were all such as religious and orthodox men could sympathize with. But it was felt, and truly felt, that their prophecies were encroaching on the supreme authority of Scripture, and that they were presuming to add to what had been written. From the time of the breaking out of Montanism, greater care was taken than had been used before, to prevent any unauthorized uninspired composition from seeming to be placed on a level with Scripture. And so the Epistle of Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas, and one or two writings more, which had been admitted into Church reading, were then excluded, and fell so rapidly into such neglect, that copies have scarcely survived to our day. And it is the real truth that those who accept these modern revelations, and draw proofs of doctrines from them, have really a different Bible, not only from us, but from the Council of Trent. The Church of Rome is but dissembling a schism when she allows differences to remain unsettled, affecting the very foundations of faith when what is accepted by one as the voice of God Himself is set down as a dream of silly women by another.

In what I have said I have only contemplated revelations made in visions to their recipients, belonging thus to the class of what may be called invisible miracles. But there who appears in the dress she wore last season. See the passage quoted from Father Harper, p. 202, and another in this very article of Father Ryder.

Finally, he denies that the new things taught by modern revelations can properly be called doctrines. I do not know how else to call them. What I understand by 'doctrines' is 'revealed facts.' If God has really revealed anything, our obligation to believe it is all the same, no matter who the organ may be through whom the revelation was made; whether it be St. John or St. Paul, St. Bridget or St. Catherine. Our only concern is to know whether or not a real revelation has been made. The Church of Rome is willing to tell her people that they are bound to believe what is delivered to them by St. John and St. Paul. Why will she not give the same information with regard to things which later persons, whom she honours as saints, profess to have received by divine revelation?

It cannot be said that these things do not affect practice. One specimen is enough. It is asserted that it was revealed through St. Simon Stock that no one who dies wearing the scapular can possibly be lost: in quo quis moriens æternum non patietur incendium.' Surely the revelation of a certain means of escaping the flames of hell deserves to be called a doctrine, if anything can. Other things are taught about Purgatory on the same authority which, if true, ought seriously to affect practice. Why will not the infallible authority tell us positively whether we are to believe these things or not?

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THE MIRACLE OF LA SALETTE.

219

have been, in my own recollection, miracles of still higher pretensions; yet concerning these, too, the infallible authority will not tell us what to think. I address an audience so much junior to myself, that some of the things I remember as having at the time made the greatest sensation are to you forgotten stories of things that happened before you were born; yet they serve well to illustrate the practical working of the Roman system. I can call to mind more revelations than one, not hidden away in biographies of saints, whence they can be drawn forth by enthusiastic preachers, but coming forth into the world, forcing their way into the newspapers, and challenging even the investigation of the law courts.

The miracle of La Salette took place 19th September, 1846. Two children minding cows on a lonely mountain in the diocese of Grenoble were surprised by the apparition of a fine lady robed in a splendid yellow dress, wearing varnished shoes, and with a head-dress of ribbons and flowers. She told them that she was the Virgin Mary; discoursed to them on the sins of France, and gave them messages in the name of her Son. The children told the story: the matter was noised abroad; pilgrimages were made to the scene of the occurrence; the place soon became crowded with visitors; chapels arose; inns were opened, medals were struck, the sale of the water of La Salette soon came to be a gainful traffic, for it had not only virtue in curing diseases, but a few drops even operated the conversion of an obstinate sinner, in whose liquor it had been mixed without his knowledge. Among the pilgrims was Cardinal Newman's friend and diocesan, Bishop Ullathorne of Birmingham. He published an account of his visit, professing full belief in the reality of the miracle. He opened at Stratford-on-Avon a chapel to our Lady of La Salette, and introduced the Confraternity of La Salette into his diocese. His pamphlet claims Papal sanction for the new devotion. By a Brief, dated 26th August, 1852, the Pope, as we are told, made the altar of La Salette a privileged altar, gave a plenary indulgence to visitors to the shrine, besides other privileges too tedious to enumerate. A priest of Bishop Ullathorne's, a Mr. Wyse, published under

the bishop's sanction a Manual of the Confraternity of La Salette. Mr. Wyse remonstrates indignantly with those of his co-religionists who still withhold faith from the story. 'The truth of the apparition of La Salette,' he says, 'is incontestable; the proofs are such that it is worthy of the fullest belief. Yet because it is not of faith, that is to say, because a man will not be damned for not believing it, the faith of some who call themselves Catholics is so ungenerous and thrifty, that they refuse their assent.' 'In matters of faith,' he tells us, 'God loves a cheerful giver: He is not pleased with those who seek what is the very minimum of belief which will secure their salvation. In these days of infidelity, supernatural faith, cultivated for safety's sake to the very utmost, is the only security against the vilest errors.'

This language expresses a state of feeling I believe to be very common among Roman Catholics; but surely it is very absurd. It is accounted faith not only to believe all that God says, but also to believe anyone who says that God has said a thing. Should I account it a compliment if anyone told me that he had such faith in me that he would not only believe anything I said, but anything that anyone said I said? The result certainly would be, that although no one has any particular motive to misrepresent me, he would believe a good deal I never said, and some things I should be sorry to be thought to have said. It is really not faith in the Divine Word, but want of faith, if the belief which is due to a divine revelation is thoughtlessly given to anyone who claims it. A man could not think much of his dog's attachment to him if he was a dog that would follow anybody.

In the present case the result proved that a certain suspension of judgment might be pardonable. Some of the clergy of the neighbouring dioceses declared the whole apparition to be an imposture, and denied (I am sure I do not know whether with truth or not) that the Pope had given the alleged approbation. The Salettites declared that this was envy and jealousy on the part of men whose own shrines had suffered a decrease of pilgrims, in consequence of the superior attractions of the new shrine. Then their adversaries pro

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THE MIRACLE OF LOURDES.

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ceeded to particulars. It was asserted that the virgin who appeared to the children was a certain Constance Lamerlière, a nun, half knave, half crazy, who could be proved to have purchased the dress in which the Virgin appeared, and whose connexion with the apparition could in other ways be proved. This was stated so persistently that Constance Lamerlière was forced to accept the challenge, and bring an action for defamation of character; but the Court decided against her, and the decision was confirmed on appeal. I shall not pretend that the decision was conclusive, for I believe that there are still Roman Catholics who believe in La Salette; but I fear that the apparition must be pronounced a failure, as having caused more scandal to unbelievers than edification to the faithful, unless the large pecuniary gains it brought to the parties interested may redeem it from the charge of being altogether a failure.

Scarcely had the excitement provoked by the events of La Salette begun to subside, when the supernaturalist party dealt a heavier blow against their opponents by what was called the miracle of Lourdes. In this spot, in Gascony, Bernadotte Soubirous, a poor girl of fourteen, on February 11, 1858, while picking up dry wood, saw a beautiful lady robed in white, with a blue sash, and the vision was afterwards several times repeated. On being asked who she was, the lady answered, 'I am the Immaculate Conception.' She invited the girl to drink at a fountain. The child, seeing no fountain, scraped away some earth with her hands. A little water filtered through the orifice: it increased gradually in volume, became perfectly clear, and now supplies to the faithful I do not know how many millions of bottles, which are in large demand for the purpose of effecting supernatural cures. The local bishop gave his sanction to the miracle; pilgrimages to the shrine were organized, and pilgrimages are now made easy. It is not, as in former days, when a devout pilgrim had to walk over half Europe with or without peas in his shoes. Railway Companies are only too glad to organize excursion trains, and secure for their line an undue share of the tourist traffic. Only the other day the chairmen of the other

Companies were looking with envy at the profits the Midland Great Western Company were deriving from the miracles at Knock.* True, there is a number of incredulous people who object that the witness to the Lourdes miracle is a child subject to hallucinations; and the speech I am the Immaculate Conception,' does put a severe strain on one's faith. It is said, however, that the miracles worked by the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes ought to banish all incredulity. But what I complain of is, that when there is an infallible guide he will not interfere to clear our doubts. Why should he leave us in danger of mistaking the utterances of a crazy nun or the ravings of a hysteric child for miraculous communications from the Blessed Virgin; or, conversely, of rejecting a message from heaven?

Perhaps one reason why we must despair of getting a solution of our doubts from this quarter is, that infallibility is said to be subject to an unfortunate limitation. The Pope, though infallible on questions of doctrine, is liable to be deceived by human testimony about a matter of fact. You may remember reading in Burnet of the use made of this distinction in the Jansenist controversy. The adversaries of the Jansenists had obtained a papal condemnation of certain propositions from the work of Jansenius. As devout Catholics, the Jansenists were forced to confess that the doctrines condemned by the Pope were false, but they saved the credit of their master by saying that these propositions had not been asserted by him, at least not in the erroneous sense. Their adversaries, determined not to permit themselves to be thus balked of their

A small village in the county of Mayo, where the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, and a third personage, supposed to be St. John, are affirmed to have appeared to many persons on the evening of 21st August, 1879, and in the early days of 1880. The scene of the alleged apparitions was the exterior of the southern gable of the sacristy attached to the Roman Catholic chapel of the parish. See The Apparitions and Miracles at Knock, by John Mac Philpin (Dublin : Gill & Son, 1880); in which tract will be found a full account of the matter, with the depositions of witnesses made before a commission of priests appointed by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, and the particulars of many miraculous cures reported by the Roman Catholic priest of Knock as having been effected in blind, crippled, and diseased persons who have visited the chapel, or swallowed particles of mortar taken from the wall.