inquiry, he was so little disposed to accept such phenomena as facts. He ended, however, by being fully convinced, as also the curé (a fine, soldier-like man of about sixty-five, somewhat brusque in his manners), who is quite certain as to the marvellous nature of many cures. I have had a long talk with the doctor here (Dr. Dozens) and with two others at Toulouse (Dr: Rogues, No. 8, Rue d'Aussargues, and Dr. Noguès, Rue St. Anne). I will just mention one or two cases, as to the facts of which I have had face-to-face testimony from one or other of these doctors.

"A woman named Blaisette Soupevue of this place, about fifty, had had an affection (blepharite) of the eyes for several years. Both eyelids were partially everted, lashless, and the lower lids had numerous fleshy excrescences. Dr. Dozens attended this case himself, as also a Dr. Vergez. It was pronounced chronic, and all idea of cure abandoned. She washed her eyes with the water on two successive days; on the second her sight was completely restored, her eyelids righted themselves, and the excrescences vanished. Dr. Dozens assures me he examined this carefully himself. From that day her eyelashes began to grow, and she has never been so afflicted since.

"Justin Bontisharts, also of this place, had a rickety child ten years old, which had much atrophied limbs, and had never been able to walk. It got worse, and was thought to be near its death. Dr. Dozens tells me he attended it, and was present when the mother placed it under the stream of the Lourdes water. It was motionless while so held, and the bystanders therefore fancied it was dead already. The mother took it home, placed it in its bed, and noticed that it seemed to be in a tranquil sleep. Next day it woke with a quite different expression of face, craved for food, ate freely, and wanted to get up, but its parents were afraid to let it. The following morning, while they were out to work, it got up, and when they returned was walking about the room, walking quite well, and has done so ever since.

"Louis Bourriettes, a stone quarryman, had his face severely wounded, and his eyes injured by an explosion. One eye

got pretty well; the other remained so imperfect that with it alone he could not distinguish a man from any other similarsized object at a few paces distance, and he was incapable of doing his former work as a stone mason. This continued for twenty years. At the time of his cure he was under Dr. Dozens' care, as his eyes were then getting worse. He washed, and was completely cured in the course of one day Dr. Dozens met him in the street and would not believe he was cured, and tested him by writing with a pencil on a piece of paper that he had an incurable amaurosis of the right eye, and when he read these words to the doctor, the latter was dumfoundered, for Dr. Dozens was a materialist, and disbelieved in all things preternatural at that time. This case is also vouched for by Dr. Vergez, of Barèges.

"M. Lacassogne, now of 6, Rue du Chai des Varine, Bordeaux, formerly of Toulouse, had a son who had for three years been unable to swallow a morsel of solid food. Both the doctors of Toulouse told me of this case, but Dr. Noguès was his principal medical attendant. Dr. Noguès is still an unbeliever, but he told me he felt bound in justice to declare that his patient was a good obedient child of a sanguine temperament, and not at all nervous or hysterical. When wasting to the extreme from imperfect nutrition, he was instantaneously cured in the fountain, and has eaten freely solid food ever since. His father was a Voltairean, and was converted by this fact in his family.

"Finally, Dr. Rogues, of Toulouse, told me that his own daughter had recently had a most remarkable cure, and this was also told me by Dr. Dozens, of Lourdes. Dr. Rogues is short-sighted, his sons are short-sighted, and his father is short-sighted. No wonder, then, that his daughter was also short-sighted. It was a case of heredity-congenital shortsightedness. The mother was exceedingly desirous as her daughter grew up that she might be able to see like ordinary people, and took her to Lourdes, when, in an instant, she became ordinarily long-sighted. On her return her father would not believe till he had tested her himself by making her read to him at distances which would have been quite

impossible at any previous period of her life. The next morning he told me that being very anxious on the subject, he called her as soon as possible to his window, and pointing out a distant inscription told her to read it to him. She said, 'I can't, papa; it's Latin.' He told her then to read him the letters, which, to his delight, she did. This change had continued permanent up to my visit to him last Tuesday."

To appreciate fully the weight of this evidence, received at first hand from the best of witnesses-the medical men who had attended the patients cured, and who were all more or less strongly prejudiced against the whole thing-the reader should make himself acquainted with some portion of the mass of equally good evidence to be found in various French works, or in the Rev. R. F. Clarke's "Lourdes and its Miracles" (1887). The detailed history of the origin of the spring at Lourdes, and of all the succeeding events, by M. Henri Lasserre, is both interesting and instructive to the spiritualist. His book, "Notre Dame de Lourdes," had gone through one hundred and twenty-six editions in 1892, and had been translated into eleven European languages. It is written from the point of view of an enthusiastic Roman Catholic, and exhibits Bernadotte Soubirons as a modern representative in character and in psychical faculties of Joan of Arc. The second volume, published fourteen years later, under the title "Les Episodes Miraculeux de Lourdes," contains a detailed record with confirmatory documents of five cases of remarkable cures at Lourdes.

In 1862, M. Lasserre himself was cured of an affection of the eyes which rendered him unable to read or write, and which the best specialists in Paris declared to be incurable. Any attempt to read even the largest print, and however shaded from bright light, produced intense pain. He was persuaded to send for some Lourdes water, and received a small bottle. He washed his eyes for a few minutes, drank the remainder, and was instantaneously cured. He declares that he at once read a hundred pages of a book of which, an hour before, he could not have read three lines. This wonderful cure caused him to become the historian of Lourdes, VOL. II. X

and he devoted several years to collecting materials direct from every person on the spot who could give him information, as well as from all contemporary records and official documents bearing on the question. The book was published in 1869, and the second volume of "Episodes" in 1883.

The most remarkable feature of these cures is their rapidity, often amounting to instantaneousness, which broadly marks them off from all ordinary remedial agencies. One of the most prominent of these, related by M. Lasserre, is that of François Macary, a carpenter of Lavaur. He had had varicose veins for thirty years; they were as thick as one's finger, with enormous nodosities and frequent bleedings, producing numerous ulcers, so that it had been for many years impossible for him to walk or stand. Three physicians had declared him to be absolutely incurable. At sixty years of age he heard of the cures at Lourdes, and determined to try the waters. A bottle was sent him. Compresses with this were applied in the evening to his two legs. He slept well all night, and early next morning was quite well; his legs were smooth, and there was hardly a trace of the swollen veins, nodosities, and ulcers. The three doctors who had attended him certify to these facts.

Other cases are of long-continued paralysis, declared hopeless by the physicians; one of serious internal injuries due to an accident, and declared incurable. The lady had suffered extreme pain for seven years, had been unable to walk, and every remedy tried had been useless. She had at various times consulted five doctors, in vain. Two of these signed statements that she had been cured instantaneously, and could now walk and perform all the ordinary actions of a healthy person without suffering the slightest pain. One of them says, "This cure, so sudden, so unprecedented, so unexpected, is for me a fact positively marvellous. There is in it something of the divine—an intervention beyond the natural, visible, incontestible, of a nature to baffle the reason. For nature does not usually proceed thus, and when she operates she acts always with a wise deliberation. -A. Maugni" ("Les Episodes Miraculeaux," p. 486).

In an introductory note to "A Lourdes avec Zola," by Felix Lacaze, Dr. Bernheim states that, "We cure at Nancy the same morbid manifestations that Lourdes cures; medical faith acts like religious faith; that is what I know!" And M. Lacaze, throughout his book, imputes all the cures to belief, expectation, faith. But the student of psychical research and of spiritualism, if he examines the records carefully, will see reason to doubt these general statements. He will meet with cases which are so closely parallel with what every experienced inquirer meets with as to indicate a similarity of cause. I allude to the very common occurrence at séances, when messages are being given, to so word them as to contradict the expectation of every one present. I have often seen this myself. At other times the inquirer expects a message from a particular person, has gone to the séance with the express purpose of obtaining it, but instead gets a message from some one else. All this is clearly for the purpose of answering the common objection—your “expectation" was read by the medium, and produced the wished-for word or message. Now, among the five cases given by M. Lasserre, one of the most striking serves to illustrate this special feature. A paralyzed Abbé of good family, and of the most firm and genuine religious faith, is yet so humble that he does not expect a miracle to be performed in his favour. More to please his family and friends than himself, he goes to Lourdes, and it is so arranged that he shall attend the grand service of the Assumption, when all his clerical friends are convinced he will be cured, and they excite in him the same belief. But though all the ceremonies have been fulfilled, nothing happens, and he resigns himself to the conviction that it is not the will of God that he should be cured. But when attending another service the next day, and not expecting anything, he suddenly feels a conviction that he is well, rises from his couch, kneels down, and prays. From that moment he is perfectly cured. Here we seem to see the time of the cure arranged for the very purpose of demonstrating that it is not expectation or faith that causes the cure, although it may sometimes be a helping condition.