A crowd had already collected there, and was increasing every moment. Some were praying on their knees, and, endeavoring not to be distracted by the hubbub around, were thanking God for having put a stop to the scandal and the persecutions. Others were standing up talking in a low voice, and awaiting with emotion what was about to take place. Many of the women were saying their beads. Some held bottles in their hands, which they wished to fill at the source of the fountain. Some were throwing flowers over the barriers into the interior of the grotto. But no one touched the barriers. It was necessary that those who had publicly placed them there in opposition to the power of God should come and remove them publicly in submission to the will of a man.
Jacomet arrived. Although, in spite of himself, he showed some embarrassment, and though from the paleness of his face his profound humiliation might have been suspected, still he had not, contrary to the general expectation, the dejected appearance of one who had been conquered. Escorted by his subordinates with their hatchets and pickaxes, he came forward with a bold face. With a seemingly strange affectation, he wore his full-dress costume. His large tricolor scarf was wrapped around him and rested upon his parade sword. A vague tumult, a dull murmur, with some distinct cries here and there, was heard from the crowd. The commissary took up his position upon a rock, and signed to the people that he wished to speak. Every one listened. His words are said to have been to this effect: "My friends, these barriers which the municipality, to my great regret, has ordered to put up, are about to be removed. Who has suffered more than I from this obstacle raised against your piety? I also am a Christian, my friends; I share your faith. But the official, like the soldier, has only one duty; it is the duty, often a very painful one, of obedience. The responsibility does not rest upon him. Well, my friends, when I saw your admirable patience, your respect for authority, your persevering faith, I informed the higher authorities. I pleaded your cause. I said, 'Why prevent them from praying at the grotto, from drinking at the fountain? They will do no harm.' And thus, my friends, the prohibition has been removed, and the prefect and I have resolved to take down these barriers for ever, which were so displeasing to you and much more so to me."
The crowd maintained a cold silence. Some of the young people chuckled and laughed. Jacomet was evidently troubled by his want of success. He gave orders to his men to take away the fence, which was done without delay. The boards were piled up near the grotto, and the police came at nightfall to take them away.
There was great rejoicing at Lourdes. All the afternoon crowds were going and coming on the road to the grotto. Before the Massabielle rocks immense numbers of the faithful were kneeling. Canticles and litanies were sung: "Virgo potens, ora pro nobis." The people drank of the fountain. Faith was free. God had triumphed.
MR. FROUDE AND CALVINISM.
The Robert-Houdin of modern English writers, and author of that popular serial novel grimly entitled The History of England, appears to be only at home in an element of paradox, and in the clever accomplishment of some literary tour de force. Calvinism: An Address delivered at St. Andrews, March 17, 1871, by James Anthony Froude, M.A.,[138] is his latest performance.
Always liberal in his assumption of premises, no one need be surprised that the author should claim Calvinism to have been "accepted for two centuries in all Protestant countries as the final account of the relations between man and his Maker," and should represent that "the Catholics whom it overthrew" assail it, etc. It will be news to most Protestants, Lutherans and Anglicans in particular, that Calvinism was thus accepted, and the 'overthrown Catholics' will be not less surprised. Throughout the address, Mr. Froude industriously insists upon the false idea that Luther was a Calvinist. The statement refutes itself in its terms. No argument is needed to show that Luther's free-will doctrine and Calvin's predestination were simply irreconcilable. It was not skilful in Mr. Froude to smother in its very birth his labored vindication of Calvinistic doctrine by such a presentation as this (p. 4):
"It has come to be regarded by liberal thinkers as a system of belief incredible in itself, dishonoring to its object, and as intolerable as it has been itself intolerant. To represent man as sent into the world under a curse, as incurably wicked—wicked by the constitution of his flesh, and wicked by eternal decree—as doomed, unless exempted by special grace which he cannot merit or by any effort of his own obtain, to live in sin while he remains on earth, and to be eternally miserable when he leaves it—to represent him as born unable to keep the commandments, yet as justly liable to everlasting punishment for breaking them, is alike repugnant to reason and to conscience, and turns existence into a hideous nightmare. To tell men that they cannot help themselves is to fling them into recklessness and despair. To what purpose the effort to be virtuous, when it is an effort which is foredoomed to fail—when those that are saved are saved by no effort of their own, and confess themselves the worst of sinners, even when rescued from the penalties of sin; and those that are lost are lost by an everlasting sentence decreed against them before they were born? How are we to call the Ruler who laid us under this iron code by the name of Wise, or Just, or Merciful, when we ascribe principles of action to him which in a human father we should call preposterous and monstrous?"