In the history of the Catholic Church one cannot fail to be struck by the part played by children in the seeing of visions, especially of the Virgin. To St. Agnes of Monte Pulciano (A.D. 1274-1317), when fourteen years of age, the Virgin appeared and told her she should build a monastery before she died (191. 24); Jeanne de Maille (1332-1414) was but eleven when the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus came before her in a vision; Catherine of Racconigi (1486-1547) was visited by the Virgin when only five years of age (191. 108); in 1075, Hermann of Cologne, while still a boy, saw in a vision the Virgin, who kissed him, and made a secret deposit of food on a certain stone for his benefit. In 1858 a vision of the Immaculate Conception appeared to Bernadetta Soubirous, a sickly child of fourteen, at Lourdes, in the Hautes Pyrenees. No one else saw this vision, said to have occurred on Shrove Tuesday (Feb. 11), four years after Pius IX. had proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The vision lasted for fourteen successive days (191. 484). On Jan. 17, 1871, the Virgin is alleged to have appeared at Pontmain to several children, and a detailed account of the vision has been given by Mgr. Guérin, chamberlain of Pius IX., in his _Vie des Saints_, and this is digested in Brewer. The children who saw the apparition are described as follows: "Eugène Barbedette was the second son of a small farmer living in the village of Pontmain, in the diocese of Laval. He was twelve years old, and his brother Joseph was ten. The other two [Françoise Richer, Jeanne Marie Lebossé] were children from neighbouring cottages, called in to witness the sight. The parents of the children, the pastor of the village, Sister Vitaline, the abbot Guérin, all present, could see nothing, nor could any of the neighbours of outlying villages, who flocked to the place. Only the children mentioned, a sick child, and a babe in the arms of its grandmother, saw the apparition." The description of the Virgin, as seen by Eugène Barbedette that starlight winter night, is quaint and naïve in the extreme: "She was very tall, robed in blue, and her robe studded with stars. Her shoes were also blue, but had red rosettes. Her face was covered with a black veil, which floated to her shoulders. A crown of gold was on her head, but a red line was observed to run round the crown, symbolic of the blood shed by Christ for the sins of the world. Beneath her feet was a scroll, on which were written these words: 'Mais priez, mes enfants, Dieu vous exaucera, en peu de temps mon fils se laisse toucher' (Pray, my children, God will hear you, before long my son will be moved)." Mgr. Guérin thus comments upon the miracle: "In order to make herself manifest to men, the Holy Virgin has chosen rather the simple eyes of childhood; for, like troubled waters, sinful souls would have but ill reflected her celestial image" (191. 26). _Flower- and Animal-Oracles_.