A curate who is a healing medium.

One of our subscribers from the Department of the Hautes-Alpes writes us the following:

“For some time there has been much talk, in the valley of the Queyras, of a vicar who, without medical studies, cures a multitude of people of various ailments. He has acted thus for a long time, and they say that august personages consulted him when he was head of another parish in the Basses-Alpes. His cures had given rise to talk, and they say that, as a punishment, he had been sent as curate to La Chalpe, a commune neighboring Abriès, on the frontier of Piedmont. There he continued to be useful to Humanity, relieving and curing, as in the past. “For Spiritists this has nothing admirable about it. If I speak to you of the case, it is because in the valley of the Queyras, as elsewhere, it makes a great deal of noise. Like all serious healing mediums, he never accepts anything. According to what I was told, H. M. the Empress heiress of Russia is said to have offered him several bank notes, which he refused, begging her to put them in the alms box, should she wish to give them for his Church. “Another individual one day placed, surreptitiously, a twenty-franc coin among his papers; when he noticed it, he had him come back, under the pretext of new instructions to give him, and returned his money to him.

“A number of people speak of these cures de visu; others do not believe in them. I know of the fact through persons who are the least improper.

“The curate had been denounced for illegal practice of Medicine; two policemen presented themselves at his house to take him to the authority. He said to them: “I will follow you; but, one moment, please, for I have not eaten. Lunch with me and you shall watch me.” During the meal, he said to one of the policemen: – “You are ill. – Ill? not so much now; three months ago, I say nothing. – Well then! I know what you have; and, if you wish, I can cure you at once, if you do what I say.” They negotiated and the proposal was accepted. “The curate had the policeman suspended by the feet, so that his hands touched the ground and supported him; he placed under his head a bowl of warm milk and administered to him what is called a milk fumigation. After a few minutes, a little snake, some say, a large worm, according to others, falls into the bowl. Grateful, the policeman put the snake in a bottle and led the curate to the magistrate, to whom he explained his case, after which the curate was set at liberty. “I should have very much liked to see this curate, our correspondent adds, but the snow of our mountains makes the roads very difficult in this season; I am obliged to content myself with the information I transmit to you.

The conclusion of all this is that this faculty is developing and the examples multiply. In the commune I cite to you, and in our valley, this produces a great effect. As always, some say: Charlatan; others, demon; others still, sorcerer. But the facts are there, and I could not lose the occasion to state my way of thinking, explaining that facts of this kind have nothing supernatural about them, nor diabolical, as thousands of examples have been seen, since the most remote times, and that it is a mode of manifestation of the power of God, without there being any derogation of His eternal laws.” [See likewise the article: The Prince of Hohenlohe, healing medium.]