the awakening and gradual strengthening in his mind of the religious principle is reverentially and impressively detailed. The book was published by Knight in 1837, and it is remarkable that no publisher has hitherto ventured to reprint it. R. T. G.

TE DEUM AND DOXOLOGY.

(To the Editor of the Intellectual Repository.)

DEAR SIR,-I ought before this time to have replied to the brief but acceptable letter of "Philo" in the Intellectual Repository for February, page 72. I hasten to do so before the year expires.

In all future editions that I may publish of my revision of that "ancient and admirable spiritual song," the Te Deum, I will restore the old reading, thus-"We therefore pray Thee, help Thy servants, whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious blood," instead of "in Thy precious love." My reason for changing the form of expression without altering the meaning, was that there exists a widespread belief that the material blood of Christ, shed on the cross, was the procuring cause of redemption. To talk freely of "the blood of Christ" is supposed by many to be the beginning and end of religion. It is better to keep and explain the scriptural phrase than to reject it. Many New Churchmen worship in the forms of the Church of England. To such I would recommend the following revision of the first versicle of the doxology-"Glory be to the Saviour, Jehovah, God, the Redeemer of the world." It may be sung simultaneously with the old doxology. I think that our New Church Societies would gain in the musical part of their worship by singing this new version of the old hymn of praise-" Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost," the second versicle, "As it was in the beginning," etc., unaltered, instead of "To Jesus Christ be glory and dominion, for ever and ever. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last; who is, and who was, and who is to come; the Almighty," in which the most solemn expressions are gabbled, and the words made to tumble over each other in the effort to bring them within the compass of the notes of the chant. Not only would our own worship be benefited, in my opinion, by this change, but when a stranger comes into our Church he might sing his own version without disturbing either the rhythm of the doxology or the harmony of the worship.

BATH, 19th December 1876.

ISAAC PITMAN.

79

TOUR IN FRANCE AND ITALY.-No III.

Ar the conclusion of my last paper I had related my observations in the footsteps of Lord Brougham at Cannes. In the winter and spring, Cannes is no doubt an agreeable and healthy residence; but for all the year round it must be very trying from the great heat, the dusty roads, the parched-up ground, and the mosquitoes. I heard some odd stories of the inhabitants being unable to rest, and their curious contrivances to avoid these mischievous creatures. I called upon a family, to which I had an introduction, who had a house in pretty grounds just opposite to the Isle Marguerite, where Marshal Bazaine (not De Boeuf as printed somehow in my last) was confined, and whence he made his escape, much to the relief of France I should hope. There also had been immured for years the Man with the Iron Mask. The garden of my friends was quite dried up and unmanageable from the excessive heat, and the head of the family had suffered during the summer from sunstroke.

There are six Protestant places of worship in Cannes, but the three for the English seem not to trouble themselves to have any French service in the evening, or at other times, or to do anything to diffuse the religion of the Bible amongst the French. There is a Bible Society's depôt, and probably some good may be done by that, but Sundayschools, or any of these benevolent appliances which in England popularize religion, seem untried in France. I cannot but think this is a great neglect and a great mistake. On the contrary, Sunday is a day of frivolous pleasure and dissipation. The powers of evil are at work in giddy dancing saloons, often kept by very immoral persons.

A strange exposure had been made on the Sunday evening before I reached Cannes at a place of entertainment situate at the end of a promenade called La Croisette. The papers were full of it. The tavern was called (for the French are often ostentatious in vice) Le Chalet du Diable, the House of the Devil. The landlord lived there with a concubine, and was named Marius Rocca. It transpired that he was chief of a band of robbers who had for a long time been preying upon the country round. A short time before, several of them, pistols in hand, had at night broken into the house of a merchant at Nimes, and plundered it in a forcible manner of 300,000 francs.

A large portion of the proceeds of their numerous robberies was hidden in the roofs of the summer houses, alcoves, and other places of the grounds of the House of the Devil. The passing of some of the notes stolen led to the detection by the police of the banditti and its head, Rocca, and the disclosure of a vast amount of secreted plunder, and it is hoped full justice will be done to all the robbers, and especially to the scoundrel who kept this place of public, thronged, glaring, noisy entertainment, on the Sunday.

I left Cannes for Marseilles through Toulon, and was once more pleased with the noble seaport, to cross the country for Lourdes in the Pyrenees.

The train passed by Montpellier, and next Cette, which has a curious appearance from shallow inlets of the sea, which produce an immense quantity of salt, and where also it is said a greater amount and variety of spurious wines are manufactured than anywhere else in the world. As we travelled along it was pitiful to see the blighted character of the vines for miles and miles, the work of the phyloxera. The destructive creature might have imagined that there was no use for vines at Cette, where they make so much of what pretends to be wine without troubling the grape.

We went by Bezier, where the legate of the Pope in the Middle Ages authorized the slaughter of all the inhabitants, because many of them were opposed to the Pope in religion, with the brutal declaration, "Kill them all; the Lord will know His own."

We continued our route by Carcassone, Toulouse, and Tarbes, until we reached Lourdes, for some years the place of exciting pilgrimages, and reputed miraculous cures. I arrived on Sunday morning, and was interested to learn that a considerable pilgrimage was to arrive that day. Lourdes is a small town, containing probably 5000 people.

It is situated in a gorge among the mountains, through which the river Gave, with a brisk rush of water, finds its way.

A strong castle on a hill, which still dominates the town, in former times barred the way to the upper passes of the Pyrenees.

Surrounded by mountains, the scene is very picturesque. I went into the town and inquired the route to the grotto. I was directed from the centre of the town towards the east, and passed along a winding way, which I soon found was lined on both sides with booths for a quarter of a mile.

These booths, like the stalls at a market or fair, were for the sale of beads, crosses, chapelets, prayers, photographs, histories large and small of the grotto, and other objects of Roman Catholic piety.

The booths have different names: one is called Nazareth, another Bethlehem, another Jerusalem, and so on. Some had men dressed like Arabs to sell the things, others had old or young ladies. Already business was going on briskly that Sunday morning, but I pushed on to the grotto.

In the pictures of the place I had previously seen in this country, one seems to have to go up to reach the cave or grotto, but in reality, one descends and finds it nearly level with the bank of the river.

I went on until I came to the grotto. It was a cave in the side of a rock, as large as a moderate drawing-room, with the sides open. It is still in its natural state, only that there is a railing in front, through the open gate of which you can pass if you are so disposed. Above the open side of the cave is a recess or niche about the size of a moderate window, in which the apparition of the virgin is said to have appeared, and in which there is now a statue to represent her.

Within the cave there was a frame, on which were about 100 candles constantly burning, and besides, there were a number of large wax tapers also lighted.

Before the cave were probably 200 people, priests, rich, poor, in

many different garbs and dresses, kneeling and devoutly praying. Some more demonstrative, entered the cave and knelt there.

Near the cave, perhaps ten yards at one side, there is a marble cistern with four taps, from which any one can draw water to drink or to apply to the face, hands, or person. It is pure fresh water, with no mineral quantities.

This is the water that came out for the first time when the apparition told a little girl to scratch the earth, and which is believed occasionally to work miraculous cures.

On the hill, in the side of which is the cave, a church is now built, capable of containing 600 people, with a lofty spire, and highly decorated within and on the outside.

There are figures of the virgin in the hollows, on the heights, in fact everywhere about. The whole region seems to be devoted to virgin worship.

The story is a curious one, and not devoid of interest in many respects.

It does not seem to have been a case of priestly origin, but one of clairvoyance, to which the child's mind, filled with stories of the virgin, gave the name of "The Immaculate Conception."

The girl, now a woman, still lives. She is now at Nevers, at an hospital there, little seen, and said to be in very poor health, notwithstanding the water discovered is said to have cured many severe diseases in other people.

It was in the month of February 1858, that Bernardette Soubirons, a little sickly girl of thirteen years of age and of very poor parents, went out, in the middle of the day, with her sister and another to gather wood for the fire to cook their scanty dinner.

They were on the side of the river opposite that on which the grotto is, but the water was low, and the two others had crossed, calling to Bernardette to take off her stockings and cross also.

While she was preparing to do this, a strange state came over her, she fell on her knees, and seemed wrapped in contemplation. On coming round, she says, a figure in white appeared in the niche, and she told this to the two others who were playing about the cave and in the cave, and had seen nothing.

They told the story to the parents, who however thought it was a delusion, and forbad them to go near the cave again.

Two days later, the Sunday after they had been to church, having obtained leave, and Bernardette having also a little bottle of holy water, they went again and again, Bernardette saw the figure, and threw towards it the holy water, and the others as before saw nothing.

There was, however, much conversation among the people in Lourdes about this wonderful circumstance, and the general opinion was it was some soul that wished to be prayed out of purgatory the little girl had seen; but two ladies undertook to accompany her next time, and on the Thursday following they went with the girl into

the cave.

F

The girl went into her absorbed state, and says she saw again the white figure, but the ladies saw nothing.

This time the figure spoke, and desired as a favour that the child would come again at the same time for fifteen days.

The two ladies noticed the remarkable absorption in the girl, and her rapt state, but still saw nothing.

They inquired through her if they might come with her on the succeeding visits, and were informed they might, and other people might come, and the girl declared that the "lady" of the apparition looked very kindly and intently at Mademoiselle Peyret, her companion being a married lady. It was market day, Thursday, 18th, 1858, when this happened at Lourdes, and it became the conversation of the country people from the hills and valleys around. The town people, including a medical man, likewise had become greatly interested in these proceedings, and accompanied the girl in crowds to the cave, convinced she saw something, though they did not.

Meantime the police began to interfere in the matter, and questioned and watched the girl as she continued to go and repeat her prayers at the cave at daybreak each day. They questioned her, threatened her, and harassed the girl, but she persisted in her visits and in her relation that she saw a lady there; but she did not know who the lady was, as the lady had not mentioned her name.

Three times the lady had now spoken to her, and the words said are now on a tablet near the cave. First, she said, "Do you wish to do me a favour? Come, then, for fifteen days. I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the other." Second, "I desire that people should come. You pray for sinners. Kiss the ground for sinners. Penitence, penitence, penitence!" Third, "Go to the priests and tell them I desire that they should build me a chapel, and that processions should come here."

These things were said on different days, when the girl went into her ecstatic condition.

But on the 25th of February, at seven o'clock in the morning, came something much more extraordinary. It is related with great minuteness by Henry Lassere, in a well-written book on the subject, the fullest that I am aware of, and the main facts are not, so far I know, called in question, that the lady said, "Go and drink at the fountain, and wash yourself in it, and you must eat some of the grass which grows at its side."

There was no fountain there and never had been. The girl turned to look at the river a few yards off, but the apparition made a sign that it was not there she meant, but pointed with her finger to a spot where all was dry, nothing but rock covered with a few herbs and grass; no water was ever known to come out there.

The girl went upon her knees to the spot, numbers looking on, and scratched the earth. Presently there was moisture seen, then drop by drop water forced its way, and ultimately a rill came forth, and water was seen by all.