The Apparitions and Miracles at Knock; also, the Official Depositions of the Eye-witnesses

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CHAPTER IV.
ARE WE SURE OF THE APPARITION ?
The village of Knock is now spoken of not only in Ireland,
in England, in Scotland, but in America. Letters from the
most distant districts in the far-off United States of the
American Continent have been received, in which detailed
questions have been put respecting the " apparitions and the
miracles" at Knock. It is quite impossible to answer all the
inquiries made on the several points proposed, regarding the
general subject and the detailed events that have been nar
rated, and which, it is stated, have actually taken place. The
events can well be grouped under two headings, namely,
those respecting the Apparition seen on August 21st, 1879,
the eve of the octave of the Feast of the Assumption of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, and those that tell of the " miracles "
that have been wrought since Christmas last. It is easy
enough to deal with the question of the first Apparition, be
cause the proofs regarding it rest on the evidence of the
witnesses who assert, and even swear, that they beheld it.
These are at least fifteen in number.
Reasoning on this point.
How it could happen that fifteen persons of different
ages, and of different ways of thinking and of living—persons
differing in age, in condition, in place, and position, could,
without any apparent reason, conspire to say they all saw a
certain thing which, in the opinions of those who do not
credit their narration, they did not see, and that they were
under that delusion (not one, but all of them) that they saw
it, some for one hour, some for an hour and a half, some for