Lourdes Part 4

When my turn came, I went wrapped in a soaking ap.r.o.n, down a step or so into the water; and then, with a priest holding either hand, lay down at full length so that my head only emerged. That water had better not be described. It is enough to say that people suffering from most of the diseases known to man had bathed in it without ceasing for at least five or six hours. Yet I can say, with entire sincerity, that I did not have even the faintest physical repulsion, though commonly I hate dirt at least as much as sin. It is said, too, that never in the history of Lourdes has there been one case of disease traceable to infection from the baths. The water was cold, but not unpleasantly. I lay there, I suppose, about one minute, while the two priests and myself repeated off the placard the prayers inscribed there. These were, for the most part, pet.i.tions to Mary to pray. "_O Marie,_" they ended, "_concue sans peche, priez pour nous qui avons recours a vous!_"

As I dressed again after the bath, I had one more sight of the young man. He was being led out by a kindly attendant, but his face was all distorted with crying, and from his blind eyes ran down a stream of terrible tears. It is unnecessary to say that I said a "Hail Mary" for his soul at least.

As soon as I was ready, I went out and sat down for a while among the recently bathed, and began to remind myself why _I_ had bathed.

Certainly I was not suffering from anything except a negligible ailment or two. Neither did I do it out of curiosity, because I could have seen without difficulty all the details without descending into that appalling trough. I suppose it was just an act of devotion. Here was water with a history behind it; water that was as undoubtedly used by Almighty G.o.d for giving benefits to man as was the clay laid upon blind eyes long ago near Siloe, or the water of Bethesda itself. And it is a natural instinct to come as close as possible to things used by the heavenly powers. I was extraordinarily glad I had bathed, and I have been equally glad ever since. I am afraid it is of no use as evidence to say that until I came to Lourdes I was tired out, body and mind; and that since my return I have been unusually robust. Yet that is a fact, and I leave it there.

As I sat there a procession went past to the Grotto, and I walked to the railings to look at it. I do not know at all what it was all about, but it was as impressive as all things are in Lourdes. The _miracules_ came first with their banners--file after file of them--then a number of prelates, then _brancardiers_ with their shoulder-harness, then nuns, then more _brancardiers_. I think perhaps they may have been taking a recent _miracule_ to give thanks; for when I arrived presently at the Bureau again, I heard that, after all, several appeared to have been cured at the procession on the previous day.

I was sitting in the hall of the hotel a few minutes later when I heard the roar of the _Magnificat_ from the street, and ran out to see what was forward. As I came to the door, the heart of the procession went by.

A group of _brancardiers_ formed an irregular square, holding cords to keep back the crowd; and in the middle walked a group of three, followed by an empty litter. The three were a white-haired man on this side, a stalwart _brancardier_ on the other, and between them a girl with a radiant face, singing with all her heart. She had been carried down from her lodging that morning to the _piscines_; she was returning on her own feet, by the power of Him who said to the lame man, "Take up thy bed and go into thy house." I followed them a little way, then I went back to the hotel.

VII.

In the afternoon we went down to meet a priest who had promised a place to one of our party in the window of which I have spoken before. But the crowd was so great that we could not find him, so presently we dispersed as best we could. Two other priests and myself went completely round the outside of the churches, in order, if possible, to join in the procession, since to cross the square was a simple impossibility. In the terrible crush near the Bureau, I became separated from the others, and fought my way back, and into the Bureau, as the best place open to me now for seeing the Blessing of the Sick.

It was now at last that I had my supreme wish. Within a minute or two of my coming to look through the window, the Blessed Sacrament entered the reserved s.p.a.ce among the countless litters. The crowd between me and the open s.p.a.ce was simply one pack of heads; but I could observe the movements of what was going forward by the white top of the _ombrellino_ as it pa.s.sed slowly down the farther side of the square.

The crowd was very still, answering as before the pa.s.sionate voice in the midst; but watching, watching, as I watched. Beside me sat Dr. c.o.x, and our Rosaries were in our hands. The white spot moved on and on, and all else was motionless. I knew that beyond it lay the sick. "Lord, if it be possible--if it be possible! Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done." It had reached now the end of the first line.

"_Seigneur, guerissez nos malades!_" cried the priest.

"_Seigneur, guerissez nos malades!_" answered the people.

"_Vous etes mon Seigneur et mon Dieu!_"

And then on a sudden it came.

Overhead lay the quiet summer air, charged with the Supernatural as a cloud with thunder--electric, vibrating with power. Here beneath lay souls thirsting for its touch of fire--patient, desirous, infinitely pathetic; and in the midst that Power, incarnate for us men and our salvation. Then it descended, swift and mighty.

I saw a sudden swirl in the crowd of heads beneath the church steps, and then a great shaking ran through the crowd; but there for a few instants it boiled like a pot. A sudden cry had broken out, and it ran through the whole s.p.a.ce; waxing in volume as it ran, till the heads beneath my window shook with it also; hands clapped, voices shouted: "_Un miracle!

Un miracle!_"

I was on my feet, staring and crying out. Then quietly the shaking ceased, and the shouting died to a murmur; and the _ombrellino_ moved on; and again the voice of the priest thrilled thin and clear, with a touch of triumphant thankfulness: "_Vous etes la Resurrection et la Vie!_" And again, with entreaty once more--since there still were two thousand sick untouched by that Power, and time pressed--that infinitely moving plea: "_Seigneur, celui qui vous aime est malade!_" And: "_Seigneur, faites que je marche! Seigneur, faites que j'entende!_"

And then again the finger of G.o.d flashed down, and again and again; and each time a sick and broken body sprang from its bed of pain and stood upright; and the crowd smiled and roared and sobbed. Five times I saw that swirl and rush; the last when the _Te Deum_ pealed out from the church steps as Jesus in His Sacrament came home again. And there were two that I did not see. There were seven in all that afternoon.

Now, is it of any use to comment on all this? I am not sure; and yet, for my own satisfaction if for no one else's, I wish to set down some of the thoughts that came to me both then and after I had sat at the window and seen G.o.d's loving-kindness with my own eyes.

The first overwhelming impression that remained with me is this--that I had been present, in my own body, in the twentieth century, and seen Jesus pa.s.s along by the sick folk, as He pa.s.sed two thousand years before. That, in a word, is the supreme fact of Lourdes. More than once as I sat there that afternoon I contrasted the manner in which I was spending it with that in which the average believing Christian spends Sunday afternoon. As a child, I used to walk with my father, and he used to read and talk on religious subjects; on our return we used to have a short Bible-cla.s.s in his study. As an Anglican clergyman, I used to teach in Sunday schools or preach to children. As a Catholic priest, I used occasionally to attend at catechism. At all these times the miraculous seemed singularly far away; we looked at it across twenty centuries; it was something from which lessons might be drawn, upon which the imagination might feed, but it was a state of affairs as remote as the life of prehistoric man; one a.s.sented to it, and that was all. And here at Lourdes it was a present, vivid event. I sat at an ordinary gla.s.s window, in a soutane made by an English tailor, with another Englishman beside me, and saw the miraculous happen. Time and s.p.a.ce disappeared; the centuries shrank and vanished; and behold we saw that which "prophets and kings have desired to see and have not seen!"

Of course "scientific" arguments, of the sort which I have related, can be brought forward in an attempt to explain Lourdes; but they are the same arguments that can be, and are, brought forward against the miracles of Jesus Christ Himself. I say nothing to those here; I leave that to scientists such as Dr. Boissarie; but what I cannot understand is that professing Christians are able to bring _a priori_ arguments against the fact that Our Lord is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever--the same in Galilee and in France. "These signs shall follow them that believe," He said Himself; and the history of the Catholic Church is an exact fulfilment of the words. It was so, St. Augustine tells us, at the tombs of the martyrs; five hundred miracles were reported at Canterbury within a few years of St. Thomas' martyrdom. And now here is Lourdes, as it has been for fifty years, in this little corner of poor France!

I have been asked since my return: "Why cannot miracles be done in England?" My answer is, firstly, that they are done in England, in Liverpool, and at Holywell, for example; secondly, I answer by another question as to why Jesus Christ was not born in Rome; and if He had been born in Rome, why not in Nineveh and Jerusalem? Thirdly, I answer that perhaps more would be done in England, if there were more faith there.

It is surely a little unreasonable to ask that, in a country which three hundred and fifty years ago deliberately repudiated Christ's Revelation of Himself, banished the Blessed Sacrament and tore down Mary's shrines, Christ and His Mother should cooperate supernaturally in marvels that are rather the rewards of the faithful. "It is not meet to take the children's bread and to cast it to the dogs"--these are the words of our Lord Himself. If London is not yet tolerant enough to allow an Eucharistic Procession in her streets, she is scarcely justified in demanding that our Eucharistic Lord should manifest His power. "He could do no mighty work there," says the Evangelist, of Capharnaum, "because of their unbelief."

This, then, is the supreme fact of Lourdes: that Jesus Christ in His Sacrament pa.s.ses along that open square, with the sick laid in beds on either side; and that at His word the lame walk and lepers are cleansed and deaf hear--that they are seen leaping and dancing for joy.

Even now, writing within ten days of my return, all seems like a dream; and yet I know that I saw it. For over thirty years I had been accustomed to repeat the silly formula that "the age of miracles is past"; that they were necessary for the establishment of Christianity, but that they are no longer necessary now, except on extremely rare occasions perhaps; and in my heart I knew my foolishness. Why, for those thirty years Lourdes had been in existence! And if I spoke of it at all, I spoke only of hysteria and auto-suggestion and French imaginativeness, and the rest of the nonsense. It is impossible for a Christian who has been at Lourdes to speak like that again.

And as for the unreality, that does not trouble me. I have no doubt that those who saw the bandages torn from the leper's limbs and the sound flesh shown beneath, or the once blind man, his eyes now dripping with water of Siloe, looking on Him who had made him whole, or heard the marvellous talk of "men like trees walking," and the rest--I have no doubt that ten days later they sat themselves with unseeing eyes, and wondered whether it was indeed they who had witnessed those things.

Human nature, like a Leyden jar, cannot hold beyond a fixed quant.i.ty; and this human nature, with experience, instincts, education, common talk, public opinion, and all the rest of it, echoing round it; the a.s.sumption that miracles _do not happen_; that laws are laws; in other words, that Deism is the best that can be hoped--well, it is little wonder that the visible contradiction of all this conventionalism finds but little room in the soul.

Then there is another point that I should like to make in the presence of "Evangelical" Christians who shake their heads over Mary's part in the matter. It is this--that for every miracle that takes place in the _piscines_, I should guess that a dozen take place while That which we believe to be Jesus Christ goes by. Catholics, naturally, need no such rea.s.surance; they know well enough from interior experience that when Mary comes forward Jesus does not retire! But for those who think as some Christians do, it is necessary to point out the facts. And again. I have before me as I write the little card of e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns that are used in the procession. There are twenty-four in all. Of these, twenty-one are addressed to Jesus Christ; in two more we ask the "Mother of the Saviour" and the "Health of the Sick" to pray for us; in the last we ask her to "show herself a Mother." If people will talk of "proportion" in a matter in which there is no such thing--since there can be no comparison, without grave irreverence, between the Creator and a creature--I would ask, Is there "disproportion" here?

In fact, Lourdes, as a whole, is an excellent little compendium of Catholic theology and Gospel-truth. There was once a marriage feast, and the Mother of Jesus was there with her Son. There was no wine. She told her Son what He already knew; He seemed to deprecate her words; but He obeyed them, and the water became wine.

There is at Lourdes not a marriage feast, but something very like a deathbed. The Mother of Jesus is there with her Son. It is she again who takes the initiative. "Here is water," she seems to say; "dig, Bernadette, and you will find it." But it is no more than water. Then she turns to her Son. "They have water," she says, "but no more." And then He comes forth in His power. "Draw out now from all the sick beds of the world and bear them to the Governor of the Feast. Use the commonest things in the world--physical pain and common water. Bring them together, and wait until I pa.s.s by." Then Jesus of Nazareth pa.s.ses by; and the sick leap from their beds, and the blind see, and the lepers are cleansed, and devils are cast out.

Oh, yes! the parallel halts; but is it not near enough?

_Seigneur, guerissez nos malades!_

_Salut des Infirmes, priez pour nous!_

VIII.

The moment Benediction was given, the room began rapidly to fill; but I still watched the singing crowd outside. Among others I noticed a woman, placid and happy--such a woman as you would see a hundred times a day in London streets, with jet ornaments in her hat, middle-aged, almost startlingly commonplace. No, nothing dramatic happened to her; that was the point. But there she was, taking it all for granted, joining in the _Magnificat_ with a roving eye, pleased as she would have been pleased at a circus; interrupting herself to talk to her neighbour; and all the while gripping in a capable hand, on which shone a wedding ring, the bars of the Bureau window behind which I sat, that she might make the best of both worlds--Grace without and Science within. She, as I, had seen what G.o.d had done; now she proposed to see what the doctors would make of it all; and have, besides, a good view of the _miracules_ when they appeared.

I suppose it was her astonis.h.i.+ng ordinariness that impressed me. It was surprising to see such a one during such a scene; it was as incongruous as a man riding a bicycle on the judgment Day. Yet she, too, served to make it all real. She was like the real tree in the foreground of a panorama. She served the same purpose as the _Voix de Lourdes_, a briskly written French newspaper that gives the lists of the miracles.

When I turned round at last, the room was full. Among the people present I remember an Hungarian canon, and the Brazilian Bishop with six others.

Dr. Deschamps, late of Lille, now of Paris, was in the chair; and I sat next him.

The first patient to enter was Euphrasie Bosc, a dark girl of twenty-seven. She rolled a little in her walk as she came in; then she sat down and described the "white swellings" on her knee, with other details; she told how she had been impelled to rise during the procession just now. She was made to walk round the room to show her state, and was then sent off, and told to return at another time.

Next came Emma Sansen, a pale girl of twenty-five. She had suffered from endo-pericarditis for five years, as her certificate showed; she had been confined to her room for two years. She told her story quickly and went out.

There followed Sister Marguerite Emilie, an a.s.sumptionist, aged thirty-nine, a brisk, brown-faced, tall woman, in her religious habit.

Her malady had been _mal de Pott_, a severe spinal affliction, accompanied by abscesses and other horrors. She, too, appeared in the best of health.

We began then to hear a doctor give news of a certain Irish Religious, cured that morning in the _piscines_; but we were interrupted by the entry of Emile Lansman, a solid artisan of twenty-five who came in walking cheerfully, carrying a crutch and a stick which he no longer needed. Paralysis of the right leg and traumatism of the spine had been his, up to that day. Now he carried his crutch.

He was followed by another man whose name I did not catch, and on whose case I wrote so rapidly that I am scarcely able to read all my notes.

His story, in brief, was as follows. He had had some while ago a severe accident, which involved a kind of appalling disembowelment. For the last year or two he had had gastric troubles of all kinds, including complete loss of appet.i.te. His certificate showed too, that he suffered from partial paralysis (he himself showed us how little he had been able to open his fingers), and anaesthesia of the right arm. (I looked over Dr. Deschamps' shoulder and read on the paper the words _lesion incurable_). It was certified further that he was incapable of manual work. Then he described to us how yesterday in the _piscine_, upon coming out of the bath, he had been aware of a curious sensation of warmth in the stomach; he had then found that, for the first time for many months, he wished for food; he was given it, and he enjoyed it. He moved his fingers in a normal manner, raised his arm and let it fall.

Then for the first time in the Bureau I heard a sharp controversy. One doctor suddenly broke out, saying that there was no actual proof that it was not all "hysterical simulation." Another answered him; an appeal was made to the certificate. Then the first doctor delivered a little speech, in excellent taste, though casting doubt upon the case; and the matter was then set aside for investigation with the rest. I heard Dr.

Boissarie afterwards thank him for his admirable little discourse.

Finally, though it was getting late, Honorie Gras, aged thirty-five, came in to give her evidence. She had suffered till to-day from "purulent arthritis" and "white swellings" on the left knee. To-day she walked. Her certificate confirmed her, and she was dismissed.