The recent Exposition of the Holy Shroud at Turin, after an interval of a third of a century, has attracted a great deal of attention and discussion. Something like two millions of pilgrims passed before the Relic in the course of the twenty days during which it was exposed for veneration. Before the interest thus aroused once more dies away it may be well to try to put on record what it is that we have learnt.

The Holy Shroud differs from all other Relics, with the exception perhaps of the Title of the Cross, in being the principal witness to its own authenticity. It consists of a long sheet of linen, some fourteen feet long by three and a half in width, on which can be seen two imprints, back and front, of a human figure, placed head to head with a space of about six inches between.

Now there are only two ways, as a moment’s thought will show us, in which such a double imprint can be formed on a single sheet. It may be the result of human artistic work, each image being separately painted by a human hand. On the other hand it may have been produced by a human body which has been laid upon the sheet and covered over with the other half, the imprinted image being thus produced by the body itself. There is no third way conceivable in which a double image can have been formed, or at any rate no third way has ever yet been suggested by anyone.