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"True, again, we have all heard of miracles being wrought ever sincethe 'age of miracles' passed away to return no more. We had, and stillhave, our saints credited with performing the most miraculous cures;and, if we can believe their biographers, there have been those amongthem who have been personally visited by the Queen of Heaven. ButSatan sleepeth not, and the first germs of doubt, and ever-increasingunbelief in such wonders, already had begun to sprout in Christendomas early as the sixteenth century. It was just at that time that a new andterrible heresy first made its appearance in the north of Germany.* *Luther's reform] A great star 'shining as it were a lamp... fell upon thefountains waters'... and 'they were made bitter.' This 'heresy'blasphemously denied 'miracles.' But those who had remained faithfulbelieved all the more ardently, the tears of mankind ascended to Him asheretofore, and the Christian world was expecting Him as confidentlyas ever; they loved Him and hoped in Him, thirsted and hungered tosuffer and die for Him just as many of them had done before.... So manycenturies had weak, trusting humanity implored Him, crying withardent faith and fervour: 'How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thounot come ' So many long centuries hath it vainly appealed to Him, thatat last, in His inexhaustible compassion, He consenteth to answer theprayer.... He decideth that once more, if it were but for one short hour, the people-His long-suffering, tortured, fatally sinful, his loving andchild-like, trusting people-shall behold Him again. The scene of actionis placed by me in Spain, at Seville, during that terrible period of theInquisition, when, for the greater glory of God, stakes were flaming allover the country.