Probationer is, in the Church of Scotland, a stu- dent in divinity, who, bringing a certificate from a pro- fessor in a university of his good morals, and his hav- ing performed his exercises to approbation, is admitted to undergo several trials before the presbytery, and upon his acquitting himself properly in these, receives a license to preach. See also Probation.
Probity ; honesty, sincerity, or veracity. " It con- sists in the habit of actions useful to society, and in the constant observance of the laws which justice and con- science impose upon us. The man who obeys all the laws of society with an exact punctuality is not, there- fore, a man of probity ; laws can only respect the exter- nal and definite parts of human conduct; but probity respects our more private actions, and such as it is im- possible in all cases to define; and it appears to be in morals what charity is in religion. Probity teaches us to perform in society those actions which no external power can oblige us to perform, and is that quality in the human mind from which we claim the performance of the rights commonly called imperfect." — Buck, s.v.
Probst. See Spreng.
Probus, a Christian martyr under Diocletian and Maximian, in the beginning of the 4th century, was born at Sida, in Pamphylia. He was repeatedly called up before Maximus, the governor of Cilicia, and com- manded to sacrifice to the heathen deities. But he in- variably refused, and his conduct was marked by the strongest decision. He was on one occasion scourged, both on his back and bell}', which only called forth from the intrepid man the remark, " The more my body suffers and loses blood, the more my soul will grow vig- orous and be a gainer." After an ineffectual attempt to destroy him by means of wild beasts, he was finally slain by a sword, rejoicing to suffer persecution for righteousness' sake. See Fox, Book of Martyrs, p. 43.
Probus Lector, an Irish monastic, flourished in
PROCACCINI
010
PROCEDURE
the Monastery of Slane, Ireland, A.D. 949. His orig- inal name wa> Ceanckair, bat, like many Irish scholars and missionaries of thai period, he Latinized it. lie wrote the first Lif of St. Patrick about 600 years after the saint's death. Piacre had previously written some verses on the saint, and Muirchu had alluded to him in another work, bul the firs! Lift of St. Patrick was from the pen of Probus. He gives no authorities fur his statements in 1 1 1 i - Life, and we know of none then ex- tant that he could have given. He wrote in a dark period, the midnight of the Dark Ages. He seems to have written from his own fancy, viewing the eccle- siastical affairs of the infant Church of Ireland in the 5th century through the medium of his own times. Bishop Lanigan, the Roman Catholic historian, admits that his facts cannot he distinguished from his fancies. He became a devotee and a high ritualist, and was es- teemed in his day a very holy and learned man. When the pagan Danes set tire to the Monastery of slane. he refused to be separated from the precious MSS. and relic- in it. and rushed into the Barnes and perished with them. His Life of St. Patrick, anil still more thai of Jocelin, who wrote about 150 years after him. have ever since been the store-house from which the ma- terial of every Roman Catholic Life of the Irish saint has been drawn. Jocelin lived in an age of fiction in regard to Ireland, and seems to have written according to the liveliness of his fancy or to the supposed creduli- ty of his readers. He asserted many things about St. Patrick which had never been heard of before and for which he gives no authority, and which intelligent Catholics now indignantly reject. Dr. Colgan,the Irish antiquarian, says that the fable of the expulsion of the venomous Berpents from Ireland was for the firsl time put forth by Jocelin. This and similar fabrications being thus boldly and dogmatically asserted in a dark age, and remaining for centuries uncontradicted, thou- sands afterwards received them as historical facts. Dr. Johnson Bays somew here. •• < tin- may tell a bona-fide lie. and if he shall tell it over ten times, and no one shall contradict him. he will begin to believe it himself." This has been really true in regard to Ireland. Fables and monstrosities remaining thus uncontradicted have been credited by thousands, while others who could not receive them have foolishly and sceptically thrown aside well-attested truths and regarded nearly all Irish history as fabulous. Perhaps the real life and charac- ter of no one, so long and so thoroughly incorporated in history, are so little known as those ofSt. Patrick. See Moore. Ili.<t. of Ireland; Usher, Religion of the Early rrish. (D.D.)
Procaccini, Camillo, an Italian painter who contributed to sacred art, was born in loll!. He re- ceived bis first instruction in the school of his father, and afterwards visited Rome, where some biographers
say that he studied I he works of Michael Angelo and
Raphael. Procaccini wrought uninterruptedly, and pro- duced paintings at such a rate that his works, though they charm the eye by the simplicity and spirit which characterize them, arc' greatly deficient in the higher power of impressing the mind and moving the affec- tion . His St.Roch Administering to the Sick of th