Life of St John Vianney.pdf - the Catholic Kingdom!

"The""126 THE CUR^ OP ARS.inclined to give credit to any supernatural agency in theseoccurrences, for which they were industrious and ingenious indiscoveringnatural causes.It is a mistake,"says M. Monnin, "to represent the clergy as a credulousbody of men. Credulity is in an inverse ratio to faith.Those who know not God are credulous from the sheernecessity of believing something, which is an instinct sostrong, so imperious, in the heart of man, that he wouldrather believe too much, believe everything, than believenothing. He would rather renounce all reason than giveupall faith. But he who has submitted his reason to(he Divine teaching of faith, feels no need of believinganything but what God has revealed, and the Church%teaches.brethren of M. Vianney sought, then, in theimmoderate fasts and vigils of the holy man for naturaland physiological causes of these diabolical manifestations ; an explanation more summary and convenient thansatisfactory. If the Cure of Ars, said they, would livelike other people, if he would take hisproper amount ofsleep and nourishment like them, this effervescence of theimagination would be quieted, his brain would no longerbe peopled with spectres, and all this infernal phantasmagoria would vanish.At the time when these prejudices were at their height,an occurrence took place which was related to M. Monninby one of the eye-witnesses, who offers to attest thefollowing relation by his :signature In the winter of1826, M. Granger, the venerable Cure of St. Trivier-sur-Moignans, requested M. Vianney, for whom he had avery great esteem and veneration, to join the missionarieswho were about to give the exercises of the great jubileein his parish. M. Vianney consented to his neighbour s