Faith Cures at Lourdes.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 2352, 24 October 1889, Page 3

Faith Cures at Lourdes.

More miraculous cures are reported from Lourdes. Two of these in particular have lately attracted attention ; in one case a navvy paralytic in consequence of an accident, in the other a girl blind for two jears, having, it is stated, recovered the use of suspended functions. We are not disposed to deny the possibility of “ miracles.” On the contrary we will

venture to assert that in some sort or other they happen every day, end almost everywhere ; for while the world endures we are certain to hear the true saying that “ wonders will never cease,” and a miracle professes to be nothing more than a wonder amoung the processes of nature. The wonders of the grotto at Lourdes are similar to those with which faith healers in this country have made us familiar. It will be noticed that they have arisen out of the same fertile soil the mutability of a diseased nervous system. It must not be forgotten that nerve pathology includes many cases in which the distinction between functional and organic disease is by no means well marked. Yet the difference ife an important one. Under the former title are included a variety of unstable morbid changes capable of rapid and even total transformation ; under the

latter, a group in which the possibility of improvement are inversely proportional to the organic alteration. Such evidence as can be gleaned from the practice of the faith cuie, equally with the clear testimony

of scientific fact forbids us to doubt that the wonders wrought at Lourdes owe their occurrence mainly to the sufferer’s will, refreshed by hope and acting on the sources of non-organic paresis. Such an explanation is acceptable both by faith and science. It does not destroy the “ miracle.” The wonder still remains, but its mechanism is seen to be natural, and thus, in the words of the apostle, “ the things which are invisible are understood by the things which are ma le.”— Lancet.