The vision floated on majestically, across the valley and the little town with its praying multitudes. In about three minutes It had passed, and was lost in the pearly mists of the gathering night.
And whilst the vision lasted I was acutely conscious of that innumerable concourse of kneeling forms below, all struggling upwards to the Cross.
It seems to me that the devout, of other faiths than that of Rome, lose much by not taking advantage of Lourdes. For many years, thousands of pilgrims from all corners of the earth have bent their steps towards the shrine, and poured out their souls in a passion of supplication. This tremendous concentration of faith, love and fervent adoration, often ecstatic thanksgiving for answered prayer, must find an echo in the Heaven World to which they are sent.
It is so easy at Lourdes to feel that the Throne of Grace has been actually reached, because one can sense the pathway, the ladder made by human love, praise and faith, down which, I doubt not, the Angels of God are always passing. It is easier to concentrate the mind in a place where religious thought has been poured out for many years, because one insensibly becomes calmed, and tranquilized, and aided by the atmosphere thousands of others have created.
At Lourdes there is nothing to attract the scoffer, and thousands of hearts filled with reverence and devotion reënforce each year the already powerful vibrations, and leave the place the better and richer for their presence.
How few people realize that they have never seen themselves? How many can tell what they really look like?
A very, very few can, and I am amongst the number.
I wakened one morning in summer, and opened my eyes on my sunlit bedroom at home. Instantly I saw something which thrilled me with vivid interest. I saw myself!
I was emerging out of a corner of the room, and composedly approaching the bed. There was no doubt as to recognition. I knew instantly I was looking on my own face for the first time, and it was something of a shock to discover that I was more or less of a stranger to myself. I saw how false a looking-glass can be. I had not begun to know myself.
With absorbed interest I stared very hard, in my intense desire to imprint on my memory my own image. I approached the bed, and as I did so, I seemed to shrink, fade, and waver. Then suddenly I vanished—into my recumbent body.