An enormous French pilgrimage to Lourdes,— a little town on
the French aide of the Pyrenees where a child, called Bernardette Sonbirous, is supposed to have had a vision of the Virgin Mary in 1858,—took place at the end of last week ; and last Sunday some 30,000 to 40,000 pilgrims were collected at the scene of the vision and of the miracles which are of course said to have ensued. Some of the pilgrims were insulted on their journey by the Reds of Nantes, and this has, of course, greatly aggravated the schism between the religious and the sceptical party in France ; but on Sunday everything went off without accident. There was a mighty procession, a great display of 300 expensive banners,—one especi- ally, a black one, on behalf of Alsace and Lorraine, attracting a
very passionate show of feeling ; there was a sermon from the Archbishop of Auch ; a sermon -from one of the Order of Friar Preachers, Father Chocarne, and finally there were, as the Roman Catholics say, three miracles. Nations in calamity, like individuals, catch at straws. But it is cer- tainly strange to hear of a nation even of Roman Catholics, who -of course believe in the immanence of miracle in the Church, =taking so much pains on the strength of the narrative of a sickly girl of fourteen, whose vision of fourteen years ago was not shared byany of hercompanions on the spot, when one would have supposed that they could even better pray at home, and without mixing " contingent matter" in their prayers. To pray on an hypothesis must surely be difficult, even to Roman Catholics.
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