which practically takes no account of Mary. This fragmentary, lopsided
faith was that in which I myself had been brought up, and which to-day
still is the faith of the majority of my fellow-countrymen. The Mother
of God--the Second Eve, the Immaculate Maiden Mother, who, as if to
balance Eve at the Tree of Death, stood by the Tree of Life--in popular
non-Catholic theology is banished, with the rest of those who have
passed away, to a position of complete insignificance. This arrangement,
I had become accustomed to believe, was that of Primitive Christianity
and of the Christianity of all sensible men: Romanism had added to the
simple Gospel, and had treated the Mother of God with an honour which
she would have been the first to deprecate.

Well, I think that at Lourdes the startling contrast between facts and
human inventions was, in this respect, first made vivid to my
imagination. I understood how puzzling it must be for "old Catholics,"
to whom Mary is as real and active as her Divine Son, to understand the
sincerity of those to whom she is no more than a phantom, and who yet
profess and call themselves Christians. Why, at Lourdes Mary is seen to
stand, to all but outward eyes, in exactly that position in which at
Nazareth, at Cana, in the Acts of the Apostles, in the Catacombs, and
in the whole history of Christendom, true lovers of her Son have always
seen her--a Mother of God and man, tender, authoritative, silent, and
effective!

Yet, strangely enough, it is not at all the ordinary and conventional
character of a merely tender mother that reveals itself at Lourdes--one
who is simply desirous of relieving pain and giving what is asked. There
comes upon one instead the sense of a tremendous personage--_Regina
Cœli_ as well as _Consolatrix Afflictorum_--one who says "No" as well
as "Yes," and with the same serenity; yet with the "No" gives strength