could discern. For a quarter of an hour I gave Communion rapidly; then,
as soon as another priest could force his way through the crowd, I
continued Mass; he had not nearly finished giving Communion when I had
ended my thanksgiving. This, too, was the same everywhere--in the crypt,
in the basilica, in the Rosary Church, and above all in the Grotto. The
average number of Communions every day throughout the year in Lourdes
is, I am told, four thousand. In that year of Jubilee, however, Dr.
Boissarie informed me, in round numbers, one million Communions were
made, sixty thousand Masses were said, with two thousand Communions at
each midnight Mass.... Does Jesus Christ go out when Mary comes in? We
are told so by non-Catholics. Rather, it seems as if, like the Wise Men
of old, men still find the Child with Mary His Mother.

At the close of my Mass, the old priest rose from his place and began to
prepare the vessels and arrange the Missal. As soon as I took off the
vestments he put them on. I assented passively, supposing him to be the
next on the list; I even answered his _Kyrie_. But at the Collect a
frantic sacristan burst through the crowd; and from remarks made to the
devout old priest and myself, I learned that the next on the list was
still waiting in the sacristy, and that this old man was an adroit
though pious interloper who had determined not to take "No" for an
answer. He finished his Mass. I forbear from comment.

For a while afterward we stood on the terrace above the _piscines_; and,
indeed, after breakfast I returned here again alone, and remained during
all the morning. It was an extraordinary sight. From the terrace, the
cliff fell straight away down to the roofs of the three chapel-like
buildings, fifty or sixty feet beneath. Beyond that I could see the
paved space, sprinkled with a few moving figures; and, beyond the
barrier, the crowd stretching across the roadway and far on either side.