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The Upper Rhine : Mayence to the Lake of Constance
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344

DOMESTIC MANNERS OF THE PKUSSIANS.

gives an average of r.early 20,000 daily attendants. Nowthis so-called Holy Coat is feigned to be the identical garmentwithout a seam worn by Christ himself; * and though the im-position is of so glaring a character that no person possessing abrain bigger than a walnut would credit it for one moment,nevertheless, 1 in every 15 individuals of the entire Prussianpopulation made a pilgrimage to the city, in order to set eyeson the rag; the daily number of attendants being no less thanhalf as many as those who flocked to our own Great Exhibition.If, then, we consider the character of the two " shows "—the blasphemous cheat practised at the one, and the wondrousdisplay of all the world's art and science concentrated at theother; and, moreover, how none but the merest .simpletons

* This garment is exhibited only at long intervals of time—between 25 and30 years; but we are credibly informed that it is very doubtful as to whether itwill be ever shown again in public: for during the last exhibition so manyRomistsseceded frora the Church, and founded the new seet of German Catholics underRonge (the autbor of the celebrated letter denouncing the imposition), that thePapal authorities will fear to cause a similarly large (or, probably—owing to thespread of knowledge — a much greater) secession, by another exhibition. Never-theless, a considerable number of the German people may be Seen to carry smallmedals of the " Heilige Rock," as indicative, not only that they still belongto the " faithful," but that they formed part of the pilgrims who visited the relic.These medals have touched the hem of th# venerated garment, and the simplewearers of them pray to them and kiss them when they are sick or in trouble.No mention of the existence of this coat occurs in history until the year 1000.The Romists, nevertheless, aver that it was deposited in the Cathedral of Trierby St. Helena, the founder of the edifice, mother of Constantine the Great, andpseudo-dhcoverer of the cross of Christ, on May 3d, a.d. 328. But, Helenawas the wife of Constantius Chlorus, the Roman emperor, who died at York, inGreat Britain, A.D. 306 ; so that, as she was born in the year 247, she must havebeen just upon 60 when she became a widow. Nevertheless, 22 years after thatevent, when the old lady must have reached her 81st year, according to Cocker— and 258 years, too, after Titus had razed the holy city to the ground—thevenerable dame, as the tale runs, dug up the three crosses on Mount Calvary,and was enabled to distinguish that on which Christ suffered from those of thetwo thieves by its immediately curing a sick woman who touched it. But if thisfeat could have been performed only in the lady's octogenarianhood, surely shemust have been an extraordinary woman to have been able to visit Germany