Tangible apparition.

On the 14th of last January, Mr. Lecomte, a farmer in the commune of Brix, district of Valognes, was visited by an individual who said he was one of his old comrades, with whom he had worked at the port of Cherbourg, and whose death goes back two and a half years. The apparition's purpose was to ask Lecomte to have a Mass said. On the 15th the apparition recurred. Less startled, Lecomte indeed recognized the old comrade, but, still disturbed, did not know what to answer. The same happened on the 17th and 18th of January. Only on the 19th did Lecomte say to him: Since you desire a Mass, where do you wish it to be said? Will you attend it? – I desire – answered the Spirit – that the Mass be held in the chapel of Saint-Sauveur, within eight days; I shall be there. And he added: It has been a long time since I saw you, and the distance was long to come to seek you. Having said this, he withdrew, pressing his hand. Mr. Lecomte fulfilled his promise: on the 27th of January the Mass was said at Saint-Sauveur, and he saw his old comrade kneeling on the steps of the altar, near the officiating priest. Besides himself, no one perceived the apparition, although he had asked the priest and those present whether they had not seen it.

From that day on, Mr. Lecomte was no longer visited and resumed his habitual tranquility.

Observation. – According to this account, whose authenticity is guaranteed by a person worthy of belief, it is not a matter of a simple vision, but of a tangible apparition, for the deceased, friend of Mr. Lecomte, had pressed his hand. The incredulous will say that it was a hallucination, but, up to now, we still await on their part a clear, logical, and truly scientific explanation of the strange phenomena that they designate by that name, since simply to deny them does not seem to us the best solution.