with keen-eyed doctors from
every school of faith and science, who have only to present their cards
and be made free of all that Lourdes has to show. They are keen-brained
as well as keen-eyed. I heard one of them say quietly that if the Mother
of God, as it appeared, cured incurable cases, it was hard to deny to
her the power of curing curable cases also. It does not prove, that is
to say, that a cure is not miraculous, if it might have been cured by
human aid. And it is interesting and suggestive to remember that of such
cases one hears little or nothing. For every startling miracle that is
verified in the Bureau, I wonder how many persons go home quietly, freed
from some maddening little illness by the mercy of Mary--some illness
that is worthless as a "case" in scientific eyes, yet none the less as
real as is its cure?

Of course one element that tends to keep from the grasp of the
imagination all the miracles of the place is all this scientific
phraseology. In the simple story of the Gospel, it seems almost
supernaturally natural that a man should have "lain with an infirmity
for forty years," and should, at the word of Jesus Christ, have taken up
his bed and walked; or that, as in the "Acts," another's "feet and
ankle-bones should receive strength" by the power of the Holy Name. But
when we come to tuberculosis and _mal de Pott_ and _lesion incurable_
and "hysterical simulation," in some manner we seem to find ourselves in
rather a breathless and stuffy room, where the white flower of the
supernatural appears strangely languid to the eye of the imagination.

That, however, is all as it should be. We are bound to have these
things. Perhaps the most startling miracle of all is that the Bureau and
the Grotto stand side by side, and that neither stifles the other. Is it
possible that here at last Science and Religion will come to terms, and
each confess with wonder the capacities of the other, and, with awe,
that divine power that makes them what they are, and has "set them their
bounds which they shall not pass?" It would be remarkable if France, of
all countries, should be the scene of that reconciliation between these
estranged sisters.

That night, after dinner, I went out once more to see the procession
with torches; and this time my friend and I each took a candle, that we
might join in that act of worship. First, however, I went down to the
_robinets_--the taps which flow between the Grotto and the
_piscines