assumption 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
reassurance; 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 ejaculations 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