text:  In support of his denunciation the cripple proceeded to state how he had watched the mysterious female called "Mother Magdalena " and had observed that she never would enter any consecrated building; how she would daily advance up the steps of the church and then pause before the threshold as if she feared to pass it and then throw herself down upon the stones before the gate where she would lie in strange convulsions and at last return without having penetrated into the building--an evident proof that the devil she served had forbidden her to put her foot into any sacred dwelling but had taught her nevertheless to approach near enough to treat the awful mysteries of the Christian religion performed within with mockery and contempt