The Lord of Glory; Counterfeit Miracles; Revelation and Inspiration

value to contemporary physicians," he writes;^^^ "they have had in it a great field for the study of hysterosis, which a large number of them have misunderstood or only partially understood. Lourdes has put neurosis before them in a striking way. Those of our colleagues who have written into their certificates a diagnosis of incurability, have been profoundly disturbed when they saw their patients return cured; and those of them who have not believed in a miraculous cure have asked themselves the true account of these cures. They have come into actual touch at Lourdes with what they had read in their treatises on various diseases. They have learned what hysterosis really is, and what a great role it has played and will play still in the production of miracles; and they will sign no more certificates on which the Bureau of Constatation can depend for establishing the miraculous character of cures. This ignorance of hysterosis on the part of physicians, which has more than anything else made the fortune of the pilgrimage, will, it is to be hoped, no longer exist." ^^^

Lourdes, naturally, repudiates this classification of her cures, and claims a place apart. She points to the unexampled multitude of cures wrought by her; she points to their intrinsic marvellousness. The great number of cures wrought at Lourdes is not due, however, to any peculiarity in the curative power which she possesses, but to the excellence of its exploitation. It will hardly be contended that her patients are miraculously brought to Lourdes. That the power by which her cures are wrought differs intrinsically from that at work elsewhere is not obvious. To all appearance, all these cures are the same in kind and are the products of the same forces set in action after es- ' sentially the same fashion. These forces are commonly summed up, in large part at least, under the somewhat vague term "suggestion." The term is, perhaps, not a very good one for the particular circumstances, and must be understood when used in this connection in a very wide sense. It means at bottom that the immediate curative agency is found in mental states induced in the patient, powerfully reacting, under the impulse of high exaltation, on his bodily functioning. ^^"^ With his eye precisely on Lourdes, J. M. Charcot sketches with a few bold strokes the working of this suggestion in the mind of the patient.

"In a general way," he says,^^^ "the faith-cure does not develop the whole of its healing force spontaneously. If an invalid hears a report that miraculous cures take place in such and such a shrine, it is very rarely that he fields to the temptation to go there at once. A thousand material difficulties stand, at least temporarily, in the way of his moving; it is no light matter for a paralytic or a blind man, however well off he be, to start on a long journey. He questions his friends; he demands circumstantial accounts of the wonderful cures of which rumor has spoken. He receives nothing but encouragement, not only from his immediate surroundings, but often even from his doctor, who is unwilling to deprive his patient of his last hope, especially if he believes his malady to be amenable to the faith-cure ■ — a remedy which he has not dared to prescribe himself. Besides, the only effect of contradiction would be to heighten the patient's belief in a miraculous cure. The faith-cure is now born, and it continues to develop. The forming of the plan, the preparation, the pilgrimage, become an idee fixe. The poor humiliate themselves to ask alms to enable them to reach the holy spot; the rich become generous toward the poor in the hope of propitiating the godhead; each and all pray with fervor, and entreat for their cure. Under these conditions the mind is not slow to obtain mastery over the body. When the latter has been shaken by a fatiguing journey the patients arrive at the shrine in a state of mind eminently receptive of suggestion. 'The mind of the invalid,' says Barwell, 'being dominated by the firm conviction that a cure will be effected, a cure is effected forthwith.' One last effort — an immersion at the

pool, a last most fervent prayer, aided by the ecstasy produced by the solemn rites — and the faith-cure produces the desired results; the miraculous healing becomes an accomplished fact."

If any one wishes to feel the intensity with which the last stages of tliis process of suggestion are brought to bear on the sick at Lourdes, the perfect art with which the whole dramatic machinery is managed /^^ he need only read a few pages of the description of Monsignor Benson of what he saw at Lourdes. Like Bertrin,^^^ Benson scoffs at the notion that "suggestion" can be thought of as the impulsive cause of the cures; but like Bertrin he defines suggestion in too narrow a sense and no one pictures more vividly than he does suggestion at work. Here is his description of the great procession and blessing of the sick.^"*^

"The crowd was past describing. Here about us was a vast concourse of men; and as far as the eye could reach down the huge oval, and far away beyond the crowned statue, and on either side back to the Bureau on the left, and on the slopes to the right, stretched an inconceivable pavement of heads. Above us, too, on every terrace and step, back to the doors of the great basilica, we knew very well, was one seething, singing mob. A great space was kept open on the level ground beneath us — I should say one hundred by two hundred yards in area — and the inside fringe of this was composed of the sick, in litters, in chairs, standing, sitting, lying, and kneeling. It was at the farther end that the procession would enter.

"After perhaps half an hour's waiting, during which one incessant gust of singing rolled this way and that through the crowd, the leaders of the procession appeared far away — little white or black figures, small as dolls — and the singing became general. But as the endless files rolled out, the singing ceased, and a moment later a priest, standing solitary in the great space, began to pray aloud in a voice like a silver trumpet.

"I have never heard such passion in my life. I began to watch presently, almost mechanically, the little group beneath the ombrellino, in white and gold, and the movements of the monstrance blessing the sick; but again and again my eyes wandered back to the little figure in the midst, and I cried out with the crowd, sentence after sentence, following that passioned voice:

"'Lord, we adore Thee!'

"'Lord,' came the huge response, 'we adore Thee/

"'Lord, we love Thee,' cried the priest.

"'Lord, we love Thee,' answered the people.

"'Jesus, Son of Mary, have pity on us.'

"'Jesus, Son of Mary, have pity on us.'

"Then, with a surge rose up the plain-song melody:

"'Spare, O Lord,' sang the people, 'spare Thy people! Be not angry with us forever.'

"'Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.'

"'As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.'

"Then again the single voice and the multitudinous answer:

"'Thou art the Resurrection and the Life!'

"And then an adjuration to her whom He gave to be our Mother:

"'Mother of the Saviour, pray for us.'

"'Salvation of the weak, pray for us.'

"Then once more the singing; then the cry, more touching than all:

"'Lord, heal our sick!'

"'Lord, heal our sick!'

"Then the kindling that brought the blood to ten thousand faces:

'Hosanna! Hosanna to the Son of David!' (I shook to hear it.)

"'Hosanna!' cried the priest, rising from his knees, with arms flung wide.

"'Hosanna!' roared the people, swift as an echo,

"'Hosanna! Hosanna!' crashed out again and again, like great artillery.

"Yet there was no movement among those piteous prostrate lines. The bishop, the ombrellino over him, passed on slowly round the circle; and the people cried to Him whom he bore, as they cried two thousand years ago on the road to the city of David. Surely He will be pitiful upon this day — the Jubilee Year of His Mother's graciousness, the octave of her assumption to sit with Him on His throne!

"'Mother of the Saviour, pray for us.'

"'Jesus, Thou art my Lord and my God.'

"Yet there was no movement....

"The end was now coming near. The monstrance had reached the image once again, and was advancing down the middle. The voice of the priest grew more persistent still, as he tossed his arms, and cried for mercy:

"'Jesus, have pity on us, have pity on us!'

"And the people, frantic with ardor and desire, answered him with a voice of thunder:

"'Have pity on us! Have pity on us!'

"And now up the steps came the grave group to where Jesus would at least bless His own, though He would not heal them; and the priest in the midst, with one last cry, gave glory to Him who must be served through whatever misery:

"'Hosanna! Hosanna to the Son of David!'

"Surely that must touch the Sacred Heart! Will not His Mother say one word?

Hosanna "'Hosanna "'Hosanna

Hosanna to the Son of David!' cried the priest, cried the people.

"One articulate roar of disappointed praise, and then — Tantum ergo Sacramentum! rose in its solemnity."

There was no miracle, and Benson thinks that that is sufficient proof that the miracles are not wrought by "suggestion." "If ever 'suggestion' could work a miracle," he says, "it must work one now." But this was only the day of preparation, and the fever planted in the blood was working. And the next day the miracles came.^^^ "The

crowd was still, very still, answering as before the passionate voice in the midst; but watching, watching, as I watched.... 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 Hne.

"'Lord, heal our sick,' cried the priest.

"'Lord, heal our sick,' answered the people.

"'Thou art my Lord and my Godl'

"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 mightily.

"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 space; waxing in volume as it ran, till the heads beneath my window shook with it also; hands clapped, voices shouted, *A miracle! A miracle!'"

The tension thus broken, of course other miracles followed. And Benson says he does not see what "suggestion" had to do vs^ith them!

We feel no impulse to insist on the word, "suggestion" as if it were a magic formula, which accounts with completeness for all the cures wrought at Lourdes. We should be perfectly willing to admit, on good reason being given for the admission, that, after all the cures which can be fairly brought under this formula have been brought under it, a residuum may remain for the account of which we should look further. We do not ourselves think that we are much advanced in the explanation of these residuum cases, if they exist, by postulating "a transferrence of vitalizing force either from the energetic faith of the sufferers, or from that of the bystanders" — as Benson intimates that Alexis Carrel was inclined to recommend. ^^^ At bottom, this is only a theory, and it does not seem to us a very complete theor}'', of how "suggestion" acts. Let us leave that to further investigation. For our part, we prefer just to leave these residuum cases themselves, if they exist, to this further investigation. We feel no necessity laid on us to explain them meanwhile. Bertrin makes himself merry^^'^ over the appeal, for their explanation, to the working of "unknown forces" as a mere shift to avoid acknowledging the presence of the supernatural. But surely we cannot pretend to a complete knowledge of all the forces which may work toward a cure in such conditions as are present at Lourdes. Unknown forces are assuredly existent, and it is not unnatural to think of them when effects occur, the causes of which are unknown. Meanwhile residuum cases suggesting reference to them, if they exist at all, are certainly very few. Doctor E. Mackey in a very sensible article published a few years ago in The Dublin Review, ^'^^ seems inclined to rest the case for recognizing their existence on three instances. These are the cures of Pierre de Rudder, of a broken bone; of Joachine Dehant, of a dislocation; and of Francois Macary, of a varicose vein. "Such

cases," he says,^^^... "cannot cure themselves, and no amount of faith and hope that the mind of man can imagine

will unite a broken bone, reduce a dislocation, or obliterate a varicose vein. Such cases cannot be paralleled by any medical experience, or imitated by any therapeutic resource, and are as far removed from its future as its present possibilities. To the sceptic we may give without argument the whole range of nerve disorders, but what explanation is there of the sudden and permanent cure of an organic lesion? What, but the working of the imcovered finger of God?"

The cases selected by Doctor Mackey are famous cases. That of Pierre de Rudder may be said, in fact, to be Lourdes's star case, and is found duly set forth in detail at the head of well-nigh every argument for the miraculousness of the Lourdes cures. Perhaps Doctor Mackey might just as well have contented himself with appealing to it alone. Its salient features are that what was healed in it was a fracture of long standing of both bones of the lower leg, just below the knee, the two parts of the broken bone piercing the flesh and being separated by a suppurating wound an inch long. The healing was instantaneous. We have never seen a satisfactory natural explanation of how this cure was effected. If the facts, in all their details as published— say in Bertrin's extended account, — are authentic, it seems fairly impossible to imagine how it was effected. Doctor Rouby, it is true, offers a very plausible explanation of the healing, but, to make it plausible, he is compelled to assume that some of the minor details are not quite accurately reported.^^^ We prefer simply to leave it, meanwhile, unexplained. Do you cry out that we are bound to supply a satisfactory natural explanation of it, or else acknowledge that a miracle has taken place in this case? We feel no difficulty in declining the dilemma. The healing of Pierre de Rudder's leg is not the only thing that has occurred in the world of the mode of the occurrence of which we are ignorant. After all, inexplicable and miraculous are not exact synonyms, and nobody really thinks