er arms a child,
aged two and a half years, blind from birth, during the procession of
the Blessed Sacrament. As the monstrance came opposite, tears began to
stream from the child's eyes, hitherto closed. When it had passed, the
child's eyes were open and seeing. This Mme. ---- tested by dangling her
bracelet before the child, who immediately clutched at it, but, from the
fact that she had never learned to calculate distance, at first failed
to seize it. At the close of the procession Mme. ----, who herself
related to me the story, was conscious of an extraordinary exhaustion
for which there was no ordinary explanation. I give this suggestion as
the scientist gave it to me--the suggestion of some kind of
_transference_ of vitality; and make no comment upon it, beyond saying
that, superficially at any rate, it does not appear to me to conflict
with the various accounts of miracles given in the Gospel in which the
faith of the bystanders, as well as of sufferers, appeared to be as
integral an element in the miracle as the virtue which worked it.

Owing to the time that has elapsed since the following pages were
written for the _Ave Maria_--by the kindness of whose editor they are
reprinted now--it is impossible for me to verify the spelling of all the
names that occur in the course of the narrative. I made notes while at
Lourdes, and from those notes wrote my account; it is therefore
extremely probable that small errors of spelling may have crept in,
which I am now unable to correct.

ROBERT HUGH BENSON.

_Church of our Lady of Lourdes,
New York,
Lent, 1914_

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE BASILICA. FRONT VIEW _Frontispiece_

DR. BOISSARIE _to face p._ 16

BUREAU DES CONSTATATIONS " 26

THE GROTTO IN 1858 " 36

THE GROTTO IN 1914 " 46

THE BLESSING OF THE SICK " 56

THE BASILICA. SIDE VIEW " 66

BERNADETTE " 78

I.

The first sign of our approach to Lourdes was a vast wooden cross,
crowning a pointed hill. We had been travelling all day, through the
August sunlight, humming along the straight French roads beneath the
endless avenues; now across a ric