Note 246 — Chapter XII · 1608-1700. OVERGROWING INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIETY.

This man is famous for working miracles. He is said to have restored to life his dear companion, a pig, which had been stolen from him, after it had been killed and eaten, and its bones thrown into a furnace; just as Thor, the great Scandinavian god, restored to life his ram. Another great miracle is recorded of him by his panegyrist. Having been forbidden by his superior (St Antony was a monk) to work too many miracles, he one day found himself in a great perplexity. As he was passing through a street, he heard a poor mason, in the act of falling from a lofty building, call upon him by name for a miracle. The poor saint, not knowing what to do, had recourse to an expedient. “Stop a moment,” said he, to the falling man, “till I go for the permission of the Father Superior;” and the man waited suspended in the air till he returned with permission to work the miracle!