"Mlle. Massot-Bordenave, of Arras, aged fifty-three, was afflicted in the month of May, 1858, with a malady which deprived her feet and hands of part of their power and mobility. Her fingers were much bent.... Her bread had to be cut for her. She went on foot to the grotto, bathed her hands and feet, and went away cured.
"It cannot be denied that all the prima facie indications in this case are in favor of the intervention of some supernatural cause; but examining it with attention, we shall see that this view is opposed by several well-founded objections. Thus, the beginning of the trouble was hardly four months before; its character was not alarming, being a weakness of convalescence, a diminution of energy in the extensor and flexor muscles of the fingers and toes. Let the nervous power flow into these muscles, under the influence of a strong moral stimulus, and they would resume their functions immediately. Now, may we not admit in this case that the imagination may have become exalted by the religious sentiment, and by the hope of becoming the recipient of a favor from heaven?"
[137] A great part of the papers relating to the grotto of Lourdes were kept by the Lacadé family instead of being left in the archives of the mayoralty. We endeavored in vain to get at these precious documents. The Lacadé family say that they have been burned.
[138] New York: Charles Scribner & Co.
[139] Author of Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers.
[140] Mr. Froude's memory is not always good. In his History of England, vol. ix., p. 307, he tells us: "The guidance of the great movement was snatched from the control of reason to be made over to Calvinism; and Calvinism, could it have had the world under its feet, would have been as merciless as the Inquisition itself. The Huguenots and the Puritans, the Bible in one hand, the sword in the other, were ready to make war with steel and fire against all which Europe for ten centuries had held sacred. Fury encountered fury, fanaticism fanaticism; and wherever Calvin's spirit penetrated, the Christian world was divided into two armies, who abhorred each other with a bitterness exceeding the utmost malignity of mere human nature."
[141] Orig. De Orat.
[142] Gerbet, Le Dogme Générateur de la Piété Catholique.
[143] Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by Rev. I. T. Hecker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
[144] Contra Academicos, lib. iii. § 23.