TWO INQUIRERS INTO SPIRITUALISM 323 



out a distant inscription told her to read it to him. She said, 

 ' I can't papa ; it's Latin.' He told her then to read him the 

 letters, which, to his delight, she did. This change had 

 continued permanent up to my visit to him last Tuesday." 



To appreciate fully the weight of this evidence, received 

 at first hand from the best of witnesses — the medical men 

 who had attended the patients cured, and who were all more 

 or less strongly prejudiced against the whole thing — the 

 reader should make himself acquainted with some portion of 

 the mass of equally good evidence to be found in various 

 French works, or in the Rev. R. F. Clarke's " Lourdes and 

 its Miracles" (1887). The detailed history of the origin of 

 the spring at Lourdes, and of all the succeeding events, by 

 M. Henri Lasserre, is both interesting and instructive to the 

 spiritualist. His book, " Notre Dame de Lourdes," had gone 

 through one hundred and twenty-six editions in 1892, and 

 had been translated into eleven European languages. It is 

 written from the point of view of an enthusiastic Roman 

 Catholic, and exhibits Bernadette Soubirous as a modern 

 representative in character and in psychical faculties of Joan 

 of Arc. The second volume, published fourteen years later, 

 under the title " Les Episodes Miraculeux de Lourdes," con- 

 tains a detailed record with confirmatory documents of five 

 cases of remarkable cures at Lourdes. 



In 1862, M. Lasserre himself was cured of an affection of 

 the eyes which rendered him unable to read or write, and 

 which the best specialists in Paris declared to be incurable. 

 Any attempt to read even the largest print, and however 

 shaded from bright light, produced intense pain. He was 

 persuaded to send for some Lourdes water, and received a 

 small bottle. He washed his eyes for a few minutes, drank 

 the remainder, and was instantaneously cured. He declares 

 that he at once read a hundred pages of a book of which, an 

 hour before, he could not have read three lines. This won- 

 derful cure caused him to become the historian of Lourdes, 

 and he devoted several years to collecting materials direct 

 from every person on the spot who could give him informa- 

 tion, as well as from all contemporary records and official 



