"Well, my children, you will cause it to be made known to all my people."

66

And passing onwards beyond the little stream, she repeated, Well, my children, you will cause it to be made known to all my people." She then ascended to the spot where the children had found their cows. She advanced without making the least impression on the grass. Maximin and Melanie followed her. And then this beautiful Lady arose a little from the ground, looking first towards heaven and then towards the earth; and gradually she vanished from them, the head disappearing first, then the arms, and lastly the feet, till there remained but a brightness in the air, which lasted a short time.

According to the children's account, the Lady had on her feet white shoes, ornamented with roses of various colours; a gold coloured apron, a white robe covered all over with pearls, a white cape, and a high headdress with a crown of roses. Around her neck she wore a small chain, from which was suspended a crucifix with the emblems of the Passion. Another large chain hung from either extremity of the cross; and there were roses all along the border of her cape. Her face was pale, rather elongated, and so dazzlingly bright, that it was impossible to look at her for any length of time together. Neither of the children can speak with clearness of the materials or texture of her dress: but both unite in describing the light, which shone from her, as incomparably brighter than the sun. No representation, as yet produced, has succeeded

in satisfying the idea formed of the Lady's appearance in the minds of the children. Melanie speaks of the gentle sweetness of her voice as beyond all comparison, and Maximin has declared that all the Church symphonies which he has since heard are as nothing to that voice. Whilst the Lady was speaking, she shed many tears, which Melanie says were very brilliant, and did not fall on the ground, but disappeared like sparks of fire. Her eyes betrayed exceeding tenderness; and her looks were kind and affable. When she had vanished, Melanie exclaimed, "It is either God, or my father's Blessed Virgin, or a great saint." As to Maximin, various thoughts flitted through his brain. He had heard talk of sorceresses, and perhaps she might be one; but catching at the last words of Melanie, his ideas changed, and in his turn he exclaims: "If we had known it was a great saint, we would have asked her to take us with her." And immediately they ran to look after their

COWS.

Such are the main facts of the Apparition. The recital of Melanie does not differ from that of Maximin, and the above account is taken from both. A few discrepancies exist, it is true, between the two narratives; but they are almost all verbal, and do not alter the sense or change the substance. Thus, as in the repetitions of our Lord's words by the different Evangelists, they form an argument in favour of their genuineness rather than against it. The story of the vision remains to-day unchanged as from the first; and the

children relate it now, as they related it the same evening to their employers, as they gave it the next morning to the Parish Priest of La Salette, as Melanie told it the same day to Monsieur Peytard the mayor of La Salette, and as they have recounted it ever since faithfully and without wavering to all enquirers.

REFLECTIONS ON THE RECITAL OF THE TWO
CHILDREN.

I.-PLAINTS OF OUR LADY.

Of which the first is-The sins of menThe arm of my Son is so heavy, so weighty, that I can no longer hold it back."

The perfect conformity in the words of Our Lady of La Salette with the language of the Church, is very remarkable. The children were simple and ignorant, had but the merest idea of the existence even of the Blessed Virgin: and yet, the words related by them are in strict harmony with the belief of the Church, which, for eighteen centuries, by the united voice of the Supreme Pontiffs and the General Councils, by the voice of its Fathers, its doctors, its saints, has not ceased to proclaim Mary to be our advocate and refuge.

The perfect conformity of the language used by our Lady with the wants of religion and society in this age, is not less striking. Her words are quite in accordance with the spirit which dictated the famous encyclical letter of the Pope, Nov. 21, 1851. "None of

you," writes His Holiness, "are ignorant of the perfidious artifices, the monstrous doctrines, the conspiracies of every kind which the enemies of God and the human race are setting to work in order to pervert minds, corrupt hearts, to cause religion to disappear if it were possible from the face of the earth, to break asunder all the bonds of society, and destroy it even to its very foundations. Hence again the unbridled license in thinking everything, doing everything, and daring everything, the determined revolt against all authority, the derision and scorn lavished upon things the most sacred; hence above all, the poisonous ravages of bad books, pamphlets, tracts, and newspapers, scattered about profusely and propagating everywhere the knowledge of evil. Hence likewise seditious movements, sacrilegious plots, and the contempt of the laws human and divine."

What evils more truly capable of weighing down the arm of the Son of Mary, and of provoking His just vengeance! and if Catholic countries are guilty, how great then must be the crime of unbelieving England!

2. How men have become hardened in sin.— "For how long a time am I not suffering for you! If I would not that my Son should abandon you, I have to entreat Him without ceasing. And as for you, you care not for it!"

It is not possible that two poor shepherd children, who knew little or nothing of the Blessed Virgin or her divine Son, could have invented such noble language, a language which paints

with the simple force of truth the real state of so many Christians at the present day. Who can count the thousands, aye millions, even in Catholic countries, and especially in large towns, whose hearts are hardened down in sin, whom nothing can touch-not the voice of zealous pastors, nor the grace of frequent jubilees, nor of many missions preached to them,-whose consciences remain dead beneath the thunder of God's justice announced to them in these times by political eruptions, by the horrors of war, the irregularity of the seasons, an awful pestilence, plagues and blights which are now coming upon us year after year! And with this picture before us, who can think without a shudder of the pride, impurities, and grovelling lust for riches, which here are but too often the real obstacles to the reception of the Truth!

3. The profanation of the Sunday." Six days have I given you to labour, the seventh I have kept for myself, and they will not give it to me.

Here is a text taken almost word for word from the Holy Scriptures, full of majesty, and evidently far beyond the reach of either Maximin or Melanie. Besides, these poor little shepherds could have known nothing whatever of the fearful amount of sin committed by desecration of the Lord's day. To have had cognizance of a sin, they must have first known the law, and both children were totally without instruction, and what is more, almost incapable of receiving it. The world, the while, was plunged in the deepest guilt for