The Univers, the Union, and the greater part of the Catholic papers bravely met their universal attack. Powerful talents lent themselves to the service of the yet more powerful truth. The Christian press re-established the facts and demolished the miserable quibbles of philosophic fanaticism.
"Meeting with some unexplained facts to which the faith or the credulity of the multitude attributes a supernatural character, the civil authority," said M. Louis Veuillot, "has decided without information, but also without success, in the negative. The spiritual authority comes in in its turn; it is its right and its duty to do so. But before making its judgment, it obtains information. It institutes a commission, an inquiry to examine the alleged facts, to study them, and determine their nature. If they have actually occurred, and are really supernatural, the commission will say so. If they have not occurred, or if they can be explained on natural principles, the commission will also acknowledge that such is the case. What more can our adversaries desire? Do they wish the Bishop to abstain from this examination, with a double danger before him, either of failing to recognize a signal favor which Almighty God would grant to his people, or of allowing a superstition to take root among them?
"The Bishop must necessarily have observed the strangeness of this conviction which had become so firm in the popular mind, upon the word of a poor and ignorant little girl; he must have asked also how these cures could be accounted for, obtained as they had been by means of a few drops of pure water, swallowed or externally applied.... And if there have been in fact no cures, it must be ascertained why the contrary has been believed. But, supposing that the water has no mineral ingredient, as is said by the chemists, and that, nevertheless, the cures are certain, as many sick people and several physicians attest, we do not see any difficulty in recognizing in the case something supernatural and miraculous, with all due respect to the explanations of the Siècle."
The vigorous champion contended with all his enemies at once. A touch of his pen sufficed to demolish the ridiculous idea of denying the possibility of miracles, and of refusing even an examination to these startling facts which a multitude had seen with their own eyes and attested on their knees. "If any one should tell M. Guéroult that a great miracle had been worked in the name of Christ upon the Place de la Concorde, he would not go, it seems, to see it. This is prudent in him certainly, for he is determined to remain incredulous; and in presence of such a spectacle he would not be so certain of finding a natural explanation which would dispense him from going to confession. But he would be still more prudent if he would witness the miracle and believe, yielding to the testimony which God in his mercy would thus give him. The people, however, will not care for his absence, and will not be at all disconcerted to hear that the thing is not at all extraordinary, and that they are the victims of delusion. Things would take the same course at Paris as at Lourdes; a miracle would be proclaimed, and, if there really had been one, it would have its effect; that is, many men who had not as yet 'sought to discover the divine will,' or who have not yet been successful in their search, would know and fulfil it; they would love God with their whole heart, soul, and mind, and their neighbors as themselves. Such is the object which God intends in working miracles; and it is so much the worse for those who refuse to profit by them.
"Those who reject the supernatural, said an ancient writer, destroy philosophy. They destroy it indeed, and especially since the advent of Christianity, because, wishing to take God out of the world, they have no longer any explanation for the world or for humanity. As to this God whom they exclude, some deny his existence, that they may get entirely rid of him; others make of him an inert and indifferent being, having nothing to require and requiring nothing from men, whom he abandons to chance, having created them in a freak of his disdainful power. Some, denying him in their very affirmation, as if they wished to satiate their ingratitude by doing him a double injury, pretend to find him in all things, which theory dispenses them from recognizing and adoring him anywhere in particular. Meanwhile, around them and even in themselves, humanity confesses its God. They reply by sophisms which are far from contenting them, by sarcasms the weakness of which they can hardly conceal from themselves, and at last their science and reason, driven back to the absurd, deprive them of their eyes and ears. They destroy all philosophy.... God, taking compassion on the faith of the weak which these false teachers would pervert, shows himself by one of those unusual displays of his power, which is nevertheless one of the laws of the world. They deny it. Look! we do not wish to see!... David said of the sinner, 'He has promised himself in his heart to sin; he refuses to understand, that he may not be forced to do well.'
"Ah! no doubt," elsewhere exclaimed the indignant logician, "there is an unfortunate multitude on whom all these commonplaces can be palmed off without difficulty; but there are also at Lourdes and elsewhere some readers whose common-sense is aroused, and who ask what will become of history, evident facts, and reason in such a system, with such a determination to deny everything without examination?
"As to preventing the episcopal commission from acting, we doubt if there are any laws conferring such a power upon the government; if there are, it will probably wisely abstain from using its power. On one hand, nothing could be more favorable to superstition than to do so; the popular credulity would then go astray without restraint, for there is no law which can oblige the Bishop to pronounce upon a fact about which he has not been able, and has even been forbidden, to inform himself.... There is only one course for the enemies of superstition, that is, to appoint a commission themselves, to make a counter-examination, and publish its result, in case, of course, that the one appointed by the Bishop concludes in favor of the miracle. For if it concludes that the reports are false, or that there is some illusion, this will not be needed."
The Catholic press, with a reserve truly admirable in the midst of the excitement of the dispute, refused to decide as to the actual merits of the case. It did not wish to anticipate the verdict of the episcopal commission; but confined itself to refuting calumnies, absurd stories, and sophisms, to defending the historical thesis of the occurrence of supernatural events, and to claiming in the name of reason the right of examination and freedom to ascertain the truth. "The event at Lourdes," said the Univers, "is not as yet verified, nor is its nature determined. It may have been a miracle, it may have been an illusion. The decision of the Bishop will settle the question.
"For our own part, we believe that we have answered all that has been seriously or even speciously said about the events at Lourdes. We shall leave the matter here. It was not right that the press should be allowed to heap around these facts all the lies it could think of; but it would not be becoming to give an answer to the abundance of its scoffing words. Wise men will appreciate the wisdom and good faith of the church, and as usual, after all the turmoil, truth will secure for itself in the world its little nucleus of adherents, 'pusillus grex,' which nevertheless is sufficient to maintain its ascendency in the world."[134]
It is obvious that, in the great polemical question regarding miracles which was being discussed on the occasion of the events at Lourdes, the two sides were acting on diametrically opposite plans.