins and of martyrs performed marvels: they confounded liars, they
forced robbers to give back their stolen goods, they granted the prayers
of childless wives, they brought the dying back to life. Nothing was
impossible for them; in fact the Invisible reigned, and the only law
was the caprice of the supernatural. In the temples the sorcerers mix
themselves up with the popular idea, and scythes cut the grass without
being held, brass serpents move, and one hears bronze statues laugh and
wolves sing. Immediately the saints reply and overwhelm them.
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