ible, since, by
acting thus, she confirms the known will of Her Son; the first to behold
the infant Jesus in the manger at Bethlehem were in fact shepherds, and
it was from among men of the lowest class that Christ chose His
apostles.

"And is not the water that serves as a medium of cure prefigured in the
Sacred Books--in the Old Testament by the River Jordan, which cleansed
Naaman of his leprosy; and in the New by the probationary pool stirred
by an angel?

"Another law seems no less probable. The Virgin is, as far as possible,
considerate of the temperament and individual character of the persons
She appears to. She places Herself on the level of their intellect, is
incarnate in the only material form that they can conceive of. She
assumes the simple aspect these poor creatures love, accepting the blue
and white robes, the crown and wreaths of roses, the trinkets and
garlands and frippery of a first Communion, the ugliest garb.

"There is not indeed a single case where the shepherd maids who saw Her
described Her otherwise than as a 'beautiful lady' with the features of
the Virgin of a village altar, a Madonna of the Saint-Sulpice shops, a
street-corner Queen.

"These two rules are more or less universal," said Durtal to himself.
"As to the Son, it would seem that He never now will reveal Himself in
human form to the masses. Since His appearance to the Blessed Mary
Margaret, whom He employed as a mouthpiece to address the people, He has
been silent. He keeps in the background, giving precedence to His
Mother.

"He, it is true, reserves for Himself a dwelling in the secret places,
the hidden regions, the strongholds of the soul, as Saint Theresa calls
them; but His presence is unseen and His words spoken within us, and
generally not apprehended by means of the senses."

Durtal ceased speaking, confessing to himself how inane were these
reflections, how powerless the human reason to investigate the
inconceivable purposes of the Almighty; and again his thoughts turned to
that journey to Dauphine which haunted his memory.

"Ah! but the chain of the High Alps and the peaks of La Salette," said
he to himself; "that huge white hotel, that church coloured with dirty
yellow lime-wash, vaguely Byzantine and vaguely Romanesque in its
architecture, and that little cell with the plaster Christ nailed to a
flat black wooden Cross--that tiny Sanctuary plainly white-washed, and
so small that one could step across it in any