cost, yet that, as a matter of fact, he has ceased for many long years to do so? Let us suppose, for instance, one who allows the Gospel miracles, and the miracles of the Primitive Church, but denies that for centuries any well-attested miracle can be adduced, and who sets aside the wonders ascribed to St. Francis of Assisi, St. Vincent Ferrer, St. Francis Xavier, St. Philip Neri, and many more, as mere inventions, and who, with far more eager incredulity, rejects the wonders of our own day, and treats Lourdes as of no efficacy beyond that of a medicinal spring, and the liquefaction of St. Januarius' blood as a downright imposture? Perhaps our first answer to such a one would be to point out the logical inconsistency of his position. If St. Gregory Thaumaturgus could work miracles, why not St. Francis or St. Dominic? The evidence is clearer in the latter case than in the former, and the sanctity of the lover of poverty and of the great founder of the order of preachers is contestable. But if our sceptic clings to his illogical position, how are we to deal with him?

To answer this we must distinguish between miracle and miracle. Modern miracles are of three kinds : 1. Those which have been examined by ecclesiastical authority and solemnly approved by the Holy See. 2. Those which have never received any formal approbation at Rome, but have been approved by some subordinate or local authority. 3. Those which have received no recognition or authorization whatever.

The former class consists of those miracles which have been brought before the Sacred Congregation in processes of canonization, have been carefully and solemnly weighed and scrutinized, and, after due scrutiny, have been declared proven. After this declaration to deny their genuineness would almost always be presumptuous and rash. Every possible precaution is taken against the acceptance of any fact as miraculous for which there is not the clearest and most certain evidence. An advocate is appointed to raise all possible objections, and urge them against each separate miracle, and to try and find other explanations by which the facts alleged could be explained; no pains is spared to admit only such evidence as would

But there is a further step in their authorization which turns rashness and presumption into something worse. When the Holy See decrees the elevation of one of her children to the altars of the Church, it is the common practice to adduce certain miracles performed through the saint's intercession as one of the proofs of sanctity. Now the decree of canonization is an ex-cathedra act of the Holy See, and therefore accepted by Catholics as infallible. It is impossible for the pope to err when he pronounces this or that man or woman to be one of the saints in heaven.t This inerrancy does not, however, attach to all the details and separate statements contained in the Bull of Canonization. The divine promise does not extend to the preamble to a definition nor to the reasons that are alleged in its support. Hence the miracles adduced as marks of the sanctity of the newlycanonized saint do not fall within the radius of absolute and indefeasible certainty resulting from the guarantee of immunity from error which is included in Christ's legacy to his Church. man who should refuse to accept one of the miracles cited would be no heretic ; he would not even incur any theological

A

* A Protestant lawyer lately visiting Rome at a time when a process for canonization was proceeding, had an introduction to one of the cardinals who was examining into the miracles attributed to the saint whom it was proposed to canonise. He ventured to express his scepticism as to the critical nature of the inquiry: on which the cardinal, handing him a set of

the papers containing some of the evidence, asked him to read them carefully, and give him his candid opinion as a lawyer on their value. In a few days the papers were returned with the remark that if any evidence could prove a miracle, that contained in the documents he had read was sufficient. "All that evidence, caro mio," was the cardinal's reply, we have rejected as inconclusive.'

censure by the mere refusal. No one would even have a right to condemn him as guilty of grievous sin. At the same time it would be difficult to excuse him of intolerable insolence. He would expose himself to the very gravest suspicion of disloyalty. The most charitable view to take of his conduct would be to regard him as having acted with a very imperfect knowledge of his duty as a Catholic, or as excusable propter magnam stultitiam, on account of some extraordinary perversity or prejudice amounting almost to monomania. But no one could say that he transgressed the Church's laws, and fell in any way under her condemnation by the mere fact of his rejection of the miracles thus approved, since they are neither de fide, nor even proxima ad fidem-neither a part of faith, nor indispensable for the maintenance of the faith. We might call them propinqua ad fidem-very near to faith; to reject them would be so presumptuous that it would be hard to believe that he who rejected them was a Catholic at heart.

With miracles not approved the case is quite different; I am free to accept them or not as I please. In the case of miracles not adduced in the Bull of canonization, but admitted as proven by the sacred congregation appointed to examine the cause of some canonized saint, the man who should deny them would be audacious, or something worse, unless he had the strongest grounds for the bold step of setting up his own individual judgment against the decision of the sacred tribunal; but yet no one would have a right to condemn him or accuse him of disloyalty. The elaborate scrutiny to which miracles adduced as evidence of sanctity are subjected, the almost sceptical spirit in which they are examined into by the members of the sacred congregation, is sufficient to satisfy any reasonable man that no miracle can possibly pass the ordeal unless it is a genuine miracle. With the details of the process of canonization we are not at present concerned. This alone we will say, that any miracle accepted in the process may be safely recognized as a genuine indisputable miracle, while, on the other hand, many a miracle which is rejected as not proven is, notwithstanding, a bona fide su

NEW SERIES.-VOL. XXXVII. No. I

pernatural intervention of the divine power, and is set aside only because of the scrupulous care which is taken to pass nothing which is in any way doubtful. IV.

The next class we have to examine, and the one we are more especially concerned with, consists of alleged miracles not authorized or recognized as such by the Holy See or by the sacred congregation, but yet very generally believed to be miracles, and perhaps sanctioned by some sort of local authority, or related in approved books, or mentioned in the Breviary or Martyrologium. What is the attitude of a loyal, sensible Catholic with respect to these? Should he seek to force himself to the acceptance of what in his heart he regards as doubtful, if not positively untrue? Or should he exert his critical faculty to the utmost, and seek out weak points and mere natural explanations of the facts adduced? Or should he steer midway between the Scylla of scepticism and the Charybdis of credulity? And if he adopts this last alternative, to which side should he incline? To the neighborhood of the rock or of the whirlpool? to the acceptance or the rejection of doubtful cases? We will first lay down one or two general canons, with instances illustrative of our meaning, and then explain in what cases a man is bound according to the rules of common sense and ordinary prudence to lean to the side of doubt rather than of acceptance, or at least to suspend his judgment till further information can be obtained.

1. In the case of miracles recognized and approved by the bishop of a diocese, every loyal Catholic, and, indeed every sensible Christian would, by reason of such episcopal recognition and approval, accept them with ready acquiescence in the judgment of his superiors, until such time as he has good reason to doubt their authenticity. His acceptance need not and ought not to be a final and irrefragable one, but every Catholic-or, at all events, every educated Catholic-knows that bishops are very slow and very cautious in expressing a favorable opinion respecting alleged miracles, and that a miracle, or set of miracles, sanctioned by the bish

4

op, is sure to have very strong evidence, indeed, to support it. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred bishops will be found to lean to the side of scepticism rather than of credulity. We are speaking, of course, not of their interior and individual opinion, but of their external and official judgment. If a man allows that the bishop approves a miracle as genuine, but yet himself refuses to accept it, he ought to have a very strong case to urge against it. Let us take an example. The Archbishop of Tours has taken under his protection the confraternity which has for its object to make reparation to the Sacred Face of Our Lord, and the centre of this devotion is a chapel in Tours in the house of the late M. Dupont, where an image of the Sacred Face is exposed, before which a lamp ever burns. The oil of this lamp is asserted to have wrought of late hundreds of miracles, and to be still working them every day. Pilgrims crowd to the spot; the wonder-working oil is sent to all parts of the world. M. Dupont, in whose house the miraculous picture exists, is already in high esteem and regarded as a saint. What would be the position of a man who said that the whole thing was nonsense, that the Archbishop had been deceived, that M. Dupont was an old impostor, and that the miracles were a mere sham? We should say at once that such a position was a very bold one, and, unless the assailant of the devotion could bring good reason for his incredulity, a most rash, presumptuous, and profane one. If he honestly believed, and had good reason for believing, that he had detected a pious fraud or wilful imposture, he would be quite justified in his attack on it; but if the accusation were destitute of any solid foundation, he would be not only most culpable, but also a fool for his pains. That the Archbishop should have patronized an imposture is a moral impossibility, or at least, there is an overwhelming probability against it. 2. In the case of miracles alluded to or asserted in the Breviary or Martyrologium the case is widely different. Every Catholic student knows that both the one and the other contain several errors, and therefore every one is free to accept or reject as he pleases. Only

he should lean, in the first instance, to acceptance, as it is not likely that a miracle would be admitted unless true. He might be quite certain that out of ten miracles cited nine at least would be true. Yet in each individual case he is free to judge for himself on the best evidence he can collect. For instance, in the office for St. Catherine, we read that she was carried by angels after her death to a monastery on Mount Sinai. Most of my readers are familiar with the beautiful engraving representing the messengers of God bearing aloft her sacred body through the air. In the Missal the collect for the day (the 25th of November) runs as follows: God, who didst give the law to Moses on the top of Mount Sinai, and in the same place didst by thine angels wondrously place the body of the Blessed Catherine, thy Virgin and Martyr, etc.” Yet many good and loyal Catholics regard the whole story as an invention, founded on the frequent use of the term angels as applied to men consecrated to God and living a life of chastity; so that they rationalize the story to the very ordinary fact that the monks on Mount Sinai had so great a veneration for the saint that they carried her sacred body to their cemetery on the mountain-top. This latter explanation is the one given by Dr. Butler in his Lives of the Saints.

Su, again, we read in the Martyrologium and Breviary that Constantine the Great, when afflicted with an incurable leprosy, was advised by his heathen physicians to try the remedy of a bath of blood from the veins of slaughtered children; but that Pope Sylvester, hearing of the intended crime, promised the Emperor, that if he would become a Christian and receive baptism, he should at once be healed. The emperor, we are told, took the pope's advice, and was instantly cured. This story many Catholics stoutly deny as a pious invention; alleging that Constantine was never baptised until at the point of death, and then not at Rome, or by the pope, but by the Arian bishop of Nicomedia. Does loyalty to Holy Church require us to accept the miraculous account? Most certainly not, if we think the balance of evidence is against it. If we have not the opportunity of

themselves, then the loyal Catholic is bound to judge, if he judges at all, simply from the facts as they present themselves to him. If he finds evidence sufficient to convince him of the truth of the miracle, let him by all means give in his adherence to it; if there appears to him to be a lack of sufficient testimony, or if there are suspicious circumstances connected with it, then let him by all means suspend his judgment; if the suspicious circumstances are such as to destroy the value of the evidence in its favor, then by all means let him refuse assent to its authenticity altogether. There are hundreds of cases which come under the last two heads; and it is not to be expected that an ordinary Catholic can be able to arrive at a wellbalanced judgment respecting them. Take La Salette, for instance. Some earnestly and warmly defend it as a wellestablished case of supernatural interference; others denounce it as a mere imposture-an invention of two naughty children. children. What is a loyal Catholic, who knows nothing of the facts of the case, to answer if pressed for an opinion? His wisest and best plan is to refuse an opinion altogether; to tell his questioner that it may be true, and it may be false; and that if he is anxious to arrive at a decision, he had better study existing documents, or visit the spot, or cross-question witnesses who have a knowledge of the facts. So, if any one asks him whether he is a believer in the alleged miracle of Louise Lateauwhether he credits her perpetual fast, the appearance of the sacred wounds in her hands and feet and side every Friday, and the long ecstasy which accompanies it, he must simply judge by the evidence, and form a conditional or absolute judgment accordingly.

V.

I must now apply these principles to the particular case which is prominent in the present day, and which I have specially had in view throughout this paper. I must try and answer, by the rules laid down, the question which. every Catholic ought to be able to answer. Are the miracles of Lourdes worthy of credit? And is the alleged apparition of Our Lady to Bernadette a wellestablished fact? Our inquirer has no

infallible decision from Rome to bind him, and he is therefore so far free. No one has any right to condemn as a heretic or to inflict upon him any ecclesiastical censure if he calls the miracles a pack of rubbish, and the apparition a silly imposture. The only question is whether he can do so, first, without violating the respect due to ecclesiastical authority; secondly, without running in the teeth of the common consent of the faithful all over the world, and notably of the thousands who have themselves visited Lourdes either as pilgrims or visitors; thirdly, without refusing to ac-. cept evidence so clear, so well-established, so multiplied, so various, so conclusive of the point at issue, as to write himself down a fool if he declares the witnesses to be either dupes or impostors, and the facts they narrate either a lie or a delusion.

*

I need not dwell on the first two of these heads. The apparition and miracles at Lourdes have received the explicit sanction of the bishop of the diocese, who has himself visited the grotto many times as a pilgrim, and, after a most careful and thorough investigation, issued a mandement in which he formally gives his judgment in favor of the reality of the apparition, declares the miracles wrought to be the work of the supernatural power of God, and authorizes the devotion of our Lady of Lourdes, recommending it to the faithful of his diocese. Nor is there any possibility of denying the existence of a consentient voice bearing witness on the part of Catholics-bishops, priests, and laymen, in every quarter of the globe, to their sincere and unhesitating belief in the reality of the miracles performed. We pass these over because we are writing for non-Catholics, and we have no right to ask them to listen to the voice of an authority they do not recognize, or to be influenced by the consensus of those whom they regard as misled by religious fervor and deceived by preconceived opinions.

But we have a right to ask them to believe in facts attested to by a number of intelligent and honest witnesses, whatever explanation they may give of them;

* The reader will find the text of this document in M. Lasserre's illustrated work on Notre Dame de Lourdes," pp. 436–449.

we have a right to claim their assent to the testimony of physicians who formally attest the results of a careful diagnosis made before and after a journey to Lourdes; we have a right to tell them that their clumsy hypothesis of the curative force of a powerful imagination will not account for cancers healed in a moment, tumors disappearing instantaneously, decayed and carious bones becoming sound at the touch of that wondrous fountain; we have a right to urge upon them the necessity of furnishing some possible solution of the mystery, or else of honestly and humbly accepting the solution which the whole Catholic world declares with one voice to be the only rational, the only possible solution-Digitus Dei est hic-God it is who, by His miraculous power exerted through Our Lady's intercession, heals the sick, cures the lame, casts out devils, restores sight to the blind, now in this nineteenth century, just as He did when He was visibly present among men.

Out of a large number of instances we adduce three as test cases. They have happened within the last two years. They have been carefully examined, and, as our readers will see, it is absolutely impossible that imagination could have brought them about, as in each case there was either some organic lesion, or else some clearly marked physical malady, affecting and destroying the bodily tissues, and almost incurable, even after long years, by any human

means.

Our first case is that of Mdlle. Philippe from Menil in Lorraine. After suffering from fainting fits and poverty of blood for several years, she was attacked in 1877 by paralysis in her left side, and in the following year two cancerous swellings appeared in her throat. An operation was decided upon, which left the lower part of her throat one vast wound. This operation was followed by a second-this by a third until it became necessary to perform them nearly every week. She became unable to speak, and was subject to frequent spitting of blood. I shall give your sister no more remedies," said the physician;

her case is hopeless" (elle est perdue). But Malle. Philippe, who had already visited Lourdes, had conceived a great desire to go there again before her