not on a very much higher level than the piety of England. The
government, as all the world now knows, is not in the least
representative of the country; but, sad to relate, the Frenchman is apt
to extend his respect for the law into an assumption of its morality.
When a law is passed, there is an end of it.

Yet, judging by the intensity of faith and love and resignation that is
evident at Lourdes, and indeed by the numbers of those present, it
would seem as if Mary, driven from the towns with her Divine Son, has
chosen Lourdes--the very farthest point from Paris--as her earthly home,
and draws her children after her, standing there with her back to the
wall. I do not think this is fanciful. That which is beyond time and
space must communicate with us in those terms; and we can only speak of
these things in the same terms. Huysmans expresses the same thing in
other words. Even if Bernadette were deceived, he says, at any rate
these pilgrims are not; even if Mary did not come in 1858 to the banks
of the Gave, she has certainly come there since, drawn by the thousands
of souls that have gone to seek her there.

This, then, is the last thing I can say about Lourdes. It is quite
useless as evidence--indeed it would be almost impertinent to dare to
offer further evidence at all--yet I may as well hand it in as my
contribution. It is this, _that Lourdes is soaked, saturated and kindled
by the all but sensible presence of the Mother of God_. I am quite aware
of all that can be said about subjectivity and auto-suggestion, and the
rest; but there comes a point in all arguments when nothing is worth
anything except an assertion of a personal conviction. Such, then, is
mine.

First, it was borne in upon me what a mutilated Christianity that is