“But God, who forced La Salette on the world without availing Himself of the means of fashionable notoriety, now changed His tactics; with Lourdes, advertisement appeared on the scene.

“This it is that confounds the mind:  Jesus condescending to make use of the wretched arts of human commerce; adopting the repulsive tricks which we employ to float a manufacture or a business.

“And we wonder whether this may not be the sternest lesson in humility ever given to man, as well as the most vehement reproof hurled at the American abominations of our day—­God reduced to lowering Himself once more to our level, to speaking our language, to using our own devices that He may make Himself heard and obeyed; God no longer even trying to make us understand His purpose through Himself, or to uplift us to that height.

“In point of fact, the way in which the Lord set to work to promulgate the mercies peculiar to Lourdes is astounding.  To make them known He is no longer content to spread the report of its miracles by word of mouth; no, and it might be supposed that in His eyes Lourdes is harder to magnify than La Salette—­He adopted strong measures from the first.  He raised up a man whose book, translated into every language, carried the news of the vision to the most distant lands, and certified the truth of the cures effected at Lourdes.

“To the end that this work should stir up the masses, it was necessary that the writer destined to the task should be a clever organizer, and at the same time a man devoid of individuality of style and of any novel ideas.  In a word, what was needed was a man devoid of talent; and that is quite intelligible, since from the point of view of appreciating art the Catholic public is still a hundred feet beneath the profane public.  And our Lord did the thing well; he selected Henri Lasserre.

“Consequently the mine exploded as required, rending souls and bringing crowds out on to the road to Lourdes.

“Years went by.  The fame of the sanctuary is an established fact.  Indisputable cures are effected by supernatural means and certified by clinical authorities, whose good faith and scientific skill are above suspicion.  Lourdes has its fill; and yet, little by little, in the long run, though pilgrims do not cease to flow thither, the commotion about the Grotto is diminishing.  It is dying out, if not in the religious world, at any rate in the wider world of the careless or the doubting, who must be convinced.  And our Lord thinks it desirable to revive attention to the benefits dispensed by His Mother.

“Lasserre was not such an instrument as could renew the half-exhausted vogue enjoyed by Lourdes.  The public was soaked in his book; it had swallowed it in every vehicle and in every form; the end was achieved; this budding-knife of miracles was a tool that might now be laid aside.