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Show LOURDES AND MIRACLES Renewed Attack on Lourdes Barring Gould Hostile to Christianity Wilfred Lescher's Rigid Researches Miracles of the Bible Strange Inconsistency to Admit Bible Miracles and Deny All Mir- acles Since the Days of the Apostles Effect of Believing Miracles at Lourdes. Hugh Miiler and Cardinal Newman. (Foreign Correspondence of the Internnuntaiu Catholic.) When I returned to Paris a few days ago. and opened my papers, I read with very great interest, in the Liverpool Times, Jan. 7, an interesting letter from Father Wilfrid Lescher.. the author of an exhaustive ex-haustive work on Lourdes. His rejoinder is an answer to the attacks lately made on the origin ami miracles of Lourdes by my old friend Paring Gould and from an anonymous correspondent, writing writ-ing to the "Church Times." It is passing strange that, after years of brilliant exploitation on the, part of the ablest of the infidel writers of France, among them Fmile Zola, and the persistent ridicule ridi-cule of the ultra-protestant press of England, the attacks on Lourdes should be revived and should coincide with the fierce persecution of the church in France. Baring Gould, who is now in the winter win-ter of his life, is a rattling good fellow socially, a char: :ing companion to pass an hour with, provided pro-vided you say nothing in favor of Christianity, and particularly in praise of the" Church of Rome. I am surprised that Father Lescher takes him seriously. ser-iously. Xo man now living has made a more exhaustive ex-haustive examination into the origin and miracles of Lourdes .than Wilfrid Lescher, and. on these, subjects, which he has made his own, his sincerity and-copious-information are admitted by all im-portial im-portial men. His account is derived straight from original sources, and in his book"The Origin of Lourdes." he has, to the unprejudiced mind, de-i de-i molished the arguments of the materialist and proved the supernatural origin of the spring and the actuality of the miracles. But nothing will ever convince the incredulous; "not even if one rise again from the dead." The correspondent of the "Church Times" writes as if he were a Catholic. After a rather severe indictment framed against the miraculous origin of the famous waters and the cures effected by their touch, he concludes by challenging the authenticity of the miracles themselves, them-selves, and even the occurrence of any miracle in modern times. He professes, however, his belief in the MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE, but adds that since the apostolic power of working miracles has ceased, "he doubts whether the commission com-mission has not ceased also." And most Protestants, Protest-ants, outside the Ritualistic wing of the Anglican church, appear to agree with him. Now what are you "oing to do with a man like that ( lie professes his belief in the divinity of our Divine Lord, who said to his disciples, "Ye shall do rreater things than these." He acknowledges the divine inspiration of the Bible, the sacred pages of which contain, according to human belief, be-lief, examples of prodigies incredible to the reason rea-son of man. and yet scoffs at all the laws of evidence evi-dence proving the reality of miracles in modern times. Is God, like the god of Baal, "asleep," or is he "on a journey," that he has forgotten man whom he made and no longer manifests himself to hi own creation? If Elias raises the dead from corruption to comfort a SORROWING MOTHER, it is all right, but if Saint Francis Xavier calls the dead from the grave, to prove to an unbelieving people the omnipotence of God, it is a pitiable fiction. fic-tion. If Elias is fed by ravens, and then fasta forty days and forty nights, it is not at all in-credi'Jc, in-credi'Jc, but if Father Kino or Father Brebeuf, by a whole life of sorrow and suffering, instruct thousands thou-sands unto salvation and speak with Angels, it is only "the folly ..nd superstition of Romanism." If, the face, of St. Stenhen shone with glory so that all who stood by "saw his face as it had been the face of an angel," it is worthy of belief; but if the beatified Peter Claver was transfigured in the presence of a hundred witnesses, who saw the light lav around his head, the testimony of these witnesses wit-nesses is simply the result of Romish superstition workine on diseased minds. If the Eternal "stopped "stop-ped the mouths of lions" lest they should harm his prophet, let us marvel and adore; but if the panther pan-ther crouched by the side of his servant Anchieta, it is an impudent invention. If iron float at the bidding of Eliseus, though only to save a woodman's wood-man's ax, let us admire the Lore9!; lat if St. Francis Fran-cis walks upon the water to save; a drowning child, it is another Romish fable. If Ihe fourth book of Kings tells us that a corpse returns to life when it touches the bones of a holy nan, whom it was the will of God to honor, we have no doubt that it actually happened; but when St. Augustine records re-cords that, in his own church, a dead body, touched touch-ed by the bones of St. Stephen, returned to life, let us laugh at it as a despicable invention. If, a3 we are told in the Acts of the Apostles, a "hand- f kerchief" or an "apron" which had only touched the 1 body of St. Paul healed diseases and put demoua I to flight, that is; to be believed; but if the same I thing be recorded of St. Bernard or St. Philip of Xeri, or of St. Francis of Sales, and certified to (Continued on Page 5.) , v I -' LOURDES AMD MIRACLES. (Continued from page 1.) b" the cured themselves, it is "Tut," tut, man, you must be a fool to credit these fables." j To the Protestant mind, which still retains faith in the inspiration of the scriptures, that: "When AX ANGEL WENT DOWN at a certain season into the x'ool and troubled the' water; and he that went down first into the pool, after the movement of the water. Avas made whole of whatsoever infirmity he had," there is no violence vio-lence done to the mind in accepting jt. But when the Catholic believes that God, for his own inscrutable in-scrutable reason, imparts at times to the waters of Lourdes efficacy and healing properties, then the Catholic is' superstitious and credulous. The Protestant Pro-testant credits the history of tl:r cures of the waters wa-ters of the Probatica or Bethsaida, on the testi- moir of a converted Jew, and ridicules and rejects, re-jects, the miracles of Lourdes. even though they b verified, certified and sworn to by a thousand Christians. Does the history of the human race record any absurdity like unto this? THE TRUE EXLANATION of this extraordinary inconsistency which accepts a miracle on the word of one man and rejects other oth-er miracles stmported by the oaths of thousands j will be found in the study of the fact that very few. Protestants have any real faith in the one or the : other. As yet they have no real reason for reject- j ing the first, while they have an urgent, pressing ; motive for denying the miracles of Lourdes. Once ; admit the truth of the wonders of Lourdes and m are perilously near admitting that God and i his son, Jesus Christ, are with the Catholic j --church, something that Protestantism will nevci; i acknowledge. j t I am not about to discuss (the credibility of ! . miracles wrought in our own times, but I will say ' thatv to the Christian, who is at all familiar with j ( Holy Writ, and understands that the miracles of ( the New Testament are not isolated and abnormal, t but typical and characteristic facts, belonging to the whole dispensation which they support and il- ' lustra te, their ceasing to be would be more mys- ( terious and incomprehensible than their continu- ( ance. - "Miracles, writes the father of geology, Hugh j Miller, in his 'Footprints of the Creator,' "are not only not impossibilities, but even not improbabili- ,' ties. Whatever is possible may occur, and what- j i ever occurs ought, on the proper evidence, to be I . believed." There are many people who would not J believe a miracle even if they saw one; they have ( an instinctive fear and hatred of the supernatural ( and woultl rather believe that God is eternally silent si-lent or that their senses deceive them, than confess that the testimony of miracles makes for the truth of Catholio faith and the presence of God with his j Church. That great scholar and convert, Cardinal j Newman in his "Life of St. Richard the Saxon," written four years before his conversion, says: ; "The question will naturally suggest itself to the reader, whether the miracles recorded in this narrative nar-rative and esnecially those contained in the life of St. Walburga, . are to be received as matters of . i fact. We can only reply there is no rea- son why they should not. As a healing virtue went out, at Christ's behest, from the hem of his own garment; from Peter's shadow as that apostle walked walk-ed the streets, from the handkerchiefs and aprons . which had touched the living body of St. Paul, from the water of the pool after the visit of the Ancel, so at his behest this healing virtue still continues con-tinues to issue from the relics of his saints, whose souls now behold the Beatific Vision." And now may I bring to an end this series of i letters to the Intermoyntain Catholic with the expression ex-pression of the hope that I have done something to give to the knowledge of your readers some additional ad-ditional information on the holy shrine of Lourdes, that I have done something to excite their admiration admira-tion for the mysterious dealings of God with the children of men, and that, above all. I have helped to increase their devotion to the Virgin Mother of God. Skould you again issue a call to me in my retirement, 1 trust you will find me ready to answer. an-swer. For the present I may only say in the words of the Bard of Locksley Hall : "Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn, Leave me here and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn." HUBERT LARKIX. Paris. France. |