99. This string of epithets is taken from the Roman Breviary, Antiphon to the Magnificat. If we wish to know the extravagances to which the prevalent Mariolatry can carry people, we may go to Liguori's Le Glorie di Maria, a book which a J. H. Newman could defend (Letter to Pusey on the Eirenicon, 1866, pp. 105 ff.). "The way of salvation is open to none otherwise than through Mary." "Whoever expects to obtain graces otherwise than through Mary, endeavors to fly without wings." "Go to Mary, for God has decreed that He will grant no grace otherwise than by the hands of Mary." "All power is granted to thee (Mary) in heaven and on earth, and nothing is impossible to thee." "You, oh Holy Vir- gin, have over God the authority of a Mother, and hence can ob-
ROMAN CATHOLIC MIRACLES 277
tain pardon for the most obdurate of sinners." Here is the way J. K. Huysmans represents her as thought of by her votaries, doubt- less drawing from the life (La Cathedrale, ed. 1903, p. 9): "He meditated on the Virgin whose watchful attentions had so often preserved him from unforeseen danger, easy mistakes, great falls. Was she not" — but we must preserve the French here — "le Puits de la Bonte sans fond, la Collatrice des dons de la bonne Patience, la Touriere des cceurs sees et clos; was she not above all the active and beneficent Mother?"
100. Compare Lachenmann in Schiele and Zscharnack's Re- ligion, etc., vol. V, col. 1837: "Belief in miracles is the chief mo- tive of the favorite places of pilgrimage and the climax is reached in the innumerable localities where the grace of Mary is sought. The origin of these lies not in the region of veneration of relics since the Catholic church knows neither the grave of Mary nor relics of her body, but goes back to stories of visible appearances or of inner revelations of the Mother of God at particular localities which she herself has thus indicated for her special worship, or as places of grace (La Salette, Lourdes) ; or else to vows made to Mary by in- dividuals, or by whole communities, in times of need; or finally to the miraculous activities of an image of Mary."
1 01. A full account of it is given by Leon Marillier in The Pro- ceedings of the Society of Psychical Research, vol. VII (1891-1892), pp. ioo-no.
102. "Our Lady of Pellevoisin," reprinted in The Catholic Re- view (New York) for July 30, 1892, from the Liverpool Catholic Times.
103. In J. K. Huysmans's La Cathedrale we are given a highly picturesque meditation on the several manners in which Mary has revealed herself. She owes something to sinners, it seems, for had it not been for their sin she could never have been the immaculate mother of God. She has tried hard, however, to pay her debt, and has appeared in the most diverse places and in the most diverse fashions — though of late it looks as if she had deserted all her old haunts for Lourdes. She appeared at La Salette as the Madonna of Tears. Twelve years later, when people had got tired of climb- ing to La Salette (the greatest miracle about which was that people could be got to go there), she appeared at Lourdes, no longer as Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows, but as the Madonna of Smiles, the Tenant of the glorious Joys. How everything has been changed ! The special aspect in which Mary is worshipped at Chartres, it is added, is under the traits of a child or a young mother, much more as the Virgin of the Nativity than as Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows.
278 NOTES TO LECTURE III
The old artists of the Middle Ages, working here, have taken care not to sadden her by recalling too many painful memories, and have wished to show, by this discretion, their gratitude to her who has constantly shown herself in their sanctuary the Dispensatrice of benefits, the Chatelaine of graces.
104. The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. XV, p. 464.
105. See The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. X, p. 115; vol. XV, p. 115; also B. M. Aladel, The Miraculous Medal: Its Origin, His- tory, etc. Translated from the French by P. S. Baltimore, 1880.
106. Doctor Rouby, La Verite sur Lourdes, 1010, pp. 318 f.