PILGRIMAGES IN THE PYRENEES.*
THE author of this book is a fervent Roman Catholic, who has made use of a sojourn in the Pyrenees to visit a number of places where the Virgin is said to have appeared either in early times or in the present century. These apparitions were much more numer- ous two or three hundred years ago than they are now, and there is a striking similarity among the old legends which suggests a common origin. In no less than five instances, an image of the Virgin or the grave of a saint was discovered by an ox, a bull, or a heifer, and each time that the image was removed to some exist- ing church, it miraculously returned to its former place, till that was made the site of a new building. Mr. Lawlor talks of having gathered and authenticated his legends on the spot, but we do not see what evidence could be collected of a heifer having been accus- tomed to bellow plaintively before a certain bush in the sixteenth -century. A few minutes of calm consideration would probably con- vince Mr. Lawlor, if indeed he could be brought to regard such mat- ters in a critical light, that all this is purely tradition. What is there to support it? "The belief of the country during long genera- tions" does not of itself show that there was any groundwork for that belief, still less does it show that any groundwork there may have been was authentic. The "extraordinary series of super- natural events" to which Mr. Lawlor appeals, generally rests upon the same evidence as the original miracle. Thus the apparition of the Virgin at Betharram took place at the close of the fifteenth century, and the latest miracle recorded in connection with the place occurred in 1610. We can hardly say that there is much difference between evidence two hundred years old and evidence four hundred years old. We may accept or reject the one as we believe or disbelieve the other. Mr. Lawlor's faith is truly edify- ing, but it is not convincing. His extreme readiness to accept every legend, whatever be its date and whatever be the testimony in its favour, makes us doubt his accuracy when he proposes to speak of facts within his own knowledge. His unflinching belief in the bull which knelt on a stone before the Virgin of Sarrance, in the miraculous goats which came of themselves to give milk to • Pilgrimages in Mc Pyrenees and Landes. By Denys Shyne Lawlor, Esq. London: Longman.. MO. the workmen employed on the chapel of Hess, in the stream at the same place which dried up whenever the inhabitants gave way to
• drunkenness or other disorders, in the ox which always left the ; herd in order to lick the statue of Our Lady of Bourisp, and in the heifer which bellowed plaintively before the bushes that concealed ■ the statue of the Virgin of .Nestes, tells against his account of the apparition at Lourdes, and causes us even then to regard him as an advocate, not as an historian.
This is the more unfortunate, as the apparition of Lourdes hap- pened only twelve years ago, and might therefore be tested by criti- cism. Had Mr. Lawlor treated the earlier legends as the pious growth of popular belief, had he shown how one place vied with another in ascribing a supernatural origin to some cherished image, we should have looked with very different eyes upon his description of a modern miracle. But as it is, he forces us to the conclusion that direct evidence is no better than the traditions of four centuries. The appearance of the Virgin to a girl who is still living, the bursting out of a fountain possessed of miraculous powers of healing, the punishment of those who helped to desecrate the chosen grotto, are to be ranked with the oxen and goats of early legend. It is true that Mr. Lawlor talks of the miracle of Lourdes having been authenticated by evidence that would be held conclusive in a court of human law, but unluckily " authenticated " was the word he used about his whole collection. Moreover, when we come to analyze the evidence presented by Mr. Lawlor, we do not find that it bears out this statement. We do not say that there is not enough to induce persons to believe in the apparition, but that is a matter for each one to consider. What we understand by con- clusive evidence, is such a body of proof as, if true, is incon- sistent with any other theory than the one which it is intended to support. Mr. Lawlor's theory is that the Virgin actually appeared to a child called Bernadette at Lourdes. All the direct evidence we have of any apparition is the child's own statement that she saw "a lady of incomparable beauty" sur- rounded with light in a niche of a grotto, that the lady spoke to her several times, told her two secrets, desired a chapel to be erected to her in the grotto, pointed to a place where a fountain was to gush out, and gave her name as the Immaculate Conception. There seems to be an indirect confirmation of this statement in the fact that a fountain did gush out in the place indicated, and the miraculous theory is borne out by the extraordinary powers of healing which were possessed by the water. But as Bernadette did not tell anyone that the site of the fountain had been pointed out to her till after the water had begun to flow, this is no real confir- mation, and it is clear that the miraculous powers of the fountain do not neccessarily support a miraculous account of its origin. No doubt if we assume that the apparition produced the fountain, the fact that the fountain possessed miraculous powers bears wit- ness to the supernatural character of the apparition. But we can only assume this upon Bernadette's evidence, and it is just that which we have to test. Mr. Lawlor's process of reasoning is,— Bernadette says she saw the apparition ; the apparition told her of the existence of a fountain ; the fountain possessed miraculous powers ; therefore the apparition was genuine. It is not fair to call this arguing in a circle—we mean that it is not fair to the circle.
There are three possible solutions of the problem, besides the' one chosen by Mr. Lawlor. Bernadette may have been under a hallucination. She may have been deceived by some one else in the first instance, and then have kept up the deception either wit- tingly or unwittingly. She may have invented the whole story. We do not think the second solution is likely, though it is not impossible. The first time that Bernadette saw the apparition she was in company with two other girls, but they had left her close to the grotto while they crossed the river. Mr. Lawlor does not state whether they were in such a position as to command the place where the lady appeared to Bernadette, and the omission of this material fact shows how blind he is to the real nature of evidence. If they were not in such a position, and Bernadette was deceived, the subsequent visions might either be the product of her belief in the genuineness of the first, or might be kept up by her wilfully in order that she might not lose the reputation acquired already. We grant that an external deception would not have been possible after the first time, even if it was possible then, for crowds were gathered in front of the grotto whenever Bernadette came again, and a careful examination was made to show that there could not be any optical delusion. We will also dismiss the third solution out of regard for Mr. Lawlor's feelings. He would think it a gratuitous insult if we were for a moment to suppose that a child who crossed herself in such a way as the saints in heaven cross themselves could be an impostor. But we confess
Bernadette agrees with it. The circumstances of the apparition strongly bear it out. According to Mr. Lawlor, the girl Bernadette was fourteen years old at the time, was weak and sickly, afflicted with asthma from her cradle, and constantly suffering from delicacy of the chest, ignorant, unable to read, but full of devotion, especi- ally to the Virgin Mary. A priest who met her shortly before the date of the apparition said of her (Mr. Lawlor, with his normal disregard for important facts, does not tell us whether he said it so that she could hear), "The children to whom the blessed Virgin appeared at La Salette must have resembled this little one." If this suggestion was, indeed, made in Bernadette's hearing, we need not be surprised at anything that followed. There was a
Bernadette must have honestly believed in the apparition is "The admirers of Cromwell have doubted the reality of this conver- further shown by the close examination to which she Was station; but history cannot be written if we doubt every fact to which subjected by the police. All the facts lead to the same con- we are unwilling to give credence. The statement is made on Pole's elusion. Even the supposed statement of the apparition, own authority. There is nothing imaginative about Pole." (p. 34.) "I am the Immaculate Conception," is consistent with Berna- Compare with this Dr. Hook's estimate of Pole's trustworthiness dette's sincerity, though it tends most to discredit the story. in another matter, a conversation which he reports himself to have Mr. Lawlor appreciates this fact, and attempts to meet one aspect had with the King on the subject of the divorce :-
fear of forgetting them. Perhaps it is our first instinct on finding a comparatively modern element of controversy introduced into
constantly repeated in the hearing of an ignorant girl, but never On the whole, however, we think that this biography of Pole is actually taken into her mind, should flash upon her with sudden one of the most successful of Dr. Hook's efforts, giving, as far as vividness at a time when she felt herself in a supernatural presence. we can judge, a very complete and truthful representation of the They would seem new to her then from the novelty with which man, and a very just estimate of his character. Pole, indeed, was they came before her. It would be easy for an ignorant girl to a common-place man, of quite mediocre abilities, whom the force persuade herself that she bad never heard words which she had of circumstances continued to put from time to time in positions never understood. And thus we can believe that Bernadette was to which his powers were wholly unequal, and which repeatedly persuaded of the truth of her own story, while its credibility brought him into discredit, if not into disaster. As a
becomes more impossible than ever, scholar and as a divine, he was not, indeed, great ; but
Mr. Lawlor has one argument in reserve which seems to him he avoided conspicuous failure. He mixed on not unequal unanswerable. If it be allowed that Bernitdette's statement is terms with learned men, and he appreciated the new theo- literally true, and that the apparition was indeed the Virgin Mary, logical ideas which were destined to become dominant, at least every difficulty vanishes. If this be not allowed, we must decide over his own portion of Christendom. But as a diplomatist and between various hypotheses, we must deal with some awkward statesman he repeatedly showed a weakness which brought about facts, we must account for violations of the usual laws of nature. much mischief, and when the final elevation of his career was How are we to get over the cures produced by the water of the attained, and he became a great ecclesiastical potentate, he drifted Lourdes fountain ? How are we to explain the fact that a girl into what must almost be called infamy by becoming a persecutor who lent a cart for the removal of pious offerings from the grotto without convictions. It is not the least interesting of the number- fell from the top of a hayloft and broke her ribs, while on the less speculations which we may indulge as to what "might have same day a man who had lent a hatchet for the desecration of the been," if we think how much the future of the English Church same grotto had both his legs smashed by the fall of a heavy and people might have been changed had Pole, with his advantages hatchet ? This is Mr. Lawlor's dilemma. He says in so many words of royal descent, and his undoubted leaning to the new ideas, been that he might rest his proofs of "this modern mystery" on the a man of commanding ability.
cures established by medical testimony. No doubt we may not Three parts of Pole's life especially deserve to be selected for be able to explain the cause of such cures, if it be shown that there notice. These are,—the attitude which he assumed at the Council is no active agency in the water, and if the effect upon the mind of Trent, the part which he took in the Papal Conclave which of resorting to a supernatural remedy is proved to be insufficient ended in the election of Julius III., and his brief reign, lasting from to conquer the complaints. But to say that on this account we March 22, 1556, till November 18, 1558, as Primate of the Eng- are to accept Mr. Lawlor's solution is equivalent to admitting the lish Church. To the Council he went, by the appointment of truth of spiritualism. If we are to take blindly everything of the Paul III., as one of the three Papal legates. It offers a remark- kind that is offered to us, what is the use of our reason ? Mr. able contrast to the multitude of prelates which is now as- Lawlor shows the most perfect readiness to abdicate his, but we are • Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury. By Walter Farquhar Hook, D.D., Dean of afraid that will produce exactly the opposite effect upon his readers. citicseteir. Vol. III. New Series. LOIld011: Bentley. 180.
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