Lourdes Miracles.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 270, 12 November 1892, Page 3 (Supplement)

Lourdes Miracles.

Tumours, Cancer, and Sores Cured,

Evidence of an Eyewitness.

(From Our Special Correspondent.)

London, September 16. That many of the cure 9 effected ab Lourdes within the last few weeks deserve bo be called 'miraculous,' tbero cannob in the face of the testimony of dozens of uninterested and dispassionate obsorvera bo a doubt. The French papers are full of the ' sensation.' Ribald correspondents who avowedly visited the spring to jeer at nineteenth century superstition and credulity remained to wonder and to pray. Doctors who at first bracketed these cures with the ' faith takes' in Sydney and elsewhere a few years ago, now frankly profess themselves puzzled. The lame man who suddenly throws away his crutches and walks ns well as ever he did after a bath in the waters these savanta can account for, but when it comes to wretched scrofulous creatures with running sores emerging from a bath with clean skin and their eoreß dried up, the doctors can only rub their eyes (as Zola did) and murmur 'incredible,' Apropos of this subject I 66nd you an interview with Mr Everard Feilding, a young fellow of superior shrewdness and intelligence who has just returned from Lourdes. Mr Feilding is a brother of Lord Denbigh and a naval officer. ' Naturally,' he began, • I am something of a sceptic. By thab, I mean I want proof before I believe. I went to Lourdes believing thab miracles there were possible. If there were miracles in Scriptural days, why nob now ? Still, there is a difference between admitting the. possibility of miracles, and being convinced about a specific one.' ' I take it that you went with a perfectly open mind ?' 'Precisely. I was there three days, during the three days of the great) national French pilgrimage, the odo which M. Zola accompanied. Each day I was ab the side of the batli3 helping to immerse the men pilgrims; one of my sisters, Lady Clare Feilding, attended for the same purpose ab the women's bath. I suppose you do not wanfcvme to go into a description of the pilgrims I saw immersed or helped to immerse; their sores, their sufferings V 'No.; the great poinb ia the cures, the miracles.' • Well, during the three days I did nob actually see a cure worked, a miracle worked, but I came in contact with various cases as to which the evidence of cure, or miracle, was ample. Take first the case of an Irishman resident in France. Some years back this man, while swimming, kicked his heel against a stone. A running sore wasthe result. Ib healed up once, bub broke out again, and when the man wenb to Lourdes he could nor put one Bide of his foot to the ground. He took a bath, and in the course of a day the heel healed up, and he could walk nimbly enough.' ' Did you regard this as a miracle V 1 1 did not accepb this as proof of the miraculous ; I thought that such a cure might be liable to natural explanation. Nor waa this called a miracle ab Lourdes, where three classes of cures are recognised, the first and second only being counted miracles. In tho first class are tumours, cancers, and so on ; in tho second, internal diseases like consumption ; and in the third —merely called cures—nervoua diseases, as for example paralysis.' • Can you give mo an instance of tho miraculous in the first class?' ' In tho course of my investigations I met a woman who had been cured five years ago. In thanks for tho cure, she, as others often do, has ainco gone to Lourdes annually to tuko a part in badhing the pilgrims. She was an intelligent woman, and she told me her story with perfect simplicity. She had an oxternal tumour on the groin, and it had grown almopb as largo as a child's head. Tho doctors said they would cub ib if sho was willing to undergo the operation, bub thab it would Bimply grow on somo other part of the body. She would nob have ib cut, and started from her home to make a pilgrimago to Lourdes.' • And did tho waters cure tho tumour, for I tako it imagination could nob possibly affect such a disease ?' ' Wait a minute ; eho never was babhed. Sho was taken to the Grotto, where masses nre continually celebrated, where the ailing go first. Whilo standing in the Grobto she felb a ehrinking where the tumour was. Tho feeling of shrinking continued, and in a little time, as tmbscquonb examination by the doctors showed, tho tumour had disappeared.' ' You believed thecase absolutely authentic ?' 1 Vos. Then there was a particular case of cancer which I investigated, and it was oqually remarkable. A woman arrived at Lourdes with one side of her face wholly cancor-Btrickcin. Sho was a sad, one might say a horrible and loathsome Right. She took the baths, and within two days the cancerous flesh peeled off, and healthy flesh came on below. Whether a mark was left whore tho cancer had eaten, whether the woman's face remained disfigured, I don't know, i I don'b remember if I asked about those points, bub as to the disappearance of the cancer there could bo no mistake what)ever. The matter was so extraordinary that nob unnaturally it attracted a good deal of attention ab the time, and was much discussed. Anobher healing, which in the patient's district excibed quite an enthusiasm among the people, also occura to my mind.' ' A case of tumour or of cancer?' 'Neither: of consumption. I cannob speak of ib personally in any way; I only know ib by having read the evidence. Ib happened last year. A nun was supposed to be ab death's door from consumption. She had suffered for a long time, and the doctors had practically given her up. Weak as she was, nothing would satisfy her but that sho should go, or rather be taken, to Lourdes. Tho journey, her doctors said, was simply exposing her to death, and when she did reach Lourdes she looked so terribly far gone thab those in attendance were quite afraid to p!«ce her in the water. So sho was merely pub above the water—hardly touching it—and then taken outside. Almost immediately she gob up, saying she was better, and as tho particulars have it, walked without bhe least assistance.' ' Have you an example of this secondclass—internal diseases—with which you absolutely came in contaot V ' Yes, the euro of a woman named Marie Rayon, which I heard from herself. Sho had been as far gone with tuberculosis as one could be and yet remain alive. She suffered pain, too, from somo other internal complaint. She was carried into the grotto, and in a short time rose from her mattress cured. Certainly, when I meb her afterwards eho looked all right, and—a poinb of somo moment—ato enormously. She said sho had lesb one of her lungs, but thab it seemed to be growine again. Marie Lebranchu, another consumptive patient, whom I did not see, was nlso cured, she, I think, being bathed. A last case which I shall mention—the lengthening of a ahorb leg—did como within the scope of my personal inquiries. Ab the first bath the girl who had the short leg went away limping. At the second bath " I felt something give way," she told mo; and on leaving tho bath sho found herself able to walk straight Strangely enough, a sister with a similar affliction had previously been similarly cured.' ' Now, conccri'''; all those curßß, miracles, or wh: * -.of thoymay be called, are you yourself i..defied aa to their genuineness V , 'As I mentioned before, my natural dis* positions is to be sceptical. Bub evidence canjo before me which I Bimply could nob

get civer; there was no pooh-poohing it» You must remember bhab a patient who proclaims a cure reports to the doctors, and is examined. Most probably, too, there are certificates as to the previous condition, of the patient, So a cure does nob depend, oa the mere word of a pilgrim, far from ifc'_ ' I'm going to put a very blunt question to you. Do you believe thab miracles do take place, or have taken place ab Lourfeo ?' • Yes, I do. I was driven by hard evidence to thab conclusion. I am perfectly well aware of the power of suggestion, an* I recognise whab imagination can, dot & discounb all that kind of thing—l make tj* most liberal allowance for ib. Bub imagination, the power of suggestion, hysterical fancy, oannob pluck the roots out of *. bumour and dissolve a cancer like.misft. ' That's why you say miracles are still with us T 1 Precisely; I must say it. I couKto t, « I wished, help myself. Here's tho tiring, and tbat'B an end to doubt.' ' If miracles ab Lourdes, why nob -elsewhere 1 Why nob in London ?' ' Ju»b so. Elsewhere, in London* where't the impossibility ?'