hands down to the spot indicated to find the spring, and the water came welling up out of the dry ground with ever increasing velocity, and from that time forth the source has yielded eighty-five gallons a minute. This water, which in appearance differs nothing from ordinary water, possesses miraculous healing properties; by the use of it, countless supernatural cures have been effected and still are effected to this day. On the 25th of March, the Feast of the Annunciation, Bernadette begged the lady to tell her her name. After she had repeated her request four times the answer was given in these words, uttered by the apparition with clasped hands: “ I am the Immaculate Conception.” Afraid lest she should forget the words, of whose meaning she had no idea, the girl hastened to the priest and repeated them to him. After a time the grotto was closed by the police, and bereft of all its costly decorations. But the Emperor Napoleon III reversed this decree and allowed free access to the grotto to all comers. In the year 1862 a Parisian barrister named Henri Laserre, who had lost his sight, was immediately and completely cured by bathing his eyes with some of the water, for which he had sent by the advice of a Protestant friend. Out of gratitude to almighty God he traveled all over France, visiting persons who had been cured of their respective maladies at Lourdes, to collect materials for publication in a book containing an account of the miracles wrought at that spot, and entitled Our Blessed Lady of Lourdes. In fact, the miracles were so numerous and so striking that the bishop of the diocese was compelled to look into the
