The whole effect was, perhaps, somewhat theatrical and thin, but it showed none the less earnestness in making the old "Isle of Saints" a protest against the hated modern world.
As if to bid defiance still further to modern liberalism, great store of relics was sent in; among these, pieces of the true cross, of the white and purple robes, of the crown of thorns, sponge, lance, and winding-sheet of Christ,--the hair, robe, veil, and girdle of the Blessed Virgin; relics of St.John the Baptist, St.Joseph, St.Mary Magdalene, St.Paul, St.Barnabas, the four evangelists, and a multitude of other saints: so many that the bare mention of these treasures requires twenty-four distinct heads in the official catalogue recently published at the monastery.

Besides all this--what was considered even more powerful in warding off harm from the revived monastery--the bones of Christian martyrs were brought from the Roman catacombs and laid beneath the altars.( 264) (264) See the Guide des Visiteurs a Lerins, published at the Monastery in 1880, p.

204; also the Histoire de Lerins, mentioned below.
All was thus conformed to the medieval view; nothing was to be left which could remind one of the nineteenth century; the "ages of faith" were to be restored in their simplicity.

Pope Leo XIII commended to the brethren the writings of St.Thomas Aquinas as their one great object of study, and works published at the monastery dwelt upon the miracles of St.Honorat as the most precious refutation of modern science.
High in the cupola, above the altars and relics, were placed the bells.
Sent by pious donors, they were solemnly baptized and consecrated in 1871, four bishops officiating, a multitude of the faithful being present from all parts of Europe, and the sponsors of the great tenor bell being the Bourbon claimant to the ducal throne of Parma and his duchess.

The good bishop who baptized the bells consecrated them with a formula announcing their efficacy in driving away the "Prince of the Power of the Air" and the lightning and tempests he provokes.
And then, above all, at the summit of the central spire, high above relics, altars, and bells, was placed--A LIGHTNING-ROD!( 265) (265) See Guide, as above, p.84.Les Isles de Lerins, by the Abbe Alliez (Paris, 1860), and the Histoire de Lerins, by the same author, are the authorities for the general history of the abbey, and are especially strong in presenting the miracles of St.Honorat, etc.