But will science ever account for it all? That I leave to God. All that
I can say is that, if so, it is surely as wonderful as any miracle, that
the Church should have hit upon a secret that the scientists have
missed. But is there not a simpler way of accounting for it? For read
and consider the human evidence as regards Bernadette--her age, her
simplicity, her appearance of ecstasy. She said that she saw this Lady
eighteen times; on one of these occasions, in the presence of
bystanders. She was bidden, she said, to go to the water. She turned to
go down to the Gave, but was recalled and bidden to dig in the earth of
the Grotto. She did so, and a little muddy water appeared where no soul
in the village knew that there was water. Hour by hour this water waxed
in volume; to-day it pours out in an endless stream, is conducted
through the _piscines_; and it is after washing in this water that
bodies are healed in a fashion for which "science cannot account."
Perhaps it cannot. Perhaps it is not intended. But there are things
besides science, and one of them is religion. Is not the evidence
tolerably strong? Or is it a series of coincidences that the child had
an hallucination, devised some trick with the water, and that this water
happens to be an occasion of healing people declared incurable by known
means?

What is the good of these miracles? If so many are cured, why are not
all? Are the _miraculés_ especially distinguished for piety? Is it
to be expected that unbelievers will be convinced? Is it claimed that the
evidence is irresistible? Let us go back to the Gospels. It used to be
said by doubters that the "miraculous element" must have been added
later by the piety of the disciples, because all the world knew now that
"miracles" did not happen. That _a priori_ argument is surely
silenced by Lourdes. "Miracles" in that sense undoubtedly do happen, if
present-day evidence is worth anything whatever. What, then, is the