Page 31     

                                                                                                                                                                    `                                                                                   

Tenth Rose
 
Rosary and also to erect a Confraternity in the city of Cologne.
Unfortunately two priests who were famous for their preach­
ing ability were jealous of the great influence they were exerting
through preaching the Rosary. So these two Fathers spoke
against this devotion whenever they had a chance, and as they were very eloquent and had a great
reputation they persuaded many people not to join the Confraternity.
One of them, bound and determined to achieve his wicked
end, wrote a special sermon against the Rosary and planned to give it the following Sunday. But
when it came time for the sermon he never appeared and, after a certain amount of waiting
somebody went to fetch Him. He was found dead, and evidently had died all alone without any one to
help him and without seeing a priest.
After convincing himself that death had been due to natural causes, the other priest decided to
carry out his friend's plan and to give a similar sermon on another day. In this way he hoped to
put an end to the Confraternity of the Rosary. However, when the day came for him to preach and
it was time to give the sermon God punished him by striking him down with paralysis which deprived
him both of the use of his limbs and of his power of speech.
At last he admitted his sin and likewise that of his friend and immediately, in his heart of
hearts, he silently besought Our Lady to help him. He promised her that if she would only cure him
he would preach the Holy Rosary with as much zeal
as that with which he had formerly fought against it. For this end he implored her to restore his
health and speech which she did, and finding himself instantaneously cured he rose up like another
Saul, a persecutor turned defender of the Holy Rosary. He publicly acknowledged his former error
and ever after preached the wonders of the Most Holy Rosary with great zeal and eloquence.
I am quite sure that freethinkers and ultra-critical people of today will question the truth of
the stories in this little book,
in the very same way that they have always questioned most things, but all that I have done has
been to copy them from very good contemporary writers and also, in part, from a book that was
written only a short time ago: ''The Mystical Rose Tree," by the Reverend Antonin Thomas, O.P.
Everyone knows that there are three different kinds of faith by which we believe different kinds of
stories:
To stories of Holy Scripture we owe divine faith;

                                                                                                                                                                    `