the presbytery, hurt one of her legs—­broke the knee cap of it, we believe—­and had to be carried straight to bed.  Medical aid was obtained; but the injured knee was obstinate, wouldn’t be mended, and when physic and hope alike had been abandoned, so far as the leg of Alice was concerned, the Rev. Father Norris, who, in conjunction with the Rev. Father Weston, was at that time stationed at St. Wilfrid’s, was struck with a somewhat bright thought as to the potency of St. Walburge’s oil.  A little of that oil was procured, and this is what a sister of the injured woman says, in a letter which we have seen on the subject, viz.:—­That Father Norris dipped a pen into the oil and dropped a morsel of it upon her knee, whereupon “the bones immediately snapped together and she was perfectly cured, having no longer the slightest weakness in the broken limb.”

This is a strange tale, which people can either believe or disbelieve at their own pleasure.  All Protestants—­ourselves included—­will necessarily be dubious; and if any polemical lecturer should happen to see the story he will go wild with delight, and consider that there is material enough in it for at least six good declamatory and paying discourses.  Well, whether correct or false, the priests at St. Wilfrid’s believed in the “miraculous cure,” and decided forthwith to agitate for a church in honour of St. Walburge.  That church is the one we now see on Maudlands—­a vast and magnificent pile, larger in its proportions than any other Preston place of worship, and with a spire which can only be equalled for altitude by two others in the whole country.  What a potent architectural charm was secreted in that mystic oil with which Father Norris touched the knee of Alice!  In the “Walpurgis dance of globule and oblate spheroid,” there may be something wonderful, but through this drop of oil from the Walpurgian shrine an obstreperous knee snapped up into compact health instantly, and then a large church, ornamental to Preston and creditable to the entire Catholic population, arose.  There used to be a hospital, dedicated to Mary Magdalen, either actually upon or very near the site occupied by St. Walburge’s Church; but that building disappeared long ago, and no one can tell the exact character of it.  Prior to, and until the completion of, the erection of St. Walburge’s Church, schools intended for it, and built mainly at the expense of the late Mr. W. Talbot, were raised on some adjoining land.  Service in accordance with the Catholic ritual was held therein until the completion of the Church.  Father Weston was the leading spirit in the construction of St. Walburge’s, and to him—­although well assisted by Father Williams—­may be attributed the main honour of its development into reality.  Father Cobb, of St. Wilfrid’s, laid the foundation stone of St. Walburge’s Church, on Whit-Monday, 1850; and on the 3rd of August, 1854, the building was opened, the ceremony being of a very grand and imposing description.  The spire of the church was not completed until 1887.  The entire cost of the place has been about 15,000 pounds.