$2 Apiece

In a little Gallic town about 70 years ago there lived a girl. Her first name was Bernadette; her last name is immaterial. The name of the town is Lourdes.

Lourdes had huddled around the Pyrenees Mountains for nine centuries without any exciting circumstances to identify itself when Bernadette one day discovered the spirit of the Virgin Mary secluded in a cave at the town's edge, across the river, under the cliff.

From the cave oozed a spring of sluggish brown water. It was found to have miraculous healing powers. Bernadette had more and more Visions. They were authenticated by a commission of inquiry appointed by the old Bishop of Tarbes.

Followed Roman Catholic endorsement of the Visions and of the wondrous water when his Holiness the Pope authorized the cult of Our Lady of Lourdes; Since, the cave has become "the Grotto"; a statue of the Virgin keeps her presence always at hand; a basilica stands on the rock above the cave; the Church of the Rosary has sprung from the miraculous spring water; 600,000 devout Roman Catholics each year make pilgrimage to the marvel.

Last week, it was revealed, a gentleman from Chicago named Kelley got himself in trouble with the Mother Church in the U. S. when indignant Bishops discovered that he had been dispensing miracles. In U. S. Catholic magazines he had inserted mail-order advertisements offering to sell little glass statuettes filled with Lourdes wonderwater at $2 apiece, postpaid. He was doing a prosperous business.

Mr. Kelley declared he was performing a valuable service to those of the faithful who for one reason or another could not make the trip to Lourdes. The Church declared he was commercializing religious works. Mr. Kelley countered that he was not commercializing religious works any more than thousands of other relic and holy commodity hawkers all over Europe who are not interrupted by St. Peter's agencies.

Many a sincere Roman Catholic was puzzled by the situation. It is certain that hundreds of discarded crutches and other votive offerings testified to the power of the water. It is certain that Roman Catholic dogma admits the existence of "miracles" as produced by God to supersede ordinary Nature at propitious moments and locales. And yet, would God be so capricious as to endow a vial of miracles, delivered personally in France, with special healing power--and at the same time withdraw the powers from waters delivered by a U. S. postman? And Protestants wondered whether God would object to the widest possible distribution of healing waters. One answer, of course, would be that it is God's probable will to have healing come of faith as well as water--faith that cannot be adequately tested by $2.