Chapter IX. Protection against the snares of the devil

There is one special influence which the medal of the holy Patriarch St. Benedict possesses, and which may be called the principal object for which God has given this gift to the faithful — the power it possesses to frustrate the devil’s stratagems. We here mention a few facts which will do more than merely interest our readers ; they will suggest to them what they themselves may do, should they ever find themselves in circumstances which now-a-days are anything but impossible.

In 1839, a celebrated magnetizer, who had performed several wonderful things in different towns in France, stopped at T , where he advertised that he was going to give public performances. He took about with him to all these different places a young girl on whom he exercised his mesmerism, and he drew crowded audiences by the extraordinary effects he produced on this poor victim. In the town of which we are now speaking, he attracted an immense crowd by his advertisement. The lecture was to be given in a very large room, which anciently had been a church, but had been 1 See Life of St.- Benedict., chaps, xvi., xxx.

turned to profane uses long before this. The hour came; but nothing that the magnetizer did, had the slightest effect, and the girl remained unmoved by all his passes. The audience was dismissed, and the money returned to those who grumbled at being disappointed. A few hours after, placards were plastered up all over the town, announcing a second meeting, at such an hour, in the Town Hall. But this time also, the lecturer could do nothing, and after all his trouble and expense, he stole away from the town. Next day came the papers with their scientific explanations of the failure. One would have it that the room had been too hot, another that the gas was too much turned on, and the rest. Of course, none of them assigned the true cause. A nun who had happened to hear of the proposed lecture, and knowing that the Church is opposed to the practice of mesmerism, resolved on thwarting the operations of the lecturer, so far as they had any connection with the devil. All she did was to hang out of her cell window a medal of St. Benedict, and beg the intervention of the holy Patriarch. The result was what we have related, and the prince of k the power of this air , 1 as the Apostle calls Satan, was vanquished.

In the year 1840, the town council of S proposed to widen one of the streets, though it was already quite wide enough for the traffic. The measure was carried, and it was resolved that they should pull down a large portion of a church dedicated to our Blessed Lady, and much frequented by pilgrims. In order to 1 Eph. ii. 2.

A carry out this plan, they began to build a partition wall the whole length of the church. Our Lady’s altar was within the part to be taken down, and therefore was to be destroyed by this whim of the street commissioners. The wall had risen twenty feet, and one may imagine the mess and confusion in the church caused by the masons. A gentleman who was passing through the town, was grieved to see such a sad profanation, and going up to the statue of our Lady, which had been brought from its own place into the portion of the church which was to be spared, he put a medal of St. Benedict on the pedestal. A few days after, the town surveyor, who had been mainly instrumental in this measure, died suddenly. His successor, when coming to inspect the works, soon perceived how totally unnecessary such a change was, even were it not a desecration, and stopped the works. The next day, he went before the town council and submitted to its consideration so satisfactory a report upon the matter, that the first decision was revoked. The wall, which had almost reached as high as the ceiling, was taken down, and the people saw their dear old church given back to them.

In one of our French towns, a certain gentleman of high position, placed over some most important works, had in his employ a man whom the enemy of all good made use of as a tool, to lessen the influence of his master. All hopes of his amendment had been abandoned, and the evil increased day by day, when some one in the establishment put a medal of St. Benedict over the framework of the room-door of this man who had proved so mischievous in his position of trust. From that time forward to remain in the room became next to impossible for him. On the 20th of March 18 — , at twelve o’clock, the hour at which the first vespers of St. Benedict were ending, on account of its being Lent, 1 he threw up his employment, and on the following day, which was the feast of St. Benedict, he quitted the establishment.

Not far from the city of Rennes, there was a cate and billiard-room kept by a good Catholic family. For some years they had noticed strange symptoms of the place being infested with demons. When there was no one at the billiard-table, noises and voices were sometimes heard as though there were a large party playing; pieces of furniture were changed from place to place in the house without any one of the family touching them ; doors opened and shut apparently of themselves, and a strange noise was heard in the bedrooms. One Christmas night, the servant had gone up to the attic to get herself ready for midnight mass, when she found all that part of the house filled with a thick smoke, in the midst of which there was a something, which she could not lay hold of, moving to and fro. She screamed, hurried out of the place, and fainted. But these strange appearances were frequently happening, and of course kept the inmates of the house in a state of continual alarm. They had got many masses

1 The ancient discipline of the Church was not to break the fast before Vespers (sunset). Therefore in Lent, from the first Sunday, to observe this very ancient tradition, Vespers are anticipated and recited before the time when the principal meal is allowed to be taken. — Ed said for the dead, and had had the house blessed with the formula prescribed by the Church for these occasions, but up to that time all had proved ineffectual. Nothing, therefore, remained for the inmates of the house but to abandon it, though it was quite new, and they had hoped to find it a convenient and comfortable home. A pious woman spoke to them about St. Benedict’s medal, and persuaded them to make use of it. They began by putting it over every door in the house, and immediately all was quiet. But they had not thought of placing the sign of salvation in the doorway leading to the cellar, and all the fury of the evil spirits seemed to concentrate there, so great was the noise and disorder which began to be heard from that quarter. The medal was put there also, and the influence of Satan seemed at last to have entirely quitted the house; not, however, without seeking his revenge by there and then taking possession of the person who related all this to the writer. Cruel indeed were the sufferings which the devil caused his victim to endure both in body and soul. This person, however, obtained, after some time, deliverance from this terrible trial by following the counsels of an enlightened director, who recommended the poor sufferer not to be afraid of the devil, and to pronounce frequently the holy names of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

In the year 1863, a community of nulls, who kept a boarding-school at A , noticed that first the glasslamps in the study place, and then those in the refectory of the boarding-school, were by turns broken. The drinking glasses of the lay-sisters, in like manner, were found broken in the refectory drawers. No system of supervision was able to bring to light the cause of the mischief, which was of daily occurrence. This state of affairs lasted for several weeks, when the idea came to the mind of one of the sisters of having recourse to the medal of St. Benedict. The nuns put this medal in the lamps and in the drawers, and forthwith the accidents ceased. But what was more astonishing still, was, that the lamps which lighted the galleries and the other rooms of the house were now attacked in their turn, and the breakages began again worse than ever. They only ceased, after the sisters had taken the resolution of employing the same means, which had been so successful in the study room and refectory of the establishment. Then at last were they freed from all further annoyances.

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