t or two on the case, allowing
that it may perhaps have been hysteria, though this is not at all
certain. "When we have to do with nervous maladies, we must always
remember the rules of Benedict XIV.: 'The miracle cannot consist in the
cessation of the crises, but in the cessation of the nervous state which
produces them.'" It is this that has been accomplished in the case of
Marie Cools. And again: "Either Marie Cools is not cured, or there is in
her cure something other than suggestion, even religious. It is high time
to leave that tale alone, and to cease to class under the title of
religious suggestion two orders of facts completely distinct--superficial
and momentary modifications, and constitutional modifications so profound
that science cannot explain them. I repeat: to make of an hysterical
patient one whose equilibrium is perfect ... is a thing more difficult
than the cure of a wound."

So he wrote at the time of her apparent cure, hesitating still as to its
permanence. And here, before my eyes and his, she stood again, healthy
and well.

And so at last I went back to dinner. A very different scene followed.
For a couple of hours we had been materialists, concerning ourselves not
with what Mary had done by grace--at least not in that aspect--but with
what nature showed to have been done, by whatever agency, in itself. Now
once more we turned to Mary.

It was dark when we arrived at the square, but the whole place was alive
with earthly lights. High up to our left hung the church, outlined in
fire--tawdry, I dare say, with its fairy lights of electricity, yet
speaking to three-quarters of this crowd in the highest language they
knew. Light, after all, is the most heavenly thing we possess. Does it
matter so very much if it is decked out and arranged in what to superior
persons appears a finikin fashion?

The crowd itself had become a serpent of fire, writhing here below in
endlessly intricate coils; up there along the steps and parapets, a
long-drawn, slow-moving line; and from the whole incalculable number
came gusts and roars of singing, for each carried a burning torch and
sang with his group. The music was of all kinds. Now and again came the
_Laudate Mariam_ from one company, following to some degree the general
movement of the procession, and singing from little paper-books which
each read by the light of his wind-blown lantern; now the _Gloria
Patri_, as a band came past reciting the Rosary; but above