science is not for him, or those like him.

On one occasion while Palma was in ecstasy, Antonietta, who was near
her, laid bare her chest a little, and cried with enthusiasm, "she is
burning!" Dr. Imbert-Gourbeyre approached and smelt something like the
burning of linen. The dress was opened and her chemise was found to be
burnt on the left side just over the collar bone, and immediately below
this, scorched in the shape of "a magnificent emblem representing a
monstrance. The fire was invisible, but its traces were very evident."

In a note he states that it was affirmed that Palma's temperature on
similar occasions had reached 100 deg. centigrade, (212 deg. Fahrenheit) a fact
which he does not doubt, although his thermometer did not show it. "That
her chemise," he says, "burnt by invisible fire, which escaped the
thermometer, was more extraordinary than if the instrument had indicated
a temperature of 100 deg.."

I shall not stop now to comment further on the circumstances detailed by
Dr. Imbert-Gourbeyre, and of which I have cited but a small part. I will
only say at present that science and common sense would conclude in
regard to Palma d'Oria,

1st. That she had probably at a former period contracted syphilis.

2d. That she was strongly hysterical.

3d. That she was the subject of purpura haemorrhagica.

4th. That she was a most unmitigated humbug and liar.

And now we come to the consideration of a case of stigmatization which
has greatly stirred both the theological and the scientific world of
Europe--that of Louise Lateau--and here again I shall draw largely,
though by no means exclusively, from the works of the believers in the
miraculous production of the phenomena manifested.[13]

Louise Lateau was born at Bois-d'Haine, a small village in Belgium, on
the 30th of January, 1850. She was reared in the utmost poverty, was
chlorotic, and did not menstruate till she was eighteen years old. She
loved solitude and silence, and when not engaged in work--and she does
not appear to have labored much--she spent her time in meditation and
prayer. She was subject to paroxysms of ecstasy, during which, as many
other ecstasies, she spoke very edifying things, of charity, poverty,
and the priesthood. She saw St. Ursula, St. Roch, St. Theresa, and the
Holy Virgin. Persons who saw her in these states declared that, while
lying on the bed, her whole body was raised up more than a foot high,
the heels alone being in cont