WITH EIGHT FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 1914 Nihil Obstat: S. GEORGIUS KIERAN HYLAND, S.T.D., CENSOR DEPUTATUS Imprimatur: GULIELMUS F. BROWN, VICARIUS GENERALIS, SOUTHWARCENSI. 15 Maii, 1914....

Since writing the following pages six years ago, I have had the privilege of meeting a famous French scientist—to whom we owe one of the greatest discoveries of recent years—who has made a special study of Lourdes and its phenomena, and of hearing him comment upon what takes place there. He is, himself, at present, not a practising Catholic; and this fact lends peculiar interest to his opinions. His conclusions, so far as he has formulated them, are as follows: (1) That no scientific hypothesis

We were in Lourdes again next morning a little after six o'clock; and already it might have been high noon, for the streets were one moving mass of pilgrims. From every corner came gusts of singing; and here and there through the crowd already moved the brancardiers —men of every nation with shoulder-straps and cross—bearing the litters with their piteous burdens. I was to say Mass in the crypt; and when I arrived there at last, the church was full from end to end. The interior was not so disapp

I awoke to that singing again, in my room above the door of the hotel; and went down presently to say my Mass in the Rosary Church, where, by the kindness of the Scottish priest of whom I have spoken, an altar had been reserved for me. The Rosary Church is tolerably fine within. It has an immense flattened dome, beyond which stands the high altar; and round about are fifteen chapels dedicated to the Fifteen Mysteries, which are painted above their respective altars. But I was to say Mass in a li

I said a midnight Mass that night in the same chapel of the Rosary Church as on the previous morning. Again the crush was terrific. On the steps of the church I saw a friar hearing a confession; and on entering I found High Mass proceeding in the body of the church itself, with a congregation so large and so worn-out that many were sleeping in constrained attitudes among the seats. In fact, I was informed, since the sleeping accommodation of Lourdes could not possibly provide for so large a pilg

In the afternoon we went down to meet a priest who had promised a place to one of our party in the window of which I have spoken before. But the crowd was so great that we could not find him, so presently we dispersed as best we could. Two other priests and myself went completely round the outside of the churches, in order, if possible, to join in the procession, since to cross the square was a simple impossibility. In the terrible crush near the Bureau, I became separated from the others, and f

The moment Benediction was given, the room began rapidly to fill; but I still watched the singing crowd outside. Among others I noticed a woman, placid and happy—such a woman as you would see a hundred times a day in London streets, with jet ornaments in her hat, middle-aged, almost startlingly commonplace. No, nothing dramatic happened to her; that was the point. But there she was, taking it all for granted, joining in the Magnificat with a roving eye, pleased as she would have been pleased at