Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: of blood.1 Self-flagellation, indeed, is sanctioned by the Popish church. The Roman Breviary, published by the authority of Pius, Clement, and Urban, has recommended the absurdity by its approbation. This publication details and eulogizes the flagellations practised by the Roman saints. These encomiums on the disciplinarian whip are read on the festivals of these canonized flagellators. The work containing these commendations, is authorized by three Pontiffs, and received with the utmost unanimity by the whole communion. The usage, therefore, in all its ridiculousness, possesses the sanction of infallibility. This improved species of penance was adopted by the friendly monks of the age of the crusades, who, with a lusty arm, belaboured the luckless backs of the penitential criminals, men and women, even of the highest rank in society. The nobility, gentry, and peasantry, the emperor, the king, the lord, the lady, the servant, and the soldier, as well as the cardinal, the metropolitan, the bishop, the priest, the monk, and the nun, all joined in the painful and disgusting extravagance.2 Cardinal Damian in 1056, brought it into fashion, and Dominic, Pardolf, Anthelm, Maria, Margaret, Hedwig, Hildegard, and Cecald, who have all, men and women, been canonized, followed Damian's example, and lacerated their backs for the good of their souls. The Roman Breviary, already mentioned, edited by three Popes, commends many of its saints for their happy and frequent application of the whip to their naked backs. Self- flagellation, according to Pontifical authority, became, in their hands, the sanctified means of superior holiness. This roll contains the celebrated names of Xavier, Canutus, Francisca, Regu- latus, Bernard, Franciscus, Teresia, and Bcrtrand. Xavier, the Indian apostle, wie...