The Pilgrimage to Ars [pp. 24-31]

A Pigrimage to Ars.
From The Lamp.
A PILGRIMAGE TO ARS.
I WENT to Lyons for the express
purpose of visiting the tomb of the
Curd of Ars; for I knew the village
of Ars was not very far from that
city, though I had but a vague idea
as to where it was situated or how
it was to be reached. I trusted, however, to obtaining all needful information from the people at the hotel where
I was to pass the night; and I was
not mistaken in my expectations; but
I must confess, to my sorrow, that I
felt for a moment a very English sort
of shamefacedness about making the
inquiry. Put to the waiter of an
English hotel, such a question would
simply have produced a stare of astonishment or a smile of pity. A visit
to the tomb of the Duke of Wellington at St. Paul's, or a descent
into kingly vaults for the wise purpose
of beholding Prince Albert's coffin,
with its wreaths of flowers laid there
by royal and loving hands-these
things he would have sympathized
with and understood. But a pilgrimage to the last resting-place of a man
who, even admitting he were at that
moment a saint in heaven, had been
but a simple parish-priest upon earth,
would have been a proceeding utterly
beyond his capacity to comprehend,
and he would undoubtedly have pronounced it either an act of insanity or
one of superstition, or something partaking of the nature of the two. I
forgot, for a moment, that I was in a
Catholic country, and inquired my
way to Ars with an uncomfortable expectation of a sneering answer in return. Once, however, that the question was fairly put, there was nothing
left for me but to be ashamed of my
own misgivings.
"Madame wished to visit the tomb
of the sainted Curd?-mais oui. It
was the easiest thing in the world.
Only an hour's railway from Lyons to
Villefranche; and an omnibus at the
latter station, which had been established for the express purpose of accommodating the pilgrims, who still
flocked to Ars from every quarter of
the Catholic world."
I listened, and my way seemed suddenly to become smooth before me.
Later on in the evening, I found that
the housemaid of the hotel had been
there often; and two or three times at
least during the lifetime of the Curd.
I asked her for what purpose she had
gone there; whether to be cured of
bodily ailments or to consult him on
spiritual matters? "For neither one
nor the other," she answered, with great
simplicity; "but she had had a great
grief, and her mother had taken her
to him to be comforted."' There was
something to me singularly lovely in
this answer, and in the insight which
it gave me into the nature of that mission, so human, and yet so divine,
which the Curd had accomplished in
his lifetime. God had placed him
there, like another John the Baptist,
to announce penance to the world.
He preached to thousands-he converted thousands-he penetrated into
the hidden consciences of thousands,
and laid his finger, as if by intuition,
upon the hidden sore that kept the soul
from God. Men, great by wealth and
station, came to him and laid their
burden of sin and misery at his feet.
Men, greater still by intellect, and
prouder and more difficult of conversion (as sins of the intellect ever make
men), left his presence simple, loving,
and believing as little children. For
these he had lightning glances and
words of fire; these by turns hlie reprimanded, exhorted, and encouraged;
but when the weak and sorrowful of
God's flock came to him, he paused in
his apostolic task to weep over them
and console them. And so it was with
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