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be mistaken if they make this inference; they will be mistaken if they
suppose that I think miracles in Judaea credible but miracles in France
or Flanders incredible. I hold no such absurdities. But I confess,
very frankly, that I credit none of the "Angels of Mons" legends,
partly because I see, or think I see, their derivation from my own
idle fiction, but chiefly because I have, so far, not received one jot
or tittle of evidence that should dispose me to belief. It is idle,
indeed, and foolish enough for a man to say: "I am sure that story is
a lie, because the supernatural element enters into it;" here, indeed,
we have the maggot writhing in the midst of corrupted offal denying
the existence of the sun. But if this fellow be a fool--as he is--
equally foolish is he who says, "If the tale has anything of the
supernatural it is true, and the less evidence the better;" and I am
afraid this tends to be the attitude of many who call themselves
occultists. I hope that I shall never get to that frame of mind. So I
say, not that super-normal interventions are impossible, not that they
have not happened during this war--I know nothing as to that point,
one way or the other--but that there is not one atom of evidence (so
far) to support the current stories of the angels of Mons. For, be it
remarked, these stories are specific stories. They rest on the second,
third, fourth, fifth hand stories told by "a soldier," by "an
officer," by "a Catholic correspondent," by "a nurse," by any number
of anonymous people. Indeed, names have been mentioned. A lady's name
has been drawn, most unwarrantably as it appears to me, into the
discussion, and I have no doubt that this lady has been subject to a
good deal of pestering and annoyance. She has written to the Editor of
_The Evening News_ denying all knowledge of the supposed miracle. The
Psychical Research Society's expert confesses that no real evidence
has been proffered to her Society on the matter. And then, to my
amazement, she accepts as fact the proposition that some men on the
battlefield have been "hallucinated," and proceeds to give the theory
of sensory hallucination. She forgets that, by her own showing, there
is no reason to suppose that anybody has been hallucinated at all.
Someone (unknown) has met a nurse (unnamed) who has talked to a
soldier (anonymous) who has seen angels. But _that_ is not evidence;
and not even Sam Weller at his gayest would have dared to offer it as