after baptism lets fall upon the child, and the efficacy of which is derived from Mark vii. 33), the salt, the milk and the honey.[15] Besides, there are the sign of the cross and the conjuration, which drive the tempter out of the child and prepare room for the Holy Ghost. With these magic ceremonies the child is received into the Church and from thenceforth becomes a sharer in the protection which it gives against the evil.

Baptismal, or holy water, when drunk by the sick and infirm, heals and strengthens; if sprinkled upon the fields promotes fertility, or given to the domestic animals, affords them protection against witchcraft.

As baptism is the first saving and sanctifying sacrament offered to man, so the unction with holy oil which is administered to the dying, is the last. Between them the eucharist is a perennial source of power and sanctification,—the eucharist in which “Bread and wine, placed upon the altar, after performed consecration, are God’s true flesh and blood, which flesh perceptibly to the senses (sensualiter) is touched by the hands of the priest and masticated by the teeth of the believer.”[16] When the priest has pronounced the formula of transformation, he elevates the host,[17] now no longer bread but the body of Christ, the congregation kneels and the ringing of bells proclaims to the neighborhood that the greatest of all the works of magic is accomplished. Eaten by the faithful, the flesh of Christ enters into their own flesh and blood and wonderfully strengthens both soul and body.[18] Heretics in Arras who believed that righteousness was necessary to salvation and doubted the doctrine of transubstantiation, were converted as soon as Bishop Gerhard told them that, in the time of Gregory the Great, the consecrated bread had taken, before a doubting woman, the shape of Christ’s bleeding finger. A pious hermit who began to be afflicted by the same doubt, regained his faith when at the Communion he saw an angel apply the knife to an infant Jesus, at the very moment the priest broke the bread. There is much in the legends and chronicles about Jews who having secretly procured the host, and, to be revenged upon Christ, proceeding to pierce it with a knife, saw the blood stream forth in abundance; sometimes, indeed, a beautiful bleeding boy suddenly revealing himself. Such stories being freely circulated, led to severe persecutions (as in Namur, 1320).[19]

If the eucharist is a partaking of food which strengthens the faithful in their struggle against sin, the sign of the cross is to be considered as his sword, and the sacred amulet as his armor. The cross is the sign in which the Christian shall conquer. [“In hoc signo vinces.”] With it he must commence every act; with it he repels every attack of the demons. “He who wishes to be convinced concerning this,” says St. Athanasius, “needs only to make the sign of the cross, which has become so ridiculous to the pagans, before the mocking delusions of the demons, the deceits of the oracles and the magi; and immediately he shall see the devil flee, the oracles confounded and all magic and sorcery revenged.” The amulets employed by the Church are various: medals bearing the image of Mary, consecrated images, especially the so-called lambs of God[20] (agnus Dei), the manufacture and sale of which a papal bull of 1471 reserves for the head of the Roman Church. If these bring the clergy immense sums of money, they also possess great power. They protect against dangers from fire or water, against storm and hail, sickness and witchcraft.[21] Along with the amulets the so-called conception-billets, which the Carmelite monks sell for a small sum, are of manifold use. These billets are made of consecrated paper, and heal, if swallowed, diseases natural and supernatural; laid in a cradle guard the child against witchcraft; buried in the corner of a field protect it against bad weather and destructive insects. Conception-billets are put under the thresholds of houses and barns, are attached to beer casks and butter dishes to avert sorcery. They are fabricated by the monks according to an authenticated formulary which, as characteristic and comparatively brief, deserves citation:—