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THE LIFE OF THE VENERABLE MOTHER MARY OF THE INCARNATION
BY A RELIGIOUS OF THE URSULINE COMMUNITY
INTRODUCTION.
The materials for the following Biography have been gathered principally
from "The Life of the Mother Mary of the Incarnation" by her son, and
from "The History of the Ursuline Monastery at Quebec," by a member of
that community, the former published in 1677; the latter in 1863.
The Life of the Venerable Mother by her son, is founded partly on her own
communications regarding the graces with which she had been favoured, and
partly on her correspondence with himself extending over the thirty years
which she passed in Canada. With the genuine information thus received,
he intersperses, under the name of "Additions," further details which had
either come under his personal observation, or been gleaned from
perfectly reliable sources. His work is therefore a sure and invaluable
guide to the biographer.
The accounts of her inner life referred to, were written by the Venerable
Mother at two different epochs, and each time in obedience to an
imperative command from her confessors. The first written in 1633, the
34th year of her age, fell into the possession of the Ursulines of St.
Denis, near Paris, who on hearing that Dom Claude Martin was engaged in
writing his holy Mother's life, obligingly sent him the precious
document. The second, written in 1654, was forwarded to him from Canada.
The Annals of the Quebec Ursulines also afford rich material to the
historian of the Mother of the Incarnation, their pages containing
constant references to and quotations from her letters both spiritual and
historical, as well as from the Annual Reports of the Jesuit Missioners,
and other contemporary documents of the highest authenticity and the
deepest interest.
The historical statements in the introductory chapter, rest chiefly oh
the authority of the Abbé Ferland in his "Cours d'Histoire du Canada,"
1861, and of Bancroft in his "History of the United States," 1841. The
historical facts incidentally introduced in the course of the work can be
verified by reference to the Abbé Ferland or any other Canadian
historian, or to the Letters of the Mother of the Incarnation.
It only remains to be noticed that the words "saint," "saintly," and
others of similar import are used throughout solely in their popular
acceptation, and not with any intention of anticipating the decision of
the Church regarding the sanctity of the Venerable Mother Mary of the
Incarnation or of any other of God's servants mentioned in these pages.
In like manner, the record of miraculous occurrences, visions, and other
extraordinary supernatural favours, is understood to rest as yet only on
human authority, and therefore to claim no more than the degree of
credibility which attaches to any well authenticated human statement.
_April 30th_ 1880.
208th Anniversary of the death of the Venerable Mother of the
Incarnation.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
A Glance at Canada, as it was in the days of the Venerable Mother Mary of
the Incarnation.
THE LIFE OF THE VENERABLE MOTHER.
FIRST PERIOD, 1599 TO 1631.
HER LIFE IN THE WORLD
CHAPTER I.
Her infancy, childhood and youth--Early call to union with God.--Charity
to the poor.--Purity of soul--Inclination for the Religious Life.
CHAPTER II.
Her married life.--Rule of life.--Love of prayer--Perfect fulfilment of
duty.--Patience under trial--Zeal for her household.--Influence.--Death
of her Husband.
CHAPTER III.
Her First year of Widowhood.--Life of solitude in the World.--Vision of
the application of the Precious Blood to her soul.--Increased purity of
conscience.--Charity to the sick poor.
CHAPTER IV.
She quits her solitude.--New evidence of her purity of soul.--Humiliation
and dependence in her Sister's house.
CHAPTER V.
She is called to a high degree of Divine Union.--New invitation to the
perfection of Interior Purity.--Infused knowledge of the nature of the
works of God.--Austerities.--Love of contempt.--Active life.--Makes the
vows of poverty and obedience.--Heavenly favour.--Temptations.
CHAPTER VI.
Supernatural favours.--Lights on the mystery of the Incarnation.--Vision
of the Most Adorable Trinity.--Submission to her Director.--Temptations
renewed.--Lights on the Divine attributes.
CHAPTER VII.
Second Vision of the Most Adorable Trinity.--She is elevated to a sublime
degree of Divine Union.
CHAPTER VIII.
She resolves to embrace the Religious Life.--Decides finally on the
Ursuline Order.--Temptations.--Disappearance of her son.--His return.--
Enters the Convent.
CHAPTER IX.
Saint Angela, Foundress of the Ursulines.--Her Early sanctity.--Zeal for
the instruction of the ignorant.--Lays the foundation of her great work
at Dezenzano--Vision of the Mysterious Ladder.--Removes to Brescia.--Goes
to the Holy Land.--To Rome.--To Cremona.--Returns to Brescia.--Founds her
Order.--Her holy Death.--Parting Counsels.--Prediction of the stability
of her work.--Diffusion of the Order.--Archconfraternity of St. Angela.
SECOND PERIOD, 1631 TO 1639.
THE VENERABLE MOTHER'S RELIGIOUS LIFE IN FRANCE.
CHAPTER I.
Her Novitiate.--Holy joy.--Virtue tested.--Love of common life.--
Humility.--Obedience.--Trials from her son.--Offers herself as a victim
for his salvation.--Third Vision of the Adorable Trinity.--Receives the
Holy Habit.
CHAPTER II.
Supernatural favours.--Infused knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and of
the Latin language.--Facility for imparting Spiritual Instruction.--
Temptations.--Loses her Director.--Interior desolation.--Fidelity.--
Consolation.--Profession.--Renewed Trials.--Reassuring direction.--New
difficulties about her son.
CHAPTER III.
She is named Assistant-Mistress of Novices.--Prophetic Vision of her
vocation to Canada.--Spiritual maxims and instructions.--Spirit of
silence.--Forms many Saints.
CHAPTER IV.
Increase of zeal for the salvation of souls.--Divinely directed to pray
for their conversion through the Heart of Jesus.--Her vocation for Canada
is revealed to her.
CHAPTER V.
Madame de la Peltrie.--Early Piety.--Charity.--Desire for the Religious
State.--Obliged to marry.--Loses her Husband.--Zeal for Souls.--Is
inspired to devote herself to the Canadian Mission.--Her vocation
confirmed in a dangerous illness.--Opposition.--Death of her Father.--
Services of Monsieur de Bernières.--Goes to Paris.
CHAPTER VI.
The Mother of the Incarnation declares her vocation for Canada.--
Contradictions and Humiliations.--Her confidence in God.--Esteem for her
vocation.--Submission to the Divine Will.
CHAPTER VII.
Madame de la Peltrie invites the Mother of the Incarnation to accompany
her to Canada.--The Venerable Mother's answer.--Madame de la Peltrie at
Tours.--The Mothers of the Incarnation and St. Bernard selected for the
Mission.--Opposition from relatives.--The Venerable Mother's vision of
the trials awaiting her.--Monsieur de Bernières.--Farewell Letter.
THIRD PERIOD, 1639 TO 1672.
THE VENERABLE MOTHER'S LIFE IN CANADA.
CHAPTER I.
Embarkation.--Alarm from a Spanish Fleet.--Danger from an Iceberg.--
Arrival at Tadoussac.--First night in Canada.--Reception at Quebec.--
Visit to Sillery.--The "Louvre."
CHAPTER II.
The Mother of the Incarnation recognises Canada to be the country shown
her in her prophetic vision.--Opening of the Schools.--Study of the
Indian languages.--Small-pox among the Pupils.--Arrival of two Sisters
from Paris.--Union of Congregations.-Building of new Convent.
CHAPTER III
Work at the "Louvre."--Progress of the Pupils.--Piety.--Lively Faith in
the Real Presence.--Refinement of feeling.--Zeal.--Teresa the Huron.--
Agnes.--Little Truants.--Banquets at the "Louvre,"
CHAPTER IV.
Renewed Trials of the Venerable Mother.--Madame de la Peltrie removes to
Montreal.--Great Poverty of the Ursulines.--Apprehensions.--The Venerable
Mother's confidence in God.--Fidelity to grace.--Exactitude to duty.--
Active Life.--First Elections.--Removal to the New Monastery.--Return of
Madame de la Peltrie.
CHAPTER V.
The Mother of the Incarnation a victim for the Conversion of her son and
her niece.--Conversion of both, followed by the cessation of her interior
sufferings.--Arrival of new subjects from France.--Mother St. Athanasius
Superior.--First Profession at Quebec.--Destruction of the Hurons.--
Charity of the Ursulines to the Survivors.
CHAPTER VI.
The Monastery consumed.--Charity of the Hospital Sisters.--Sympathy of
the Hurons.--Serenity of the Venerable Mother.--Lodgings in Madame de la
Peltrie's House.--Poverty.--Monastery Rebuilt.--A Pretty Picture.--
Removal to the New Monastery.
CHAPTER VII.
Early Life of Mother St. Joseph.--Her zeal for the Indians.--Virtues.--
Last Illness.--Happy Death.--Apparitions after Death.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Seminary Re-opened.--The good work partially checked.--Geneviève and
Catherine.--Appointment of Bishop Laval.--Threatened Invasion of the
Iroquois.--Heroism of Daulac and his Companions.
CHAPTER IX.
Trade in Intoxicating Liquors.--Awful Manifestation of Divine Anger.--
Repentance.--Prosperity.--The Marquis of Tracy Viceroy.--Expedition
against the Iroquois.--Advancement of the Colony.
CHAPTER X.
New Sisters from France.--Illness of Mother of the Incarnation.--She is
Re-elected Superior.--Lingers for Eight Years.--Illness and Death of
Madame de la Peltrie.
CHAPTER XI.
Last Illness of the Mother of the Incarnation.--Her Blessed Death.--
Universal regret for her loss.--Her Virtues.
APPENDIX.
Evening Devotion of the Mother of the Incarnation in honour of the Sacred
Heart of Jesus.
Evening Devotion of the Venerable Mother in honour of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary.
A few Parting Words on the Old Monastery of Quebec.
A GLANCE AT CANADA IN THE DAYS OF THE VENERABLE MOTHER MARY OF THE
INCARNATION.
Early in the sixteenth century, reports of the progress of discovery in
America began to make their way to France, and, as a natural result, to
arouse emulation. For no one had the stirring tales a greater charm than
for the reigning Sovereign, Francis I., whose spirit of rivalry, thirst
of glory, and love of adventure, they were especially calculated to
stimulate. It would have been as repugnant to the nature, as it was
inconsistent with the policy of the ambitious monarch, to permit the
Kings of Spain [Footnote: In 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered the
islands of the Western Hemisphere, and took possession in the name of the
Spanish Sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella. At his third voyage, in 1498,
he added to the first discovery, that of the Continent of South America.]
and Portugal [Footnote: in 1500, Alvarez de Cabral, a Portuguese
navigator, took possession of Brazil for his royal master, Emmanuel, King
of Portugal. Amerigo Vespucci had discovered its coast in 1498.] to
monopolize the glory and the advantages anticipated from possession of
the western world; such an idea was not to be for a moment entertained.
If their banners waved over its Southern Continent, that was no reason,
he argued, why France should not unfurl her fair white lilies in the
Northern. [Footnote: The mainland of North America was discovered in 1497
by the celebrated Italian adventurers, John Cabot and his sons, under a
commission from Henry VII of England, who, however, did not avail of the
discovery.] "I should like," he exclaimed with characteristic impetuosity
and originality, "I should like to see the clause in Adam's will which
authorizes these, my royal cousins, to divide the New World between
them!" As there seemed, however, little chance of his being permitted to
adjust the rival claims by a reference to our first father's last
testament, he resolved, as a more practical solution of difficulties, to
take the law into his own hands, and by getting possession of a share of
the spoils to secure at least nine points of it in his favour.
In justice to his Most Christian Majesty, it must be admitted that
although self-interested considerations had no doubt a large part in his
decision, other and worthier views influenced him. perhaps even more
strongly. If his proud title of eldest son of the Church was to be more
than an empty name, it devolved on him, he felt, to take prompt measures
for introducing Christianity into some part of the newly discovered
idolatrous West. Spain and Portugal had anticipated him in one direction,
it was true, but the world of Canada still presented a vast field for his
zeal in another. The existence of that barbarous, heathen land was now an
ascertained fact, What nobler use could he make of his royal resources
than to introduce into it the two-fold light of faith and civilization?
None, assuredly. Over far-off Canada, therefore, he determined that,
fortune favouring, the banner of the Lily should ere long float.
And, truly, it was well worth the seeking, that fair, too long neglected
gem in Nature's coronet, the distant land over the Western sea.
Cultivation has no doubt done much for the Canada of Francis I., still
even in the undeveloped beauty of those remote days, its natural features
were strikingly fine. Prominent then, as now, was the noble river flowing
through its midst--its own beautiful St. Lawrence, "the river of Canada,"
as the French sometimes styled it by pre-eminence; a recognised monarch
[Footnote: "The St. Lawrence has a course of nearly three thousand miles,
and varies in breadth from one mile to ninety miles. It annually
discharges to the ocean about 4,277,880 _millions of tons_ of fresh
water, of which 2,112,120 millions of tons may be reckoned melted snow--
the quantity discharged before the thaw comes on being 4,512 millions of
tons per day for 240 days, and the quantity after the thaw begins being
25,560 millions per day for 125 days, the depths and velocity when in and
out of flood being duly considered."--_Martin's British Colonies_.]
in the world of waters, embracing in its wide-spread dominion, rapids and
cataracts, and tributary streams, with vast lakes like seas, and a little
world of islands like fairy realms, [Footnote: Among others, the Thousand
Islands, happily described as "picturesque combinations of wood, rock,
and water, such as imagination is apt to attach to the happy islands in
the Vision of Mirza."] the whole enclosed within romantic shores, worthy
to form the framing of so magnificent a picture.
Then, as now, the valley of the St. Lawrence was rich in every variety of
natural beauty, but with this difference, that at the arrival of the
French the superb panorama was more or less enveloped in an apparently
interminable forest, to which the predominance of the pine imparted in
some places an air of solemnity, and even gloom. Since then, the axe has
done its work in the inhabited portions, opening up a landscape of
singular loveliness in some parts; of stern, wild grandeur in others;
nevertheless, enough of the lordly old woods still remains, to justify
their claim to a place among the characteristics of Canadian scenery.
Lovely in their summer garb of many-hued green, relieved by a carpeting
of myriads of flowering plants, they are glorious beyond telling, when
after a few frosty nights at the close of autumn, they assume every
imaginable variety of shade, from glowing scarlet and soft violet, to
rich brown and bright yellow.
Champlain, the founder of Quebec, describes the Canada of his day as
beautiful, agreeable, and fertile; producing grain of every kind;
abounding in valuable trees; yielding wild fruits of pleasant flavour,
and well-stocked with fish and game. Later observation was to add to the
catalogue of its natural riches, mines of iron, lead and copper. The
early colonists, too, have recorded that the river banks were covered
with a profusion of vines so productive, that it seemed difficult to
trace all their luxuriance to the unaided hand of nature.
As a partial counterpoise to its many advantages, Canada is exposed to
extremes of temperature, alternating between heat nearly tropical, and
cold approaching polar. Owing to the clearing of the forests, and other
causes, the winter is now somewhat less harsh than in the days of the
first settlers; it is, however, still a very severe one. And yet, even
under its stern reign, Canada is not without natural charms,--its giant
river fast bound in icy chains; every stream, and lake and rivulet in the
land a sheet of sparkling crystal; every trunk, and branch, and twig
glittering in the sun as if sprinkled with diamond dust; every valley,
hill and woodland, every mountain slope and far-stretching plain wrapped
in a soft mantle of spotless snow.
Yet, with all its gifts and resources, Canada had reposed for long ages
in lonely grandeur. The chronicles of the Old World told of many a
generation gone by. They traced the rise and fall of many empires, and
the succession of many dynasties. They recorded the advance of art and
science. They contained long lists of names inscribed, some in the annals
of human greatness, some on the pages of the Book of Life. They spoke of
the glorious triumphs of the Church, and enumerated the nations gathered
within her fold, and still, on that fair land of the West, no step had
trodden but that of the Red Man; on its broad, deep river no boat had
ever bounded but his own light canoe; through its length and breadth no
Deity's name had resounded, save that of some senseless pagan idol. Truly
it was time, as Francis I. concluded, that the ray of faith and
civilization should beam on it at last.
In 1523, he sent out his first expedition, under the command of
Verrazani, a Florentine, who, sailing along the coast from 28 degrees to
50 degrees north latitude, formally took possession of the whole region
in the name of his royal patron, and called it "La Nouvelle France." But
while France was thus adding to her glory in the New World, her arms
received a severe check in the Old. When Verrazani returned in 1525, he
found the nation mourning the disastrous results of the battle of Pavia,
and too much absorbed by grave interests at home, to be disposed to
concern itself about lesser ones abroad. Deprived of the support of his
royal protector, then a prisoner at Madrid, he could neither utilize nor
follow up his first observations, and for ten years more we hear nothing
of Canada, except that mariners from France, and other European nations,
carried on a successful fishery on its coasts, where as many as fifty
ships from Europe might sometimes be seen together. The French called the
country the newly found lands, an appellation which survives in that of
the largest island. It is stated on the authority of certain old
chroniclers, that the islands off the mainland had been known more than a
century before the era of Columbus and Cabot to sailors from the Basque
Provinces, who named them "Bacallos," their term for cod-fish. The name
"Canada" seems to have been vaguely applied at this period sometimes to a
part, sometimes to the whole of the region watered by the St. Lawrence.
One derivation of it supposes the arrival of the French to have been
preceded by a visit from the Spaniards, who, searching for precious
metals, and finding none, expressed their disappointment by the frequent
repetition of the words "aca nada," "nothing here." According to a more
probable etymology, the term may be traced to the Iroquois word "Kanata,"
a village, or assembly of huts, which word the early European discoverers
mistook for the name of the country.
Nothing daunted by the failure of his first attempt at colonisation,
Francis authorized a new expedition in 1534, and intrusted the command of
it to Jacques Cartier, a well-known navigator of St. Malo. In addition to
his experience as a seaman, Cartier possessed a profoundly religious
spirit, and in risking the long voyage, with its certain dangers and
uncertain, success, he seems to have been wholly influenced by zeal for
the conversion of the savages. He has given us an insight into his ideas
in his own quaint style: "Considering," he says, "the varied benefits of
God to man, I note among others how the sun pours his genial rays on
every part of the globe in succession, excluding none from their
beneficent influence, and my simple mode of reasoning leads me to infer
that our great Creator intends for all his creatures a share in the
illumination of faith, no less than in the cheering light of the orb of
day. The sun comes to us from the East, as did our holy faith; may we not
conclude, that as he passes thence to the West, the beams of the Gospel
are meant to follow in his track, and pour their brightness in that
direction too."
Cartier set sail on the 20th of April, 1534; reached Newfoundland in
safety on the 10th of May, and sailing along the coast as far as the Bay
of Gaspé, planted near its entrance a lofty cross bearing a shield with
the lilies of France, and a suitable inscription. The chief result of
this first voyage was the discovery of the great river of Canada, and the
opening of communication with the natives. The season being somewhat too
advanced for farther exploration, Cartier returned to France in the month
of August, accompanied by two young Indians, destined as a future
interpreter to their countrymen.
Re-entering the river on the 10th of August of the following year, he
named it the St. Lawrence, in honour of the saint whose feast the Church
celebrates on that day. The island at its mouth, now called Anticosti, he
named the isle of the Assumption. He finally anchored off Stadacona,
where Quebec now stands, and on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed
Virgin in the next month, the Holy Sacrifice was for the first time
offered on the Canadian shores. Cartier next visited the Indian
settlement of Hochelaga, situated on an island formed by the St. Lawrence
and a branch of the Ottawa. The discovery of this vaunted hamlet, with
its picturesque surroundings, had been among the most cherished of his
day dreams, nor was the reality unworthy of the dream. From the summit of
an isolated mountain at the extremity of the island; his view embraced in
front a wide expanse of fertile land; around him stretched forests of
oak, with here and there a waving field of silken-tufted Indian corn; at
his feet lay the hamlet, built in the form of a circle, and fortified in
Indian fashion by three graduated rows of palisades, and to crown the
whole, girding the island like a broad silver belt, as far as the eye
could reach, shone the sunlit river. Enchanted with the beauty of the
scene, and delighted too with the courteous greeting of the savages,
their simplicity, their generosity and their ardour for instruction, he
breathed a prayer, that a land so fair and a people so gentle might be
marked ere long as the heritage of France,--above all, as a portion of
the Kingdom of God. In his enthusiasm, he called the mountain on which he
stood, Mount Royal, whence the name "Montreal." [Footnote: Nearly three
centuries and a half have gone by since Jacques Cartier surveyed
Hochelaga and its environs for the first time from the heights of Mount
Royal. Could he view the same locality from the same stand point to-day,
how great would be his wonder at its transformation! The mountain itself
is now covered, both base and acclivities, with flourishing corn fields,
fruitful orchards, and handsome residences, above which, to the very
summit, trees grow in luxuriant variety. On the site of the Indian hamlet
of the olden time, is a large, wealthy city; its streets and squares
adorned with remarkably fine buildings; its busy ways thronged with an
active, industrious, thriving population; its port crowded with shipping
and bordered with commodious quays; its vast river spanned by the great
tubular bridge, and traversed through its length and breadth by vessels
of every build. The environs are in keeping with the city, combining
natural beauty with the refinements of art and the improvements of
industry. Nestling among rich woodlands, are gay villages, rural churches
and pleasant villas, while thickly interspersed through fertile, well
cultivated grounds, are pretty cottages, substantial farms and happy
peasant homes. The living picture acquires additional animation from the
constant movement of long rows of railway carriages, ever sending up
light streams of transparent vapour which curl among the bright foliage,
with a grace of their own, then fade away heavenwards. Could Jacques
Cartier see it all, he might well wonder at time's changes!] At Stadacona
where he spent the winter, he had the consolation of instructing the
natives in the holy faith, by the aid of the two Indian youths, who, as
already noticed, had accompanied him to France on his first return
voyage, and spent the interval between that and his second expedition in
learning the French tongue. So eager were these simple people to receive
the truth, that he had to promise to take measures for their admission to
the Sacrament of regeneration at his nest voyage.
The extreme rigour of this first winter rendered it a season of terrible
suffering to the French; sickness, broke out amongst them and death
thinned their ranks. Cartier had therefore no alternative but to conduct
the discouraged survivors back to France early in spring. He determined
to bring with him also some specimens of the natives whom he wished to
present to the King. The practice of the time seemed to give a tacit
sanction to the act, but it is much to be regretted that in carrying out
his object, Cartier should have had recourse to stratagem. Donacona, one
of the chiefs, was decoyed on board the French ship, with nine other
savages, and borne away from his home in the wilds, which poor though it
might be, was more precious to him than all the grandeur of the French
King's capital. To pacify his people, he promised them before sailing
away, that he would return after twelve moons, but save in dreams, he saw
his beloved woods no more. With the exception of one little girl, all the
exiles died in France, where, however, they were well treated, and had
the happiness of being instructed in the faith and received into the
Church.
On returning to Canada for the third time in 1540, Cartier found it
difficult to resume his former intercourse with the natives, whom the
disappearance of their chief had rendered distrustful and suspicious.
Besides, he occupied only a subordinate position in this new expedition,
the principal direction of which had been committed to the Lord of
Roberval. The division of authority seems to have worked badly. Cartier
had spent a year of inactivity in Canada before the Viceroy was prepared
to join him, so seeing no prospect of success, he left for France, just
as Roberval reached Canada. Without the co-operation of his lieutenant,
the leader could accomplish little; his expedition may indeed be said to
have resulted only in corroborating the reality of the discoveries
reported by the navigator of St. Malo. The purport of Cartier's fourth
and last voyage, was to bring back to France the miserable remnant of the
adventurers who had accompanied Roberval.
Though an apparent disappointment, the failure of the first attempt to
colonize Canada was in reality a blessing. A few persons of good position
had, it is true, joined Roberval's expedition, but it is equally certain
that a considerable proportion of his recruits had been drawn from among
the convicts of the French jails. Had the colony been then established,
the mixture of such an element must have tainted its very source, and
exercised an utterly demoralizing influence on its future. But God had
designs of special mercy on Canada, so the day of her visitation was
deferred, only that it might rise at a later period with a steadier, a
clearer, and a more enduring light. Although Jacques Cartier failed in
his immediate object, he succeeded in exploring a considerable part of
the country, and as the first to open a way for missionaries to the
hitherto unknown region, his claim to the gratitude of Catholic hearts
should ever be recognised. He died at his peaceful home of Limoilou in
Brittany, leaving the wilds of the West once more in undisputed
possession of the native tribes.
During the next sixty years, the French took no active steps for the
colonization of Canada. Their attempts under Henry II and Charles IX, to
form settlements in Brazil and Florida, seem to have diverted their
attention from New France, but they never quite forgot it, nor utterly
relinquished the hope of one day founding a State on the St. Lawrence.
Merchants from Dieppe and St. Malo continued to visit its shores, and
from time to time, slight, ineffectual attempts at settlement were made.
It was not, however, until 1608, that an expedition of any importance was
organized. Monsieur des Monts, a Calvinist of wealth and rank, then
received from Henry IV, the authority necessary for the purpose, and as
an indemnity for consequent expenses, he also obtained the monopoly of
the fur trade for one year. A company of merchants was immediately
formed, and the command of the expedition given to the illustrious Samuel
Champlain. Quebec, the Stadacona of Cartier, was decided on as the most
advantageous site for the projected settlement, the destined cradle of
the Canadian nation. There accordingly, Champlain unfurled the white
Banner on the 3rd of July, 1608. In the Algonquin tongue, "Kebec"
signifies a strait, the St. Lawrence flowing at this point in a narrow
channel between two high banks. The intended capital [Footnote: Quebec is
now considered the military capital of Canada, Montreal ranking as the
commercial metropolis, and Ottawa as the legislative.] of Canada could
not have been more judiciously located. It possesses a magnificent
harbour, navigable for the largest vessels, and capable of containing the
most numerous fleet. The great river at its base forms a commodious
highway of communication with the very heart of the continent, while in
consequence of the narrowing of the waters in its immediate vicinity, the
citadel commands the passage. Quebec is thus the key of the great valley
of the St. Lawrence, "the advanced guard," as the Abbé Ferland calls it
in his History of Canada, of the vast French empire, which, according to
the project of Louis XIV., was to extend from the Straits of Belle Isle
to the Gulf of Mexico. The colony was not, however, to be established on
a firm basis, until it had passed through much tribulation. Its early
annals were to record an ordeal of trials, sickness, privation, hardship,
destitution, alarms from the terrible Iroquois, molestation from the
English, and finally, all but total extinction. They were to tell how the
growth of the young nation had been checked, and its very existence
threatened, by the bad faith of self-interested companies; worse than
all, how, destined as it was for a bright star in the firmament of the
Church, and a beacon light to the benighted heathen, its grand end had
been temporarily frustrated by the frequent appointment of Calvinists for
its patrons, and a mingling of the same sectarians among its small
population. Then the page of triumph would come, and on it would be
inscribed, how, like its own flower-enamelled meadows, bursting into
bloom and beauty from beneath their pall of snow, Canada had emerged from
its long moral winter, neither paralysed by the chill, nor depressed by
the gloom, but glowing to its inmost heart with warm young life, and
throbbing in every pulse with irrepressible energy and vigour.
Happily for the result of the undertaking Champlain, its guiding spirit,
was eminently qualified for his position. Wise, as energetic;
persevering, as enterprising; brave in reverse, as unassuming in.
success, he laid his plans with consummate prudence and carried them out
with unwavering constancy. Disinterested, honourable and patriotic, he
suffered no secret view of personal advantage to narrow his mind or mar
his usefulness. Looking on his work as the work of God, and therefore
believing implicitly in its final success, he threw his whole heart into
it, devoting to it time, talents, wealth and life, and pursuing it with
a courage that never quailed and a heroism of self-sacrifice that never
faltered. Profoundly religious, his great aim was to establish it on the
solid foundation of faith and piety. For this end, he looked carefully
from the beginning to the moral elements of the little society, and as
far as his control extended, admitted among the early colonists only
persons of irreproachable character. As soon as affairs appeared
sufficiently promising, he invited missioners to the spiritually
destitute land. Four Franciscans answered the appeal, and on the 25th of
June; 1615, to the great joy of the Catholic inhabitants, Mass was
celebrated in Quebec for the first time since the days of Cartier and
Roberval. In 1624, St. Joseph was solemnly chosen Patron of Canada, which
from its birth has claimed devotion to the Holy Family and to St. Anne,
as its devotion by excellence. The following year, the Recollet Fathers
were joined by a little band of Jesuits, who came to fertilize the soil
with martyrs' blood and win for themselves the martyrs' palm. Their
arrival gradually prepared the way for the realization of the pious
governor's first and dearest wish, the establishment of missions
throughout the country. On these we shall touch in a future page.
Indefatigable in his zeal for the colony, Champlain made frequent voyages
to France in its interests, undeterred by the inconveniences and even
positive dangers then often attendant on travelling, and although he was
subjected to constant petty annoyances from the selfishness and parsimony
of the Company, the jealousy and rivalry of the traders, and the coolness
and indifference of noble patrons, he never relaxed in his exertions,
because ever sustained by trust in God and faith in his work. At great
personal risk, and with incredible fatigue, he explored the country in
all directions, observing, and afterwards describing its physical
features, as well as the character and customs of the savages. From time
to time, we even find him in arms against the dreaded Iroquois, but
notwithstanding his superhuman efforts, the colony could make but little
progress while its destinies remained in the hands of mercenary agents,
who were utterly regardless of its interests, and intent only on
enriching themselves at its cost. After Quebec had been founded fourteen
years, it still contained only fifty-five inhabitants, and its growth in
all other respects had been proportionally tardy. Hope, however, began to
brighten, when in 1627, the Canada Company was superseded by that of the
Hundred Partners, with Richelieu at its head. This association was to
hold Canada, as a feudal seigniory under the King, and with the right of
soil, was to possess a monopoly of trade. In return for these privileges,
it contracted the obligation of amply supplying the country with
colonists, including a sufficient number of artisans and labourers. It
was also bound to provide for the support of a specified number of
missioners, and in general, to promote the welfare of the colony.
Unfortunately, five years elapsed before it was ready to enter on the
government of the province, which meantime was brought to the very verge
of ruin, partly by famine, and partly by foreign invasion.
Much about the time of the transfer of Canada to the new Company, the
Huguenots raised the standard of civil war in France, and being aided by
England and Holland, their revolt soon assumed a formidable aspect. To
complicate the difficulties of the mother country, a band of French
Calvinists in the service of England determined to seize the favourable
opportunity of invading her possessions in America. These were headed by
Sir David Kerkt and his brothers, who procured the command of a small
fleet of English vessels, and after devastating the coasts in the
vicinity of Quebec, sent a summons to the Governor to surrender the town
itself. Not having received supplies from France for three years, its
resources were nearly exhausted, nevertheless, as Champlain. was in.
hourly expectation of succour, he bravely determined to resist the
summons and maintain his ground to the last. Before long, the people were
reduced to a daily allowance of five ounces of bread; a little later,
they were compelled to subsist on roots and herbs, yet still, even after
hearing that the vessels containing the much needed supplies had been
intercepted by the English, the resolute Commander never faltered. He
encouraged his companions in misfortune by word and example; exhorted
them, to patience; cheerfully shared their privations, and strained every
nerve to improve their condition. But although they struggled through the
trying winter and spring, it was but too evident that without relief they
could not hold out much longer; when therefore the last hope was blighted
by the wreck of two ships laden with provisions, the Governor,
recognising the inutility of further resistance, accepted the only
alternative left him, and at the second demand, surrendered the heroic
little town, which amidst almost incredible difficulties had withstood
the invaders an entire year. It was on the 20th of July, 1629, that the
English took possession, and the following month, Champlain and his
people embarked for England, whence, according to the terms of surrender,
they were to be conveyed to France. One French family alone consented to
remain in Quebec, and that only until after the next harvest. Thus it
would seem as if a single step had brought us from Canada's cradle to her
grave, for in what light can we look on those vessels bearing Champlain
and the colonists from her shores, but as the tomb of the hopes lately so
bright and buoyant? It happened however that when Kerkt seized Quebec, he
was ignorant of the triumph of Richelieu at La Rochelle; unconscious
therefore that the French Calvinist party was utterly crushed, and the
long protracted civil war at an end. On landing at Plymouth in the
following October, he learned to his dismay that peace had been concluded
between England and France two months before the seizure of Quebec, the
restitution of which had now become, simply an obligation of justice. But
although its restoration was at once decided on, the measure was, not
carried out until 1632, when by the treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, France
secured a formal recognition of her right to Canada, including Nova,
Scotia and Cape Breton Island, or as they were then called, Acadia and
Isle Royal. As it was evident that the interests of the country could not
be in better hands than those of the great and good Champlain, happily
for its future destiny, the government of the province was once more
confided to him.
It was hard to have to begin his work anew, but he set about repairing
the wreck around him with all his old energy and devotedness. While
intent as ever on the material interests of the colony, those of religion
were still his first concern. Fortunately, there was no longer a dominant
Calvinist party in the country, to thwart his zealous projects, and
molest the Catholics in the discharge of their duty to God. The era of
Calvinist rule had passed; that of Catholic triumph had dawned. One of
the Governor's first acts was to build a church which was dedicated to
our Blessed Lady in honour of her Immaculate Conception. The facility
thus afforded for the practice of religion was eagerly availed of by the
new band of exclusively Catholic colonists. All approached the Sacraments
at fixed intervals; morning and evening prayers were said in common in
private families; the precepts of God and the Church were strictly
observed. Stimulated by good example some who had been careless about
religion in France devoted themselves earnestly to it in Canada. So
admirable was the order which Champlain established that some years later
a missionary wrote:--"Murder, robbery, usury, injustice, and similar
crimes are heard of here only once a year, when, on the arrival of the
ships from France, a newspaper account of them accidentally finds its way
among us." And, again, "Our churches are too small to contain the
congregation; we have the consolation of seeing them filled to
overflowing. By the grace of God, virtue walks here with head erect; it
is in honour; vice alone in disrepute." The infant Church of Canada
seemed, indeed, to have revived the golden age of the Church of the
Apostles. Under the direction of the Governor, the Fort was in some
respects not unlike a monastery. The soldiers approached the Sacraments
regularly; instructive books were read aloud at meals; duty was
punctually discharged, and the well spent day was closed by night prayers
said in common, and presided over by the Governor. He it was who
introduced the custom, ever since religiously observed, of ringing the
Angelus three times a day. He watched so carefully over the public and
private interests of both French and Indians, that all looked on him as a
father, and although continually appealed to for decisions between rival
claimants, his integrity was never called in question. Uniting in his own
person the functions and the authority of Governor, Legislator, and
Judge, his power was necessarily great, but never was he known to abuse
it. It was his maxim that the salvation of one single soul is of more
importance than the subjugation of an Empire, and that the only object
which kings should have in view in the conquest of idolatrous nations, is
to lay them as trophies at the feet of their Saviour Jesus Christ. This
maxim is the key-note to his life; its practical influence was manifested
in his zeal for the conversion of the Indians, and for the diffusion of a
solidly religious spirit among the French population, and assuredly it is
not the least of his claims to the gratitude of posterity, that the
Canada of his formation has ever clung to her faith with so tenacious a
grasp, that still she wears as her crown of highest honour, and proclaims
as her proudest boast, the glorious title of Catholic Canada. The writers
of his time are unanimous in ascribing to Champlain all the
qualifications suited to the founder of a colony, and when, after a
connection of thirty-two years with the country, he was summoned to his
reward, on the 25th of December, 1635, he was followed to the grave, as
well he might be, by the heartfelt regret of the whole colony, who looked
on his death as the greatest of all calamities. After his demise, his
widow founded the Ursuline Convent at Meaux, and there made her religious
profession. During her residence in Canada, she had endeared herself both
to French and Indians by her unvarying kindness and affability. Seeing
their faces reflected in a small mirror which, according to the fashion
of the day, she wore at her girdle, the poor savages were much delighted
to find that she carried them all, as they said, in her heart. She
learned the Algonquin tongue that she might teach the children their
Catechism, and to the end of life retained a lively interest in the
Canadian Mission.
Champlain was succeeded in the government of Quebec by Monsieur Charles
de Montmagny, a man distinguished alike for courage, ability, piety, and
zeal. His first act on landing was to kneel at the foot of a cross
erected on the road to the town, and there invoke the blessing and
protection of heaven on the colony intrusted to his charge; thence he
proceeded to the church to assist at the _Te Deum_. His second act
on the same morning was to visit an Indian wigwam, and stand sponsor for
an invalid who desired baptism, the greatest honour and sweetest
consolation, he said, which he could have desired at his arrival in New
France. His great aim from the beginning was to walk in the steps of his
predecessor, and thus develop and consolidate the work so happily
commenced. He maintained the moral and religious tone of society, by
following up Champlain's plan of excluding disreputable and vicious
characters. One of his first concerns was to build a Seminary for the
education of the Huron youth, an object which he knew to have been very
dear to the heart of the late Governor. He also constructed a stone fort,
strengthened the fortifications at Three Rivers, and traced a correct
plan of the city, which as yet, it must be owned, existed only among the
visions of hope. The Quebec of the Mother of the Incarnation was, indeed,
widely different from that for which in after years, England and France
contended, and Wolfe and Montcalm bled and died. At the time of which we
write, it consisted of little more than a few rudely-constructed huts,
and contained scarcely two hundred and fifty inhabitants, but we have
dwelt thus long on its origin and early history because of its connection
with the life and labours of the Venerable Mother, which give interest to
every least detail concerning it. We have now reached the date of its
annals when Heaven was pleased to bless it with her presence; but before
entering on her biography, a glance at the Indian portion of the
population will be necessary to the completion of our little sketch of
Canada as it was in her days.
All the tribes dispersed over the territory comprised in the basin of the
St. Lawrence, were at this period divided into two groups, the Algonquin
and Huron-Iroquois, classified according to their respective languages.
To each of these mother tongues belonged dialects more or less numerous,
according to the sub-divisions of the tribes who spoke them. The
Algonquins were scattered under various names over perhaps more than a
half of the territory south of the St. Lawrence and east of the
Mississippi. Several branches of the same widely-extended family were
also to be found wandering in Canada to the north of the St. Lawrence.
The five confederate tribes of the Hurons inhabited the peninsula
included between Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario. The Iroquois stretched
from the borders of Vermont to Western New York, and from the lakes, to
the head waters of the Ohio, Susquehanna, and Delaware. They, too, formed
a confederation of five tribes, and are commonly known as the Five
Nations. The Hurons and the Iroquois are said to have received their
names from the French--the former in allusion to the French word _hure_,
a head of hair, these savages being distinguished by a singular mode of
dressing theirs; the latter from their frequent repetition of the word
"_hiro_," "I have said it," the ordinary termination of the warriors'
harangues.
When the early missionaries began to study the Indian dialects, they were
much astonished to find them characterized by remarkable richness and
variety of expression, as well as regularity of construction.
Notwithstanding gradual alterations, they still retain much of their
traditionary character, being, in fact, less liable to change than
written language, because of the ridicule with which the Indian visits
any attempt at innovation on the point. One peculiarity of the American
tongues is their singular power of extending the primitive signification
of words by the addition of new syllables to the original term. Taking
the verb for his starting point, the Indian is enabled, by prefixing,
inserting, and adding syllables, to form at last some word which will not
only express the action in question, but include at once, subject,
object, time, place, and modifying circumstances. If he is shown an
article with which he is unacquainted, he will ask its use, and then
adding word to word at pleasure, he will at last give it a name
comprising perhaps an entire definition. For sake of sound, the chain of
words is sometimes linked by syllables of no particular significance.
Strictly speaking, the Indian tongues consist only of the verb, which may
be said to absorb all the other parts of speech. Declensions, articles,
and cases are deficient; the adjective has a verbal termination; the idea
expressed by the noun takes a verbal form; every thing is conjugated,
nothing declined. The conjugation changes with every slight variation in
the action spoken of. For instance, the same word will not express two
similar actions performed, the one on the water, the other on the land;
or two similar actions, the one referring to a living; the other to an
inanimate object; there must be a separate conjugation for each. The
forms of the verb thus vary to infinity, and hence arose the immense
difficulty to the missioners of learning the languages.
A second peculiarity of the Indian dialects, is the abundant use which
they allow of figurative language, a result of their total want of terms
expressive of abstract, and purely spiritual ideas. To clothe these in
words, they must have recourse to figures, chiefly metaphor and allegory,
hence arises so much of what an American writer calls "the picturesque
brilliancy" of the savage tongues. To express the term "prosperity," for
example, the Indian will employ the image of a bright sun, a cloudless
sky, or a calm river. "To make peace," will be "to smooth the forest
path, to level the mountain," or "to bury the tomahawk." "To console the
bereaved by the offering of presents," will be "to cover the graves of
the departed." Unconsciously, the Indian habitually speaks poetry. He
knows nothing of written characters, so his method of writing is by
hieroglyphics, or rude pictures traced on a stone or a piece of bark. In
the Huron and Iroquois, the words are almost entirely composed of vowels,
both languages being deficient in consonants, and totally wanting in
labials. The Algonquin is also deficient in several letters, among others
the consonants _f, l, v, x, z_. In the Indian tongues, many of the
sounds are merely guttural, and produced without any movement of the
lips. _Ou_, as sounded in _you_, is of this description; to distinguish
it from the articulated sounds, the early missioners marked it by the
figure 8.
The religion of the native tribes of North America was a species of
pantheism. They believed that in every visible object dwelt good or evil
spirits, who exercised a certain influence over human events, and they
tried to propitiate them by sacrifices and prayers. Faith in dreams
constituted the foundation of almost all their superstitions. The dream
was to them an irrevocable decree which it was never allowable to slight.
It, therefore, formed the starting point of their deliberations, and the
basis of their decisions. Rather than reject the warning of a dream, they
would have consigned to the flames or the waves the produce of a
successful hunting or fishing expedition, or of a rich harvest. The most
intelligent held as a theory that dreams are the speech of the soul,
which through them manifests her innate desires, these desires remaining
for ever unknown, unless thus revealed. To carry out the dream was,
therefore, to satisfy the soul's cravings; to slight it was to excite her
desires afresh.
They believed that after death the soul wandered for a time in the
vicinity of the body which it had quitted, and then departed on a long
journey to a village in the direction of the setting sun. The country of
the dead differed but little in their imagination, from the land of the
living, and accordingly, looking on death merely as a passage from one
region to another nearly similar, they met the summons with indifference.
The deceased warrior was placed outside his wigwam in a sitting posture,
to show that although life was over, the principle of existence still
survived, and in that position he was buried, together with his pipe,
manitou, tomahawk, quiver, and bent bow, and a supply of maize and
venison for his travels to the paradise of his ancestors. The mourning
for near relatives lasted two years.
Among the Huron-Iroquois and Algonquins, liberty was uncontrolled. Each
hamlet was independent; so was the head of each family in the hamlet; so
was each child in the family. This mass of independent wills could be
ruled only by persuasion and promises of reward, and of these the chief
was lavish. Sometimes there were many. rulers, or "captains," as they
were called, in one hamlet, especially the larger ones; sometimes the
government of the village was committed to a single chief. Among the
principal tribes, the latter office was in general hereditary, though
occasionally conferred by election. Public affairs were discussed in
council with great formality, and votes taken by straws or small reeds,
the majority theoretically deciding the question, but the conclusion was
not carried out unless all agreed. The rebellious were generally won over
by presents or flattery.
The savage tribes were divided into several great familes, each
distinguished by the name of some animal chosen by the chief as his
_totum_ or distinctive mark. Among the Iroquois, for instance, the
highest family was that of the Tortoise; the second of the Beaver, and
the third of the Wolf. In battle, the _totum_ was borne as the
standard. The criminal code was not elaborate, yet it sufficed to
maintain order in the small republics. Murder, robbery treason and
sorcery were the crimes understood to entail its penalties. Instead of
being punished by death, murder was expiated by a very large number of
presents, to provide which, not only the assassin, but every family in
the village was laid under contribution. The punishment of the criminal
was thus multiplied by the reproaches and sarcasms of all the unwilling
sharers in the atonement. Among the Algonquins, stealing was of rare
occurrence; the Hurons, on the contrary, prided themselves on their feats
in that line. They stole for the mere pleasure of stealing, and so
accomplished were they in the art, that they could purloin an article
under the very eye of the owner, using the foot for the purpose, quite as
dexterously as the hand. If the thief could be identified, the person
robbed might despoil him of everything he possessed, supposing always he
was not strong enough to defend himself. If he belonged to another
village, goods to the value of those lost might be taken from any one in
his village, and kept until the robber had made restitution. Traitors and
sorcerers, as objects of special dread, were always liable to heavy
penalties.
According to the savage code of honour, war was the only road to glory;
it was in consequence frequent, and once begun, lasted for years,
national hatred descending as a legacy from generation to generation.
Stealth and cunning entered largely into the tactics of the Indians; to
lie in ambush was their delight; to surprise the enemy, their grand
triumph. The assailants advanced in single file, the last carefully
strewing leaves on the footprints of those who had preceded. When they
had discovered the enemy, they crept on all-fours until near enough for
the attack, then suddenly bounding up, and yelling fearfully, they rushed
forward to the onslaught. If the enemy were on his guard, they withdrew
noiselessly; if retreat were impossible, they fought with desperation.
The number of foes overcome, was marked by that of the scalps hanging as
trophies of bloody triumph from the girdles of the savage victors. Their
arms were a species of javelin, a bow and arrow, the latter tipped with a
sharp bone or flint, and the dreaded tomahawk or head-breaker. But more
important to the warrior than all besides was his manitou, or the symbol
of his familiar spirit,--some fantastic object represented in a dream,
or selected according to his peculiar taste; a bird's head, it might have
been, a beaver's tooth, or the knot of a tree; whatever, it was, the
warrior would as little have thought of going to battle without arms, as
without it. They treated their prisoners with great cruelty, partly it is
said from the superstitious belief that the manes of their fallen
companions were soothed by the sufferings of the captives. The prisoners
who were not sacrificed, were adopted into the tribes in place of the
slain, and treated thenceforth as members of the family.
The savages of North America were well formed and finely proportioned.
They considered painting the face and tattooing the person, so great an
addition to their personal charms, that jealous of the adornment, they
denied it to the women. The skins of beasts formed their ordinary attire;
their shoes were of the same material, but prepared for the purpose by a
particular process. The women were likewise clad in skins, which on
festive occasions they ornamented elaborately. They often displayed much
taste and skill in embroidering ornamental works on bark or skin.
The dwelling was the wigwam, easily constructed and easily removed. Long
poles fixed in the ground and bent inwards at the upper end, were covered
outside with bark, and inside with mats; a loose skin was attached for
the door, an opening left at the top for the chimney, and the house was
built. In the larger hamlets, such as that of Hochelaga, described by
Cartier, the dwellings ran along a sort of gallery, sometimes nearly two
hundred feet long and thirty wide; in these several families could be
accommodated. A raised platform was introduced into some, as a kind of
upper story, serving for sleeping apartments.
Before the arrival of the Europeans, the savages were subject to but few
maladies, and these they cured by natural remedies, the indigenous
medicinal plants, abstemious diet, and vapour baths of their own
invention forming the basis of all prescriptions. Of persons skilled in
the medical art, there was no scarcity, every cabin generally containing
several. But not always satisfied with natural remedies, the patients had
frequent recourse to the juggler or "medicine man," to discover the
magical source of their illness, and avert evil consequences. The
medicine man was likewise consulted on the issue of future events, and
his mysterious predictions were received as so many oracles, his wondrous
spells looked on as so many talismans.
The husband's duty was to hunt and fish, leaving his venison at the cabin
door, and his fish at the water's edge, to be thence removed by his wife.
He had also to construct and repair the canoe, and provide wood and bark
for building the hut,--that was all. Most of his time was passed in
listless lounging, or in games of hazard at which he often staked his
whole possessions. His wife was mistress of the wigwam, and on her it
devolved to draw the water, hew the wood, dress the food, prepare the
ground to receive the grain, sow and gather in the harvest, weave the
mats, make the rude garments of the family, and in their frequent
journeys, to bear the house on her shoulders, not figuratively, but very
literally. Her lord was supposed to carry nothing but his arms; if
particularly condescending, he might of his own accord deviate from the
rule without compromise of dignity.
Among the North American Indians in general, woman was considered a being
of an inferior order, created only to obey the caprices of man, yet by a
strange contradiction, the children belonged to the mother, and
recognising only her authority, looked on their father merely in the
light of a guest permitted to occupy a place in the cabin. In return, the
squaw loved her offspring with passionate fondness, not manifested
perhaps by demonstrative caresses, but not on that account the less
tender, vigilant, or enduring. At home or abroad, she never parted from
her nursling. When she travelled, she lifted her black-eyed babe to her
shoulders, gaily-decked cradle and all, and so they journeyed on happily
together, her great love divesting the burden of all weight. When she
worked in the fields, she laid it at her feet among the sweet wild
flowers, or she swung it from the bough of some pleasant shady tree close
by, but never under any circumstances did she entrust it to other care
than her own. Parental love indeed often degenerated into weakness among
the Indians, and proved one of the great obstacles to the formation of
schools by the missionaries. Unable to bear separation from their little
ones, the parents soon recalled them home. As the children grew, they
were left to do pretty much as they pleased. They received no moral
instruction, but in order to excite their emulation, they were duly
initiated in the illustrious deeds of their ancestors, in whose footsteps
they were supposed to follow. For the correction of their faults, the
mother employed prayers and tears, but never threats or punishment;
these, their independent spirits would not have brooked. The severest
chastisement ever inflicted was a dash of cold water in the face. The
naturally unexcitable temperament of the Indians served as an antidote to
the defects of their rearing. Reason early taught them the necessity of
self-control, and so it happened, that at the age when the character is
formed, they presented a strange combination of good and bad qualities.
First among the virtues of the savages was fortitude. Fitted by their
stern nature and their early habits to support privation and pain, they
would exhibit the very stoicism of endurance under the extreme of both.
Without a word of complaint they would bear the pangs of hunger for ten
or fifteen days, sometimes in compliance with a superstition, but very
frequently from necessity too. They would glory in dying without a groan
amidst inconceivable agonies. They seemed insensible to cold, heat,
fatigue, sickness, and every other species of physical suffering. To
inure themselves early to the torture of fire, boys and girls of ten and
twelve would place a live coal on their joined arms, the palm of courage
being, of course, for the one who bore the pain longest without letting
the coal fall.
Hospitality they exercised in the style of the patriarchs. By day and by
night, the guest, whether stranger or friend, was welcome to the best
place in the wigwam, and to the choicest portion of the family stores. If
a stranger, he was visited by all the notabilities of the village, and at
the subsequent entertainments given in his honour, was treated with
marked distinction. The Indians were ever ready to divide their
possessions with those in greater need, and especially prompt to relieve
the widow and the orphan. "Their life is so void of care," remarked an
old writer, "and they are so loving also, that they make use of those
things which they enjoy as common goods, and are therein so
compassionate, that rather than one should starve, all would starve."
With a courtesy of which they might have been supposed incapable, they
paid visits of condolence, as a matter of course, to all in affliction.
When they offered their sympathy on the occasion of death, the departed
was never named, lest so direct an allusion might wound the sensitive
feelings of the bereaved; he was spoken of only as "the one who has left
us." They were remarkable for their reverence for the sepulchres of their
kindred, and would travel miles to visit some tomb in the woods, where,
according to their traditions, the bones of their ancestors had been
deposited. When the graves were within reach, it was a practice of some
of the tribes to keep them in the neatest order, the grass closely mown,
and the weeds and brambles carefully removed. The Hurons honoured their
dead by a special festival, celebrated every ten or twelve years at some
hamlet decided on in general council. On this occasion, each family
brought to the place appointed the bones of the relatives who had died
since the last celebration. These remains of mortality had been
previously washed, then wrapped in beaver skins ornamented with shell
work or embroidery. A common grave was ready to receive them, and on its
preparation, no pains had been spared. It was lined throughout with rich
furs, and partially filled with various presents, including articles both
of ornament and of use. The venerated remains were respectfully laid on
these; then followed, layer after layer, another supply of presents, a
store of provisions, and finally, a covering of bark, the whole
surmounted by a mound of earth. Over all a roof was raised, to protect
the precious deposit from the cold and snow of winter, and the rain and
heat of summer.
So greatly did the Indians prize domestic peace and harmony, that to
maintain it in their little communities, they often carried forbearance
and self-control to the last extreme.
So many good qualities combined assuredly prove the accuracy of the
remark of Washington Irving that "although there seems but little soil in
the Indian's heart for the growth of the kindly virtues, if we would
penetrate through the proud stoicism and habitual taciturnity which hide
his character from casual observers, we should find him linked to his
fellow-men of civilized life by more of those sympathies and affections
than are usually ascribed to him." Much in the same spirit, Father Smet
writes--"The Indians are in general little known in the civilized world.
People judge by those whom they see on the frontiers, the mere wrecks and
remnants of once powerful tribes. Among these the 'fire-water' and the
degrading vices of the whites have wrought sad ruin. The farther one
penetrates into the desert, the better he finds the aborigines, and the
more worthy and desirous to receive religious instruction."
Among the evil impulses of the Red Man's nature, pride and revenge were
predominant. Fostered and strengthened by indulgence, as well as by the
peculiar nature of early training, these passions finally acquired so
great a dominion, that to gratify either, the savages would have
sacrificed all they held most dear. They were fond of praise too, and
although they declared themselves indifferent to general opinion, their
constant fear of provoking an unfavourable one, rendered them, in truth,
its slaves. In their dealings with the whites, they were often found
false, treacherous, and regardless of promises and treaties, although in
domestic intercourse they were not in general deceitful. In extenuation,
it must be remembered that from their earliest years, they were not only
initiated in stratagem by the necessity of self-defence, but taught to
look on every exhibition of craft and cunning as a triumph of skill and a
worthy subject of admiration. And again, it is but too true that the
example of the more enlightened Europeans was not always calculated to
inspire them with respect for truth. Another ground of accusation against
the Indians was their barbarity to the vanquished. This originated partly
in policy and superstition, but from the era of European aggression,
savage cruelty needed no other stimulus than the desire of revenge.
In the long journeys of the Indians, whether for war or the chase, the
sun, moon, and stars answered the purpose of time-piece and compass.
Distant periods they calculated by the solar year, but for short
intervals they reckoned by lunations. They had observed and even given
names to the principal constellations. Among the Iroquois, the Pleiades
were called the "Dancers;" the Milky Way, "the Path of Souls;" the Great
Bear had a name corresponding with that which we give it; the Polar Star
was designated as "the star that never sets;" it served to guide them in
their long marches through the forests and across the great prairies of
the west. When the sky was clouded, they were led through the woods by
certain infallible signs--indeed by a species of instinct--besides which,
their memory of places was so wonderful that, after once visiting any
locality, they ever after retained a perfectly distinct recollection of
it. They preferred water to land travelling, possessing thorough command
of their light bark canoe, which they could direct with ease and security
amidst the most formidable rapids. If they came to an absolutely
impassable spot, they raised the slight vessel on their shoulders and
carried it until they reached the next navigable point.
Christianity produced a wonderful change in these wild children of the
woods, developing all that was good in their nature, correcting what was
evil, and softening down much of what was harsh, but when the Mother of
the Incarnation arrived in Canada, it had made but little progress. As
early as 1615, it is true, Père Caron, a Recollet, had penetrated to the
Huron land, and, during the succeeding years, he and his religious
brethren had laboured at intervals for the conversion of its inhabitants,
but although their zeal was ardent, their success had been only very
partial. Unlike the tribes of whom Jacques Cartier speaks, these
manifested so strong an opposition to the dogmas of the Catholic faith,
that it was evident many years must elapse before they would be disposed
to embrace it. Although the most intelligent of all the North American
tribes, and the most susceptible of ordinary instruction, the Hurons
appeared absolutely inaccessible to religious teaching.
The plan of the missioners in the northern continent was to try and gain
access to some Indian village, and, this point attained, to build a cabin
and as soon as opportunity offered, announce the Word of God to all who
would receive it. Gradually a little congregation was formed around them,
but the tie between the converts and their heathen relatives was not
severed, both continuing to associate; neither was the original name of
the village changed; it merely received in addition that of the
particularly saint who had been chosen as its patron. In South America,
on the contrary, it was the practice of the missioners to prepare
settlements, or "reductions," as they were called, to which they
attracted their neophytes, whom they induced to live in community.
In the year 1634, the three Jesuit Fathers, Bréboeuf, Daniel, and Davost,
succeeded in establishing themselves in the village of Ihonhatiria, in
the land of the Hurons, and there, in a very poor little chapel dedicated
to St. Joseph, they planted the seed of that interesting portion of the
early Canadian Church, the Huron Mission. In a year after, they were
joined by Père Jogues. When the Venerable Mother arrived, five years had
passed over that precious seed, and it had given scarcely a sign of life,
nor did it for long afterwards. The efforts of the Fathers were
everywhere thwarted--prejudice, superstition, ignorance, and vice all
rose in arms against them. They were accounted sorcerers; the breaking
out of the dreaded small-pox was attributed to their magic arts, and they
once owed their escape from a sentence of death only to the intervention
of a friendly Indian. But the blood of a martyr was to fertilize the seed
of Christianity in the New World, as in primitive times it had so often
done in the Old. Père Jogues was seized by the Iroquois, and after
enduring torments which only the ingenuity of savage barbarity could have
invented, he wonderfully escaped alive from their hands. In 1646 he was
sent to found a mission in the heart of the Iroquois land itself--a
mission which was to be dedicated to, and appropriately named after, the
holy Martyrs. "I shall go," he said, on receiving the order; "I shall go,
but I shall not return." The words were prophetic; his own blood was the
first to water the mission of the holy martyrs, and, as might have been
anticipated, its eloquent voice pierced the heavens. It had scarcely sent
up its pleadings, when the work of conversion among the Hurons began in
earnest. Missionary stations multiplied rapidly. The Christianized
villages of St. Joseph, St. Louis, St. Ignatius, and St. John smiled in
the desert like green spots amidst the barren sands. At the central
station of St. Mary's alone, three thousand Indians received hospitality
in the course of one year. Undeterred by the certainty of privation and
suffering, new missioners continued to swell the ranks and aid the work.
With indefatigable zeal and unwearied patience, they catechised,
exhorted, consoled, encouraged. The morning hours, from four until eight,
were reserved for their private devotions; the remainder of the day
belonged to the neophytes. Like St. Francis Xavier, Père Bréboeuf would
walk through the villages and their environs, ringing a bell to summon
the warriors to a conference. Seated round the good Father under the
pleasant shade of their own ancient forest trees, they would drink in his
words and joyfully accept his doctrines. "When I escaped some particular
danger," a brave would remark, "I said to myself, 'A powerful spirit
watches over me.' Now I know that my Protector was the great God of whom
you tell us." The first desire and aim of the converts was to bring as
many of their nation as possible to the faith; and so wondrously rapid
was its diffusion, that within two years after the martyrdom of Père
Jogues, the whole Huron nation was converted.
The harvest had taken long to ripen, but in compensation it was so rich,
that only the golden garners seemed fit to receive it, and to these,
accordingly, the Almighty Master of the vineyard was pleased speedily to
transfer it. The Iroquois had long maintained a deadly enmity to the
Hurons, and frequent bloodshed had necessarily been its consequence; but,
no longer satisfied with partial vengeance, they resolved in the year
1648 on carrying on a war of absolute extermination into the Huron
territory itself. They chose for their incursion the season when all the
Huron warriors were absent on the chase, and no one left in the hamlets
but women, children, and aged men. The village of St. Joseph, with its
venerable pastor, Father Daniel, at once fell a prey to their terrible
fury. The following year the villages of St. Louis and St. Ignatius
shared the same fate, and all the inhabitants, men, women, and children,
were slain. Fathers Bréboeuf and Lalemant were included in the general
massacre, but their deaths were marked by an exceptional refinement of
barbarity. In explanation of the bitter hatred of the Iroquois to the
French, we learn that about a year after his arrival in Canada, Champlain
had provoked their hostility by entering into an alliance with the
Algonquins and Hurons, their traditional foes. The step was taken in
choice of the lesser of two evils, for unless conciliated, it seemed but
natural to expect that the Algonquins, as the nearest neighbours, would
prove the most dangerous enemies. Wise as may have been the motive, the
act led to disastrous results.
After the almost total annihilation of their nation, a part of the
surviving Hurons descended the St. Lawrence to Quebec, in the environs of
which their posterity is still to be seen; another portion was adopted
into the nation of the conquerors on equal terms, and the rest dispersed.
Many of those admitted into the enemy's tribe were Christians, and not
only did they preserve their faith in exile, but they were the happy
means of drawing to it many of their new allies. Several years after,
missioners were amazed and charmed at finding a little band of fervent
Christians in the very centre of heathen vice and barbarism. The exiled
Hurons who sought an asylum in Quebec were located in the Isle of
Orleans, to which they gave the name of St. Mary's, in memory of their
old and still dearly-cherished home. Our limits do not permit us to dwell
on the heroism of the missioners in the daily, hourly sacrifices of their
crucified lives, ending for very many among them in death by a cruel
martyrdom. The record fills one among the many beautiful pages in the
annals of the sons of St. Ignatius. Commenting on their glorious work,
the historian, Bancroft, remarks that "the history of their labours is
connected with the origin of every celebrated town within the limits of
French Canada. Not a cape was turned," he says, "not a river entered, but
a Jesuit led the way." This, however, is but secondary merit; their true
glory is in having led the way to heaven for innumerable souls who will
for ever bless their charity, and sing praise to Him who inspired it.
Before the arrival of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation,
missions for the converted Indians had sprung up under their direction in
and about Quebec and along the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The most remarkable
of the former was that called St. Joseph of Sillery, in honour of the
patron of Canada, to whom it was dedicated, and of Monsieur de Sillery,
[Footnote: After having been Ambassador for France at the Spanish and
Papal Courts, Monsieur de Sillery was appointed Prime Minister of Louis
XIII. He finally renounced the world, and embraced the ecclesiastical
state.] its munificent founder. A few savage families lived happily in
this peaceful hamlet, fervently discharging their duty as Christians, and
insensibly falling into the spirit and usages of civilized life. These
converts were chiefly from among the Algonquins proper, and the kindred
tribe of the Montagnais. As the desire for the conversion of the Indians
strengthened, so did the conviction that the work must begin with the
systematic religious training of the children. Thanks to the zeal and
charity of the lamented Champlain, a step had been taken in this
direction for the benefit of the Indian boys;--that a similar advantage
might be extended to the girls, had long been the prayer of all who
sighed for the coming of the Kingdom of God among the heathens of Canada.
And God heard the prayer, and in his own time He sent His mercy and His
blessing to the heathen land in the person of the Venerable Mother Mary
of the Incarnation, whose wondrous call, and faithful co-operation will
engage our attention in the following pages, a tribute of filial love and
reverence to her saintly memory.
THE LIFE OF THE VENERABLE MOTHER MARY OF THE INCARNATION
FIRST PERIOD, 1599-1631.
HER LIFE IN THE WORLD.
CHAPTER I
HER BIRTH, PARENTAGE, INFANCY, CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH.
The world of nature is no doubt very beautiful in itself, and very
wonderful in its works, yet infinitely surpassing it, both in intrinsic
loveliness and in magnificence of production, is the world of grace. It
is in that world that the saints are formed, and compared with the
grandeur of the work of grace in the sanctification of a soul, all the
splendours of this material universe fade to nothing. When grace forms a
saint, it restores the beauty, and renews the purity which were the dowry
of the soul before the fall. For this end, it has to transform man from a
terrestrial into a heavenly being, elevating what is low in his fallen
nature, correcting what is evil, spiritualizing what is earthly,
improving what is good;--re-forming, re-moulding, and in a manner re-
creating.
Considering the subjects on which divine grace has to act, and the
opposition which it has to encounter, this, its work in the saints, may
well be called the most wonderful of all works, and its triumph the
grandest of all triumphs. Unseen and unheeded though it may be, that
divine work is ever silently but surely and steadily progressing in the
spiritual world over which grace rules. We can see it in its development,
if not in its actual operation, and if so minded, can estimate its
magnitude by examining its results in the annals of the saints.
Those annals are of a singularly diversified character. They comprise the
history of once rebellious souls won by the sweet attractions of grace
from every part of the empire of Satan, and by a strange contrast, they
at the same time record that of faithful souls, who, upheld by its
strength, never swerved from their allegiance to God. They tell of
saintly penitents, dating their first correspondence with its
inspirations from the eleventh hour, and of docile hearts, obedient from
earliest childhood to its voice. They show us, side by side, profaned
temples re-consecrated, and holy sanctuaries never sullied; scentless
flowers restored to fragrance, and garlands of purity from which not a
blossom or even a leaf had ever fallen. In different ways both manifest
the magnificence of the riches of divine grace. In different ways, both
prove that whether grace changes a sinner into a saint, or preserves a
saint from sin, it is pre-eminently the worker of wonders. If the
catalogue of holy penitents forms a dazzling page in its record, so does
that of the privileged few who never lost their baptismal innocence.
While the one is traced in characters of mercy, the other is written in
letters of light. While the one reveals the grandeur, and the other the
sweetness of the work of grace, both concur in proclaiming the triumph of
its omnipotence.
In obdurate wills subdued, the conquests of grace are often hard to win.
In the docile souls of the early sanctified, its task is easy. Into
these, its inspirations sink as the soft dew into good soil; and with the
same result. Finding in them no impediment to its action, no check to its
liberality, it is free to pour out the wealth of its exhaustless
treasury, and so it leads them from virtue to virtue, from height to
height, even to the sublimity of perfection and the consummation of
divine union, when, resplendent with heavenly light, and dazzling with
interior beauty, they excite the admiration, nay, perhaps even the wonder
of the angels.
To this bright page of the annals of the work of grace belongs the name
of the Mother Mary of the Incarnation, whose history is about to engage
us.
As we follow the progress of the great work of God in her soul, noting,
on the one hand, the rich abundance of heavenly inspiration, and, on the
other, the perfection of her fidelity, let us not be satisfied with
simply admiring the one, but let us set ourselves in earnest to imitate
the other, according to our measure and degree.
She was born in the historic city of Tours on the 28th of October 1599.
With the very gift of life itself, she received an accompanying
protecting grace in the blessing of good, religious parents. Her father,
Florence Guyart, was noted among his fellow-citizens for piety,
integrity, and uprightness, but although richly endowed with the
treasures of virtue, he was but indifferently provided with those of
fortune, his business as a silk-mercer supplying him barely with a
competency. Her mother, Jeanne Michelet, was of the noble house of Babou
de la Bourdaisière, to which France was once indebted for some of her
eminent ecclesiastics and statesmen, but at the period of the birth of
her holy child, she ranked--like the royally descended Virgin of Juda at
the birth of Christ--only among other obscure individuals of the middle
class.
The predestined infant received baptism on the day after her birth, in
the church of St. Saturninus, and with it the name of Mary, a happy
presage, as one of her biographers remarks, of her life-long, most tender
devotion to the Blessed Virgin, as well as of the singular favours which
that generous Mother reserved for her well-loved child. It was her
happiness to be surrounded from earliest infancy with none but holy
influences, and to breathe from her very cradle an atmosphere of purity.
The first words which she heard, the first she tried to lisp, were the
sweet names of Jesus and Mary. The first bent she received was an
inclination to virtue; the first and only examples she witnessed were
examples of piety. Thus passed the years preceding the dawn of reason,
her beautiful soul expanding under the combined action of the baptismal
grace, and of favourable external influences, like a bud of rich promise
in the bright spring sunshine; then the clouds of infancy cleared away,
and the light of reason shone. Her good mother seized the all-important
moment to direct the child's opening mind to the knowledge of God, and
her fresh, pure heart to His love, a grace for which the Venerable Mother
returned Him very earnest thanks in after life, remarking that early
impressions of religion are a most precious favour, and a strong
predisposition to future sanctity. Truly it was a picture to delight the
angels, that Christian mother so carefully directing the first feeble
steps of her little child along the road that leads to God, and that
docile child eagerly watching the guardian hand, and steadily treading
the path to which it pointed,--the sure and blessed path of holiness,
from which throughout life's long journey, she was never even once to
swerve.
The crowning grace of this privileged infancy was, however, yet to come.
Our Lord, whose Spirit breatheth where He will, had chosen that little
child to be in an especial manner all His own, and He desired to secure
possession of her soul while yet it looked so lovely, all glistening with
the baptismal dew in the morning light of its young purity. But as the
gift of the heart, to be acceptable, must be voluntary, her concurrence
in His designs of mercy had to be asked. Neither, however, to visible or
invisible guardian angel would He intrust the invitation, which, to crown
His infinite condescension, was to come from Himself in person. She has
left us a touchingly simple description of the extraordinary favour
referred to, which she always looked on as the first link in the chain of
her vocation to the mystic life, and prized accordingly.
"I was only about seven years old," she says, "when one night in sleep, I
seemed to myself to be in the courtyard of a country school with one of
my young companions. My eyes were fixed on the heavens, when suddenly I
saw them opened, and our Lord Jesus Christ descending towards me through
the air. As His most adorable Majesty drew near, I felt my heart all on
fire with His love, and eagerly stretched out my arms to Him. The most
lovely above the sons of men, beautiful and attractive beyond
description, lovingly embraced me, and then He asked, 'Wilt thou be
mine?' I answered, 'yes,' and having thus received my consent, He re-
ascended in our sight to heaven. When I awoke, my soul was so ravished
with joy at this unspeakable favour, that in my childish simplicity, I
detailed the wonderful particulars to all who would listen to me. The
sweet words of our Blessed Lord remained ever indelibly engraven on my
memory, and so completely did they absorb my attention, that although I
saw His sacred Humanity, I afterwards retained no distinct impression
concerning it."
It was an important crisis in the child's spiritual life, that heavenly
vision, for on its results depended the bent and colouring of her future
career. By her ready compliance with the invitation of divine grace, she
subjected her whole will unreservedly and for ever to the dominion of her
Lord, and thus left Him free to carry out His yet unrevealed designs for
her personal sanctification, and the salvation of innumerable souls bound
up with hers. Henceforth, His divine inspirations would find no
impediment to their action in the docile heart of that little child.
According to St. Bernard, the embrace of God means His Holy Spirit. To
embrace a soul, and to give her His Spirit, are then in God identical
acts. By the embrace noted in the vision, the Holy Ghost took possession
of the heart of His chosen Spouse in quality of her Director, and
although unacquainted as yet with the secrets, and even the name of the
interior life, she found herself guided along its paths by that divine
Master, as steadily and securely as if she had been led by a visible
hand. In her doubts, she consulted Him with great simplicity, and never
failed to receive the light which she needed for her practical direction;
light so clear and vivid, that it sometimes carried with it the force
almost of demonstration. This supernatural guidance, commenced thus
early, and continued through life, may be ranked among the most eminent
of her great spiritual privileges. But although the first, it was not the
only favour conferred on her by our Lord at His most gracious visit.
Other precious, practical effects of that visit were to disengage her
heart from the amusements in general so eagerly sought by children of her
age; to confirm her desire of virtue; to develop her love of retirement
and prayer; to intensify her hatred of sin, and strengthen her resolution
to guard with jealous care the holy treasure of her baptismal innocence.
The embrace vouchsafed her by our Lord, so embalmed her soul with
sweetness, so inflamed her heart with love, that she ceased not
thenceforth to "run after Him in the odour of His perfumes," and so
readily did her thoughts and affections turn to Him, their Centre, that
it would seem as if in vanishing from her sight in the vision just
referred to, He had taken both back to heaven with Himself. Her delight
was to resort to the most solitary places and the least frequented
churches, that she might enjoy with less interruption the sweets of
communion with Him. Struck by the humble and respectful attitudes of
pious persons whom she met in the church, and believing that God must
certainly grant the petitions of those who prayed with so much reverence,
she at once set about imitating them; and no doubt, even indifferent
observers must have been impressed by the sight of a child between nine
and ten years of age spending long hours on her knees before the
tabernacle, her little hands devoutly joined, her soul absorbed as if in
ecstasy, and her very countenance wearing a seraphic expression. She
spoke of her childish wants, with simple confidence to our Lord and His
Blessed Mother, and every day she asked that dear Mother that she might
see her at least before death. From constant association with Him who is
the joy of the angels, and the sweetness of the saints, her naturally
bright disposition grew the brighter, and her engaging amiability and
artless courtesy, the more striking and attractive.
She early manifested a singular reverence and love for religious
instruction. Having heard that God speaks through the preachers of His
word, she conceived so profound a veneration for their office and their
person, that when she met one of them in the street, she would have
followed him to kiss the traces of his steps, had she not been restrained
by the fear of observation. Without understanding much of what was said
in sermons, she still loved to listen to them, and on her return home,
would repeat what she had retained, adding her own simple ideas and
reflections. As she grew older, and therefore better able to take in
their meaning, her heart, she says, seemed to her like a vessel into
which the word of God poured in the manner of a liquid into a vase. Like
the brimming vase, her soul so overflowed with heavenly emotions, that
unable to contain their abundance, she was constrained to give them vent
in prayer, or in humble efforts to impart some of her treasures to other
souls. This early inclination for receiving and communicating religious
instruction, was a pre-disposition for the grand work which the future
reserved for her, and when, after the lapse of many years, her destiny
had associated her with the generous missionaries who bore the knowledge
of the name of Christ to infidel lands, she recalled the aspirations of
childhood's days, in which, as she says, her heart had followed the
ministers of the Gospel to the scenes of their labours, and her mind had
been more engrossed by their noble deeds, than by the events actually
passing around her.
Daily more intent on excluding from the solitude of her soul every
distracting thought and care thus the better to dispose it for the
permanent abode of the divine Guest who will have the heart to Himself,
she withdrew more and more from all intercourse with creatures, except
that required by charity and courtesy. Seeing in the recreative reading
provided for her by her parents, an obstacle to recollection and a waste
of time, she totally laid it aside, substituting for books of mere
amusement, those which treated of spiritual subjects.
As she advanced in years, the love of God which inflamed her soul sought
a vent not only in her almost uninterrupted communications with the
divine Object of her affections, but in exterior active works of charity
towards her neighbour. The tabernacle and the poor were the two magnets
that attracted her heart, and next to the hours spent before the altar,
none yielded her such pure delight as those passed among the lowly,
suffering members of her dear Saviour. She found no company so congenial
as theirs; no occupation so agreeable as the humble services which their
desolate condition required. She fed, clothed and consoled them, and even
sometimes partook of their poor fare, reserving for her own share their
remnants and refuse. She would have been glad to suffer in their stead,
and says, that but for the uprightness of her intention, she might
sometimes have erred by excess of liberality towards them.
Going one day, as usual, on a mission of charity, she inadvertently
passed too near a cart which some workmen were in the act of loading. Not
seeing her, they raised the vehicle so suddenly, that her sleeve was
caught in the shaft, and after being lifted into the air, she was dashed
back violently to the ground. The terrified spectators concluded that she
must have been killed, but she had not received the least injury, a
favour for which, as the Almighty revealed to her, she was indebted to
her love for the poor.
After some years, we hear of the first notable imperfection of her
childhood and youth, and nothing perhaps gives a more accurate idea of
her innocence, than the gravity which that imperfection assumed in her
estimation. The singular degree of supernatural light vouchsafed her, the
sublimity of interior purity to which she was called, and the height of
the virtue to which she had already attained, explain the reproaches of
the Holy Spirit, and her own keen remorse for an infidelity which appears
trivial to us because of our want of enlightenment in the ways of God.
In her childish recreations, it had been her favourite amusement to copy
the devotional practices which she had witnessed at Church; to kneel, to
prostrate, to clasp her hands, to raise her eyes to heaven, to strike her
breast; in short, to repeat as a pastime what she had seen done at
prayer. In ordinary children, a fancy for such diversions is often
considered a happy presage of a future vocation to the ecclesiastical or
religious state, but in her enlightened eyes, these childish follies
seemed inconsistent with the gravity and reserve becoming one so favoured
as she had been. Viewed in this aspect, they appeared to her, not as sins
certainly, but as imperfections; light vapours, it is true, but vapours
still, and therefore capable of intercepting to some extent the rays of
the eternal Sun of justice. It was not until her sixteenth year that her
early pastimes struck her as reprehensible, and then, with the new light,
there came a second to the effect, that although deliberate sin alone
forms necessary matter for confession, an imperfection like that recorded
might lawfully find a place in the self-accusations of one, destined as
she was, for an exceptional degree of purity of soul. No positive duty
however, required the sacrifice of natural feeling involved in the latter
course, therefore she hesitated for awhile to adopt it, thus for the
first time balancing the repugnances of nature against the inspirations
of grace. But the Spouse of souls will admit no reservation in those whom
He has chosen to be all His own, and we learn from herself, that by this
infidelity, she interrupted for a time the fulness of the flow of divine
liberality in her regard, and checked the freedom and rapidity of her
progress to God. To all but herself, however, that progress was very
apparent, furnishing matter of wonder and admiration, no less than of
edification.
Only two convents existed at that period in the city of Tours; one of
Carmelites, quite recently founded; the other of Benedictines, governed
just then by a near relative of her mother's. This latter monastery she
frequently visited, and as might have been expected, the oftener she
breathed its atmosphere of peace and prayer, the more she longed to make
it the place of her rest for ever. Her inclination for the religious life
gradually settled into a desire so strong and irrepressible, that even
before she had reached her sixteenth year, with its renewed call to
perfection, she had confided her wishes to her mother. While rejoicing at
the intelligence, and giving the project every reasonable encouragement,
that good mother suggested, that although the step was undeniably a holy
and a happy one, it was very important too, consequently, that it would
he better to delay it until time and reflection had more fully manifested
its wisdom. Had the youthful Mary been at that time under regular
spiritual direction, there can be no doubt that she would have been
advised to follow her attraction for the cloister, but she knew nothing
whatever about direction, imagining that spiritual communications even to
a confessor were limited to the accusation of sins at confession. Being
very timid, she did not venture to press the matter, so her mother,
hearing nothing more of it, naturally concluded that her inclination for
religion had been the result of some passing fit of fervour, or perhaps
only a childish fancy, forgotten as soon as formed, an idea apparently so
much the more reasonable, as her natural gaiety of character seemed to
dispose her rather for the world than for a convent. The seeming mistake
was in reality a step to the development of the particular designs of God
over His faithful servant, for although His general design is alike in
all the saints, the especial destiny of each varies, and while the great
outline of sanctity is universally the same, there are minute shades of
difference in the characteristic virtues of individuals. The saints form
the beautiful garden of the Church, redolent of every variety of sweetest
fragrance, and enamelled with every shade of fairest tinting. The day was
to come, when the Mother of the Incarnation would be bound to her Lord by
the vows of religion, but before becoming a guide for His consecrated
Spouses, she was to pass through married life and widowhood, that she
might first furnish an example of perfection in both conditions, and thus
serve as a model for woman in every state. Her ultimate destiny involved
a species of apostolate among the savages of Canada, and for this, the
novitiate awaiting her in the world would prove a more effectual
preparation, than would the novitiate of the cloister. There she would
have ample opportunities of practically learning the lesson of the cross,
and at the same time of consolidating the virtues which were to be the
distinguishing characteristics of her sanctity. Her zeal and charity
would find a wider field, and her gentle patience reap a richer harvest,
her union with God would be strengthened, while tested, by exposure to
the distracting cares of life, and her purity of soul would shine out
with brighter lustre amidst hitherto unknown difficulties and dangers.
And so, when in after years, the voice of the Spouse would bid her arise,
and leave her home and country, and follow Him to the distant land which
He would show her, she would be prepared to answer, "My heart, O Lord, is
ready; my heart is ready and my work is done!"
The first page of the history of her life,-which we are about to close,
has not been without its practical teaching. It is the page of the young;
happy those who study well the record! They will discover, that "it is
good for a man when he hath borne the yoke from his youth." (Lam. iii.
27). They will learn to admire the heavenly beauty of a pure soul, and
fascinated by its unearthly charms, they will resolve to close their own
hearts against sin, excluding even the smallest, as a security against
the entrance of the greater. They will learn to appreciate the happiness
of knowing and loving our Lord, like the blessed child who found her
sweetest joy before the altar, and they will surely ask her to beg for
them a share in her love of Jesus and her spirit of prayer, courageously
checking the propensity for idle talking and still idler reading which,
are so great an obstacle to recollection. Studying her love of
retirement, they will pray for grace to resist worldly influences, and
following her to the miserable homes of the destitute, they will aspire
to become, like her, angels of comfort to the desolate and sorrowing.
Thus will their childhood and youth be saintly, as, were those of the
model now presented to them.
CHAPTER II.
HER MARRIED LIFE, WITH ITS TRIALS AND VIRTUES.
Mary Guyart was just entering on her seventeenth year, when her parents
proposed to her a matrimonial alliance apparently calculated to insure
her happiness. Such an engagement was utterly repugnant to her
inclinations; it was inconsistent with the high hopes she had cherished
of consecrating herself wholly to God in religion; its duties and
solicitudes seemed a decided obstacle to the cultivation of that spirit
of prayer and recollection which had become as her life-breath. Drawn
daily more and more forcibly to an interior life in God, she shrank with
her whole soul from a position which must necessarily immerse her in he
distracting occupations and harassing cares of the world. But accustomed
to look on her parents as the representatives of God, and therefore
seeing only His will in the impending project, she submitted with the
respectful docility habitual to her, and none but the interior witness
of. the sacrifice to obedience, could have suspected the cost at which it
was offered. She simply assured her mother of her readiness to obey,
adding the, almost prophetic promise, that if God should bless her with a
son, she would dedicate him to the Divine service, and that if He should
ever restore her own liberty, she would consecrate it also to Him alone.
Her only object now became to prepare so fervently for the holy sacrament
of marriage, that she might receive with it the abundant supply of grace
needed for the due fulfilment of the difficult and responsible
obligations soon to be hers.
Few indeed have ever brought to it more admirable dispositions than did
that reluctant, yet in one sense, willing bride, therefore it followed,
that although the absence of pomp and show may have divested the
ceremonial of all charm for worldlings, the perfection: of her interior
preparation rendered it one of rare beauty in the eyes of heaven. She
wore no costly attire, it is true, but in compensation, her soul was
arrayed in that fairest of garments, her white baptismal robe, free still
from spot or wrinkle, as on the day when it was first assumed. She
displayed no sparkling gems, but many a virtue shone instead with a
glorious light, before whose lustre that of flashing diamond and gilded
coronet fades away, and as she thus stood before the altar in all the
freshness of her innocence and the radiance of her spiritual beauty, must
she not have won the smiles. of angels? Must she not have attracted the
complacency of the angels' Lord?
The duties of her new state came to her marked with the sign of the
cross, nevertheless she set about them with an energy and devotedness
which clearly manifested the singleness of her views, the purity of her
motives, and the enlightened character of her piety. Knowing that
perfection is in the accomplishment of God's will, and believing that as
long as she faithfully complied with the duties of her condition in life,
she should walk in the sure, straight path of obedience to that holy
will, she took immediate measures for the discharge of its fourfold
obligations to God, her husband, her servants and herself. The spirit of
prayer conferred on her at the early visit of our Lord, had been ever
since developing itself more and more strongly, and her first precaution
in arranging her role of life, was that no worldly interests should ever
be permitted to interfere with her spiritual exercises, whence alone she
could derive strength to fulfil her daily duties and courage to bear her
daily crosses. Yet she never allowed them to encroach on domestic
arrangements, her well-regulated piety having taught her, that when these
latter required the sacrifice of her love of prayer and solitude she was
doing God's will more perfectly in substituting active work for the
enjoyment of immediate communion with Himself. Prolonged meditations,
holy Mass, the sacraments and the word of God,--these were the four
sources whence she drew the waters of grace to refresh and invigorate her
soul. The holy Communion was above all, her joy and her life. As she
herself tells us, it replenished her with sweetness, enlivened her faith,
fortified her inclination for virtue, strengthened her confidence in God,
intensified her love of her neighbour, and supported her under the weight
of the cross. In one of her letters of after years, she remarks that a
single communion well made, is sufficient to sanctify a soul, since it
unites, her to the Saint of Saints, adding, that the reason why it does
not produce this result, is, that the soul after having given herself to
our Lord, in return for His having given Himself to her, too soon revokes
the offering in practice, nature shrinking from the total renunciation of
self which the divine Sanctifier requires as a preliminary to His action.
It was not so, her son remarks, with the holy Mother. Bringing to the
heavenly Banquet a disengaged heart, an almost annihilated will, and an
entire abandonment to the Spirit of God, she not only co-operated with,
but facilitated the operation of the sacramental grace, which meeting in
her no obstacle to its freedom of action, bore her with marvellous
rapidity along the path of solid virtue. Of such Communions it was, that
she says, "The more frequently I received the sacraments, the more
ardently I desired to receive them, because the more clearly I saw that
they were to me the source of all spiritual blessings."
The love and reverence for God's word which she had manifested from
earliest childhood, had but gained strength with years. To listen to it
was still her delight, as it had been in her young days. She loved it for
its own sake, irrespectively of the manner in which it might be
announced, looking on every preacher as a herald of the great King,
charged with the divine message of salvation. She says that her assiduity
in attending sermons was rewarded by a great abundance of light and love,
an increase of attraction and facility for prayer, and a renewal of
fervour in the practice of the virtues of her state. With the enlarged
experience of the spiritual life acquired at a later date, she recognised
that He who never tries His creatures beyond their strength, had imparted
to her in these benedictions of His sweetness, the particular graces
needed to support her under the crosses with which it had been His will
to surround her in the troubled days of her married life.
Her veneration for the preachers of God's word extended to all the
ceremonies of Divine worship. Enchanted with their beauty and grandeur,
and at the same time supernaturally enlightened to understand their
mysterious signification, she was filled with gratitude to her eternal
Benefactor for the signal favour of having been born of Catholic parents,
and thus made a child of the one true Church long before she could
appreciate, or even comprehend the blessing. She was always eager to be
among the first to enter the church, that securing a place where no part
of the sublime ceremonial could escape her, she might be free to meditate
on, and enter into the spirit of all.
The uprightness of her motives, and the holiness of her dispositions in
entering the marriage state, ought, we naturally imagine, to have secured
her at least the average amount of its happiness. But for the
purification of her soul and the perfecting of her virtue, God permitted
that her garland of bridal flowers should soon be turned into a wreath of
thorns, and thorns all the sharper, that they were pointed by the hand to
which she might have expected to look as her shield against trouble. It
is difficult to explain this singular phase of her diversified career.
Her husband is represented as eminently endowed with the richest gifts of
mind and person; he fully appreciated the value of the treasure which he
possessed in her, and did ample justice to her admirable qualities,
impressed most of all, perhaps, by the calm patience which no annoyance
could ruffle; the steady love which no trial could shake; the Christian
heroism which gathered new courage from each new shock;--yet it is
nevertheless quite certain that the bitter sufferings of her married life
originated, though unintentionally, with him. They rendered her duty in
his regard all the more arduous, yet it was not on that account the less
perfectly fulfilled. In uniting her destiny with his, she believed that
she was carrying out an arrangement of the admirable providence of God;
hence from the first moment of their union, she looked on him as holding
to her the place of God. In thus adopting the supernatural principles of
faith as the guide of all her relations towards him, she cut off the
thousand sources of trouble and temptation which are sure to arise
whenever nature, and not grace, holds rule,--so it happened, that among
the sorrows of her wedded life, domestic disunion, at least, never found
a place, and it followed too, that her spiritualized affection stood
tests, which purely human love would not have borne. She was never known
to fail in the respect or obedience due to her husband; her constant
study was to promote his comfort; her unceasing aim not only to defer to,
but even to anticipate his slightest wishes, and all was done with the
winning sweetness and rare prudence which were among her characteristics.
Nature had indeed dealt bountifully with her, and grace developing,
refining and spiritualizing the gifts of nature, had produced one of
those dispositions, which, to include all praise in a single word, are
sometimes termed angelic. Her temper was sweet and gentle, but it was a
gentleness as much removed from languid apathy and insensibility, as from
impulsive quickness and impetuosity. It was the serenity of a soul which,
possessing God, is happy in Him, and has no desire beyond Him, and it
excluded neither firmness in decision, nor courage and resolution in
difficulty, nor promptitude and energy in action. Her nature was so
placid and docile, that we never hear, even in her childhood, of the
least of those ebullitions of anger or manifestations of self-will, usual
in ordinary children. It was so enduring and forgiving, that while
inoffensive herself, she was incapable of taking offence, and absolutely
inaccessible to resentment. It was so kind and tender, that sympathy for
the troubles of others, especially the poor, was among the very first of
the features which her childish disposition revealed, and which, like all
her great qualities, strengthened with time. There was nothing rigid in
her piety, repulsive in her manner, austere in her ideas, or contracted
in her mind. She served the Lord with joy, and so, her interior peace was
reflected in an external cheerfulness, tempered ever by a sweet, modest
gravity that imparted dignity to her demeanour and commanded universal
respect. Her heart's history might be epitomized in one word,--self-
sacrifice,--and truly it was the quality of which she had most need. Her
charity has drawn an impenetrable veil over the precise nature, as well
as the painful details of the trials which lasted all through her short
union with Mr. Martin. Alluding to them in later life, in one of her
confidential letters to her son, she says "The only comfort of my married
life was that I was able to consecrate you to God before your birth, and
that your father, who possessed a good heart, and had the fear of God,
not only sanctioned, but even approved of my devotions. Regarding certain
occurrences with which you are acquainted, and which are to be imputed to
inadvertence, he regretted them most heartily, and often asked my pardon
for them with tears,"--tears, she might have added, not only of self-
reproach, but of admiration for the meek endurance of the gentle
sufferer.
To the perfect fulfilment of her duty to her husband, she added the exact
discharge of her obligations to her household. Mr. Martin was at the head
of a silk manufactory which gave employment to a number of workmen, and
these at once became the objects of the zeal and charity of their good
mistress. Her first aim was to secure influence over them, that she might
gain their hearts, and then bring their hearts so won, to God. For this
end, she attended to their wants as carefully as if they had been her own
children, devoting her chief solicitude to the concerns of the soul.
Dreading beyond all evils, an offence against the God whom she loved
supremely, she induced them to go regularly to confession, that its
protecting grace might be their preservative from sin. To animate them to
virtue, she gave them occasional exhortations, repeating the instructions
which she had heard in sermons, and adding her own reflections; but
prudent in her zeal, she took care not to intrude her lessons at
unseasonable times, generally selecting for them the hours of meals, and
by this means at once feeding the souls of her hearers with the word of
God, and cutting off frivolous, or perhaps sinful topics.
A living model of the virtues which she inculcated, she encouraged her
dependents even more by example than by precept, to love and serve God
faithfully. Always calm and self-possessed, affable and kind, she
practically illustrated the beauty of peace and union. Patient and self-
controlled, she taught the heroism of Christian endurance. As solicitous
for the interests and as intent on the happiness of others, as if her own
heart had not been wrung with anguish, and oppressed with care, she
exemplified the unselfishness of true charity. Enlightened and judicious
in her views, orderly and systematic in her arrangements, active and
energetic in the practical details of business, she taught by her
conduct, more forcibly than by any words, that "piety is good for all
things." It need not be added that she won the love of her domestics, who
looking on her more as a gentle mother than as a mistress, sympathized in
her sorrows as if they had been personal, and manifested on all occasions
their compassion for her afflictions, their admiration of her fortitude,
and their reverence for her person. Knowing that well-ordered charity
begins at home, she took care never to devote herself so entirely to the
salvation of others, as to neglect her own soul. In order to secure time
for the requirements of both, she avoided unnecessary visits and idle
amusements, and having fully complied with her domestic duties, she
retired to her oratory, there to find in prayer and spiritual reading
repose from past fatigues, and courage for new labours.
Thus passed her first probation in the world. The death of her husband
brought it to a close at the end of only two years, but they were years
so rich in every virtue of her condition, that the married woman who
would lead a sanctified and useful life, is sure of attaining the holy
end by following her example. She was indeed the model of a faultless
wife; so assiduous in prayer, that it would seem as if she considered
prayer her only obligation; so devoted at the same time to the interests
of all connected with her, that it would appear as if her domestic
responsibilities were her absorbing concern, and through all, so utterly
forgetful of self, that chance observers could never have suspected how
those cheerfully discharged duties involved the living sacrifice of her
bleeding heart.
In this second page of the life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the
Incarnation, we read a continuance of the work of grace in her soul. We
meet the same virtues with which the opening page has made us familiar,
but now expanded on a wider sphere, and strengthened by severer
conflicts, and still, at every step, we note for our own instruction the
action of the Spirit of God, and her docile correspondence, the two
necessary and inseparable agents in the sanctification of man. In the
biography which he has left us of his saintly mother, her son
particularly directs attention to the solidity of the foundation which
she prepared for the edifice of her future holiness. Guided by the Divine
Director, who since early childhood had undertaken the formation of her
soul, she adopted as the four fundamental principles of her spiritual
life, fidelity to the duty of prayer, careful avoidance of every
deliberate sin, the frequent reception of the holy sacraments, and
punctual attendance at divine service, as well as at sermons, and all
public observances and ceremonies of the Church. By thus steadying the
foundation, she ensured the permanent stability of the building, and by
similar means only will any one else secure the same end. Prayer and the
sacraments purify the soul; purity of soul prepares for union with God;
union with the Church at once forms and cements the bonds of union with
God. Sanctity, as so often observed, is primarily the work of grace, but
grace will come to us only through the appointed channels. If we cut off
the channel, we cut off also the supply, deprived of which, far from
advancing in the ways of God, we shall but languish and lose ground.
"Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it."
(Ps. cxxvi. 1).
CHAPTER III.
WIDOWHOOD.--LIFE OF SOLITUDE AND PRAYER.
The young wife was but nineteen when a new scene in life's great drama
was opened before her by the death of her husband. Although, through
God's permission, he had caused her very bitter sorrows, her naturally
warm heart was not the less grieved at the separation. She had fully
appreciated his good qualities; had found excuses in her charity for his
shortcomings, and had loved him with sincere affection, but as she had
seen and accepted an arrangement of the divine will in the formation of
the marriage tie, so did she recognise and adore a dispensation of the
same Almighty will in the. breaking of the bond, and this one
consideration sufficed to reconcile her to the trial, and to give rest to
her soul. At the period of her widowhood, her prospects were no doubt
cheerless enough. Her pecuniary affairs had been left in a state of great
embarrassment; she had an infant of six months old to provide for, and as
she remarks, her comparative youth and inexperience seemed to unfit her
for a struggle with the difficulties of her position, but here, as ever,
her beautiful trust in God supported her, and with a firm, filial
reliance on His promise to be with those who are in tribulation, she took
up her new crosses with resignation and abandonment so perfect, that
neither loss of fortune, nor anticipation of absolute poverty, nor
anxiety for the fate of her little child could disturb her serenity or
shake her confidence.
The virtue and amiability which she had evinced during her first
matrimonial engagement, soon procured her new and far more advantageous
offers, while the capacity and integrity which had marked her business
transactions, led to very promising proposals for re-embarking in
commerce. Prudence seemed in favour of acceptance; natural inclination
was opposed to it. In weighing the question, however, it was not to
natural inclination that she appealed for a decision; this never had been
her guide, nor should it now. If it were, the remembrance of the miseries
of her married life would have been quite sufficient reason to deter her
from risking a repetition of them, but faith had taught her to see in
those past crosses, only valuable opportunities of practising virtue and
acquiring merit, therefore she gave the apprehension of their renewal no
place in her deliberations. The interior attraction which sweetly but
irresistibly urged her to devote herself all to God,--this it was which
determined her to embrace a life of entire seclusion in the world, as
soon as her affairs should be arranged. In forming her plans, she can
scarcely have refrained from casting a wistful glance at the attractive
solitude of the cloister, but knowing that its entrance was for the
present closed to her by her duty to her child, she resigned herself to
wait for the promised land, until she should first have crossed the
intervening desert. Referring to this period in one of her after letters
to her son, she speaks of the transports of her gratitude at finding
herself free to follow her call to solitude, where without distraction or
division she could think of and love her Lord, while she watched over the
babe whom He had committed to her keeping. The death of her mother-in-
law, in about a month after that of her husband, removed the last
obstacle to the accomplishment of her project.
Connected with the early months of her widowhood, is a wondrous
supernatural favour, granted her as if to confirm her late determination,
and mark it with a sensible sign of heaven's approval. We shall record it
in the words best suited to so sublime a subject,--her own. "On the eve,"
she says, "of the feast of the Incarnation, 1620, I was on my way to
business, which I recommended to God by my ordinary aspiration, 'In thee,
O Lord, I have hoped; let me never be confounded!'--when suddenly, my
progress was unaccountably arrested, and while I stood motionless in
body, the action of my mind was equally suspended, all recollection of
the affairs I was engaged in vanishing instantaneously from my memory.
Then the eyes of my soul were wondrously opened in one moment, and all
the sins, faults and imperfections of my life revealed to me in general
and in particular, with indescribable distinctness. At the same time, I
saw myself plunged in a bath of blood, and I knew that it was the blood
of the Son of God which had been shed for the very sins now so clearly
represented to me. If the Almighty in His great goodness had not
sustained me, I think I should have died of terror, so horrible did even
the smallest sin appear. Oh! what words can express the emotion of the
soul at seeing the Lord of infinite goodness and incomprehensible
sanctity insulted by a worm of the earth, and a Man-God shedding His most
adorable blood to reconcile sinners to His Father! Above all, who can
describe her feelings at finding herself personally stained with sin, and
recognising that the Incarnate God would have done for the expiation of
her individual guilt, what He has done for the atonement of the
transgressions of all men in general! At that moment, my heart seemed
wholly changed into love for Him who had shown me this signal mercy, and
it was filled at the same time with indescribable, and even unimaginable
sorrow for having offended Him. This feeling of loving sorrow was so
overpowering, that I would willingly have thrown myself into flames, if
thus I could have appeased it, and strangest of all, its force was full
of gentleness. It sweetly bound my soul by its very charms, and led her
on a willing captive. A strong interior impulse urged me to confess my
sins, and on returning to my usual condition, I found myself standing
opposite the little church of the Feuillants who had lately established
themselves at Tours. I entered, and seeing one of the Fathers standing in
the middle of the chapel as if he had been expecting my arrival, I on the
spot confessed the sins which had just been discovered to me, too intent
on making reparation to Him whom I had offended, to notice that I might
easily have been overheard by a lady who had entered the church in the
meantime. When I had finished, the Father gently told me to return the
next day to his confessional, and I left without observing at the moment
that I had not received absolution. This omission was supplied at my
renewed confession next morning. During the first year that I remained
under the direction of this Father, I confined myself entirely to the
accusation of my sins, thinking that nothing else should be introduced at
confession, but having heard a pious girl say that it was not right to
practise corporal austerities without permission from the confessor, I
applied for it to mine, and he then regulated the amount of these, as
well as the number of my confessions and communions. I returned home,
changed into another creature, and that so completely, that I no longer
recognised myself. I discovered with unmistakable clearness the ignorance
under cover of which I had hitherto thought myself very innocent, my
conduct very harmless, and my whole spiritual condition blameless. After
our Lord had opened my eyes, I saw myself as I was, and I had to own that
my justice was but iniquity."
She always looked on this heavenly favour as one of the greatest she had
ever received, and its date as synonymous with that of her perfect
conversion to God. "It would be difficult," says her son, "to lead a more
exemplary life than hers had been; by the word conversion, we are not
then to understand, a transition from a state of sin to a state of grace,
but a resolute determination to bid adieu wholly to the world, that she
might give herself all to God and live only by His love." To mark her
entire separation from the world, she assumed a peculiarly grave style of
dress, dismissed her servants, gave up her house, and returned to her
father's, where free from all care arid responsibility, she found herself
as she desired, alone with God alone. She chose an apartment in the upper
story as the most retired, and between this and the adjoining oratory,
she passed most of her time in prayer. She was never to be seen except at
church or at home; paid no visits and received very few; spoke but
rarely, and then concisely. She took her frugal meals at her father's
table, then retired to her solitude, as she says herself, "like the dove
to its nest." It was at this time, that in addition to her other most
severe austerities, she gave up the use of linen, substituting serge.
Knowing the danger of inaction, she occupied the intervals between prayer
in embroidery, choosing this employment because it left the mind free to
converse with her Lord. But although her life was thus hidden in God, it
was no part of her piety to forget the interests of her neighbour. In her
present straitened circumstances, she could no longer open her hand in
alms as had been her wont in better days, but the sick poor retained
their old place in her heart, and among these she still could always find
ample exercise for her charity. Accordingly, she sought out the most
revolting cases of disease, and made appointments with the sufferers to
meet her at her home, where kneeling before them while they sat, she
washed and dressed their loathsome sores, contriving to stoop closely
over their ulcerated limbs, so that nature might be crucified in every
sense, and crushed in every feeling. And as the soul's interests are more
precious far than those of the miserable body, so was it her chief
concern to instruct the ignorant, to encourage the weak, to rouse the
sinful to repentance, and animate the good to higher virtue. Thus passed
the first year of her widowhood: at its close, the tenor of her life was
altered, that in a new sphere, she might have the opportunity o£
practising new virtues.
CHAPTER IV.
PURITY OF SOUL.--LIFE OF HUMILIATION IN HER SISTER'S HOUSE.
It would seem as if the holy widow had now attained the very position for
which her heart had so long sighed, a life of close and constant
communion with God, and, at the same time, of active charity to her
neighbour,--a life combining every facility for her own sanctification,
with abundant opportunities of promoting the salvation of other souls
also. But scarcely had she realized its advantages and tasted its
sweetness, when at the end of one short year, she was called on to
relinquish it, by a married sister, who, knowing her talent for business,
begged her assistance in the management of a large commercial
establishment of her own. The proposal was naturally most distasteful,
but seeing in it a road to the suffering and humiliation for which her
soul thirsted, as well as an opportunity of practising her favourite
charity, she made the sacrifice in her spirit of habitual self-
immolation, only stipulating for freedom in her spiritual exercises, and
permission, to return home every evening. Our Lord was pleased to mark
His approval of her decision, and to reward her generosity, by raising
her to a higher degree of prayer.
This partial return to the world suggested the idea that she might now
perhaps be induced to accede to the unanimous wish of her friends, and
engage once more in married life. The subject was therefore before long
renewed, and one day she was so hard pressed with a variety of arguments
connected with the interests of her son, that she paused a little to
consider whether the opinions of so many wise and disinterested advisers
ought not to weigh somewhat against her own lights. The hesitation was
only momentary, and yet on reflection, it seemed to her to have involved
so serious an infidelity, that in subsequent general confessions of the
greatest sins of her life, she ranked this first, as the one most
deserving of her regret, and the possible cause of her severe interior
sufferings. She knew that in its own nature, the fault in question was
inconsiderable, but she understood equally well that its attendant
circumstances gave it a certain degree of gravity for her, whom the
Almighty had so favoured. Short as her hesitation had been, it appeared
like disloyalty to Him whom she had promised to take for her only Spouse
should the bonds of her earthly union be ever broken, and that with her
capability of appreciating the sublimity of a vocation to a life with God
alone, she should have deliberated for an instant between His invitation
and that of the world, seemed to her a fitting subject of life-long
sorrow and self-condemnation. The infidelity to grace was aggravated in
her estimation by its accompanying ingratitude, and this in itself was a
reproach, keenly painful to a heart so tender and loving as hers.
Here again, we are struck with wonder and admiration at her purity of
conscience, and here again we breathe a prayer for light to see ourselves
as God sees us; for grace to understand the malice of sin as the saints
understand it. It is because their hearts are so pure, that the spiritual
vision of the saints is so refined. "Blessed are the clean of heart, for
they see God" and in the light of that eternal Sun of Justice, they
discern minutest stains, invisible to souls obscured by the clouds of
sin, or dimmed by the mists of self-love. Again, it is because the hearts
of the saints are so pure, that their love of God is so sensitive.
"Blessed are the clean of heart," for they see the Divine attractions as
clearly as is given to man in his mortality, and seeing them thus
clearly, every slight infidelity to a God so beautiful and so good,
assumes importance in their eyes, and excites a corresponding sorrow. The
young widow's momentary irresolution left her only the more firmly
determined to renounce the world at once and for ever, and in order to
render that resolution irrevocable, she bound herself to, God by a vow of
perpetual chastity, being then twenty-one years of age. About this time
she was placed under the spiritual care of the Reverend Father Dom
Raymond of St. Bernard, and to this enlightened master she was first
indebted for the great blessing of regular direction in the paths of the
interior life.
Her position in her sister's house was unaccountably strange. She had
been invited there, because her clear intellect, sound judgment, and
natural aptitude for business promised to render her an invaluable
assistant in the management of a large concern, and yet, instead of being
at once placed in her own sphere at the head of the family, she was
permitted without question or remonstrance to establish her quarters in
the kitchen, as if considered suited only for menial work;--treated
meantime in the most imperious manner, not only by the master and
mistress of the house, but by the very servants; looked down on by all,
as if she had been not even a stranger or a hireling, but an outcast. The
Spirit of God inspired her, she says, to conceal her natural abilities,
that she might pass for an ignorant woman, fit only to wait on the
servants, and this lowly condition had such powerful charms for her
humble heart, that she actually feared excess in her attachment to it. In
proposing this apprehension as a conscientious doubt to her director, her
great fear was that he would oblige her to emerge from her abject
position, and assume her rightful place in the family.
Her insatiable desire of crosses and humiliations was not satisfied even
with the ingratitude of her brother and sister, nor with the insolent
behaviour of the domestics; she sought for new sufferings, and among
others, contrived to burn herself while employed in cooking. She attended
the servants in sickness, reserving the whole care of them to herself,
and voluntarily rendering them the lowest services. Among other instances
of the kind, she at one time dressed the infected wound of a workman
whose foot had been nearly severed in two by a terrible accident, and
whose deplorable condition rendered him absolutely unapproachable to all
but herself. Although gangrene threatened, and amputation seemed
inevitable, she persevered in her work of mercy and self-denial, until
she bad effected a cure. Her brother and sister, she looked on as her
best benefactors, accepting their unkindness as the greatest of favours,
and obeying their directions with scrupulous exactitude, and this life
she led, and this death to self she practised, not for a week, or a
month, but for three or four successive years. Oh! how richly traced in
heaven's own colouring, must have been the daily record of those years
kept by her faithful guardian spirit! How mighty the change wrought in
her spiritual condition, as one after another they passed away, each
leaving behind an accumulation of grace made fruitful; each marked by
new, and always more wondrous supernatural favours! It is not, however,
by her supernatural favours that we are to estimate her sanctity, but by
her practice of solid virtue, nor are we to forget that if by an
exceptional vocation, she was led into the higher paths of the mystic
life, she walked long, steadily and to the end in the common road, to
which, as Christians, we are called no less than she was. Nevertheless,
that singular favours should have been granted her, is exactly what we
should have been, led to expect from our acquaintance with the history of
the saints, which has taught us that it is ever God's way to be liberal
with His creatures, in proportion as they are liberal with him. There had
been no rapine in the holocaust of this, His faithful servant. She had
never refused Him one gift He craved; withheld one sacrifice He asked;
was He to be outdone in generosity? Oh, far from it! In presence of the
magnificence of His gifts to her chosen soul, we have but to bow down as
we bend before the sun when its ray dazzles us. The reverential wonder
which they inspire, is, after all, but a homage to the great Giver, and
if while we admire and venerate her exceptional privileges, we at the
same time study and try to copy the imitable portions of her example, we
shall reap profit from both passages of her life.
CHAPTER V.
PREPARATION FOR A HIGHER DEGREE OF DIVINE. UNION.--ACTIVE LIFE.--INTERIOR
TRIALS.
We cannot have studied the lives of the saints without observing, that
while infinitely generous of His graces to all His faithful servants,
their almighty Lord from time to time chooses certain individuals among
them as recipients of a more than ordinary measure of His liberality. We
read of a privileged few, to whom He is lavish of what may be termed
exceptional marks of His love. These chosen souls, He inundates with
celestial gifts,--revealing glimpses of His glory and beauty,
transforming them into Himself, so as in a manner to divinize them, and
even sometimes imparting visible external marks of their sublime
spiritual exaltation. It would seem as if He desired to manifest to men
in their persons, the immensity of His goodness, the infinitude of His
condescension, and the magnificence of His riches. They are the specially
favoured among the favoured: they form a class apart, in which God,
wonderful in all His saints, is wonderful surpassingly.
In that exceptional class, suited as it would seem to us rather for
angels than for mortals, a place was destined in the divine designs for
the subject of our history, Marie Guyart, but before those all-gracious
designs could be realized, certain preliminaries were needed. To the
thoroughly purified soul alone it belongs to fly without impediment to
God, as the needle flies to the magnet, and admirable, nay wonderful as
was the interior purity to which this-singularly favoured being had
attained; it had yet to undergo further processes of refinement before
she should be disposed for the privilege awaiting her. Our Lord continued
therefore to draw her more and more forcibly to the perfection of the
virtue, revealing to her in the meantime, that when it had reached the
required degree, a great, but as yet unspecified grace would be her
reward. To stimulate her zeal, He gave her a vision, of a soul free from
even the slightest shadow of defect, and the sight was one so entrancing,
so enrapturing, that she said, if men could only see it, they would
willingly renounce all things for the bare enjoyment of the glorious
spectacle. Charmed with the celestial beauty of such a soul, and
thirsting ever more to share its happy privilege of flying to God without
hindrance or delay, she was carefully on her guard against the most
trivial imperfection, and when betrayed into one, never desisted, until
by sighs and prayers she had obtained forgiveness, which she knew by the
cessation of reproach of conscience.
The sanctity of God was represented to her under the semblance of a vast
sea, with whose limpid waters no defilement however small was allowed to
mingle, all such being instantaneously rejected. Overwhelmed at--sight of
the disproportion between the purity of the human, soul, and the holiness
of the great God with whom she aspires to be united, she could only
exclaim again and again, in the depths of her self-annihilation, "O
Purity! O Purity! Hide, absorb me in Thee, O mighty Ocean of Purity!" At
another time, the same Divine attribute was shown her as a spotless
mirror, reflected on which, the least of her infidelities seemed
magnified into a mountain. The profound impression of the Sanctity of God
thus imparted, so greatly increased her delicacy of conscience, that she
reproached herself for her smallest failure, as if it had been a fault of
magnitude. She says that her union with God was never interrupted by
necessary conversation, even though it might have lasted the whole day,
but that if she spoke a useless word, or yielded to a distracting
thought, she at once found the interior bond weakened, and received a
reproach from conscience. Once, after she had committed an imperfection,
an interior voice whispered to her, "If an artist had painted a fine
picture, would he be well pleased to see it soiled and stained?" Another
time, the same interior monitor asked, "If you had a costly pearl or
diamond, would you like to have it thrown into the mud?" The words seemed
to give her a new insight into the sanctity of God, and they filled her
with unutterable confusion. So profoundly did the love of interior purity
strike root in her innocent soul, that she accepted, and even desired the
most vigorous punishment for the slightest fault, never admitting the
idea that there could be a disproportion.
Her view of the divine presence had now become so habitual, that by a
marvellous privilege, it was never interrupted. If duty obliged her to
speak with her neighbour, her communication with God was not in
consequence suspended. If she wrote, her mind was equally intent on her
subject and on her Lord, and as often as she paused to renew the ink in
her pen, her heart profited of the momentary interruption, to say a
loving word to Him. If the whole world had been present, she says,
nothing in it could have distracted her soul. She had received an infused
knowledge of the nature of the works of God, their relations with their
Maker, and the end of their creation; all therefore served to unite her
to, instead of distracting her attention from Him.
To make reparation to the outraged sanctity of God, and to honour the
Passion of her Lord, as well as with the specific intention of disposing
her soul for the yet unrevealed favour awaiting her, she redoubled the
austerities already so rigorous. She allowed herself only as much sleep
as was necessary for existence, taking that on the ground, with no
covering but a hair-cloth. After a while, the bare floor appeared too
luxurious a couch, so she spread a hair-cloth over it, and on that she
stretched her weary limbs for a short part of the night. This
mortification she looked on as the severest she had ever endured, the
weight of the body and the hardness of the boards combining to press the
sharp surface into the flesh, so that constant pain permitted only short
and broken sleep. A considerable portion of the night was divided between
prayer and corporal mortifications. She was familiar with instruments of
penance of every kind, and used them with an unsparing hand. Ingenious in
devising means of crucifying her senses, she mixed wormwood with her
food, and between meals, kept the bitter herb a long time in her mouth,
until forbidden, through regard for her health, to continue so mortifying
a practice. She succeeded however in so completely destroying the sense
of taste, as to be finally unable to distinguish one description of food
from another. Many years after she went to Canada, this fact was
decidedly ascertained by an unmistakable test. Yet she says she was never
ill, but on the contrary, always vigorous, always cheerful, always ready
for new mortifications, and so impressed with their value, that she would
have counted the day lost, on which she had suffered nothing. In daily
Communion, she renewed the strength so severely taxed by her appalling
austerities and her fatiguing labours for her neighbour.
That humiliation of mind might keep pace with subjection of the flesh,
she one day brought her director a written confession of the sins and
imperfections of her whole life with her name affixed, beseeching him
after he had read, to attach it to the church door, that all might know
the extent of her infidelity to God. Repeated rebuffs from her confessor
served only to manifest the sincerity of her humility; she received them
with her habitual love of contempt, and although the paper was burned,
instead of being exhibited as she desired, her fidelity to inspiration
was rewarded by a new flood of graces. Among the rest, she learned by
revelation the exact nature of the celestial favour previously promised
only in general terms, our Lord condescending to intimate to her
explicitly, that she was destined for that highest degree of divine
union, accorded, as we have just seen, only to a privileged few even of
the saints. Although the wondrous promise was not to be realized for the
present, the prospect of its accomplishment at a future day, filled her
with holy joy, nerving her at the same time to new efforts for the
removal of every obstacle to the consummation of her hopes.
After she had spent three or four years in the house of her brother-in-
law in the manner already noticed, Divine Providence permitted that he
should open his eyes to her capabilities and his own injustice. By a
tardy concession to her merits, he asked her at last, to undertake the
management of his affairs, foreseeing that they could not but prosper in
her hands. Besides holding the rank of an artillery officer, he was
charged with the commissariat of the whole kingdom, and under favour of
these two appointments, he embarked in a variety of enterprises which
obliged him to maintain a very large establishment; including numerous
servants and vehicles. His charitable sister, in undertaking her new
duties, still retained the old, from which her heart refused to part,
because of their attendant humiliations. She got through all, and
satisfied everybody; meantime so perfectly maintaining her union with
God, that she seemed like one of those celestial Spirits of whom our Lord
declared that "they ever behold the face of the Father in heaven." She
tells us that she spent the greater part of the day in a stable which
served as a store, and that sometimes she was still on the quay at
midnight, sending off, or receiving goods; that her ordinary companions
were carters, porters and other workmen; that she had to look after fifty
or sixty horses; that during the frequent absences of her brother and
sister, she had their personal affairs to attend to in addition to the
rest, and still, that as this multiplicity of occupations had been
undertaken only from a motive of charity, God permitted that instead of
proving an obstacle to the spirit of recollection, it tended on the
contrary to nourish and strengthen it. She says that when she found
herself so overwhelmed with business as scarcely to know where to begin,
she besought our Lord's help, reminding Him that without it, all must
remain undone, and the appeal was never made in vain. Looking back in
later life to this period, she remarks that the trials and hardships
which she had to encounter during her residence with her brother-in-law,
were especially arranged by Divine Providence as a most suitable
preparation for her future work in Canada.
Sighing for the consummation of the divine union promised her, and ever
seeking for some new gem with which to adorn her soul, she resolved to
bind herself by vow to the evangelical counsels, adopting as an
obligation, what had hitherto been only a voluntary practice, and thus in
a manner anticipating the time when she should realize the dearest wish
of her heart, by consecrating herself to God in religion. Her vow of
obedience regarded her director, her sister, and her brother-in-law, and
in its connection with the two last, was attended with difficulties known
only to God. As to poverty, she possessed nothing but what was given her
by her sister, contenting herself with bare necessaries. The interests of
her son, she abandoned to divine Providence, aspiring with her whole
heart to that perfect poverty of spirit which desires but God, and is
content with Him alone. In recompense of this new proof of love, her
generous Master granted her the precious gift of His own divine peace,
and to enhance the treasure, He brought it to her Himself, as on another
memorable occasion, He had brought it to His apostles. It was not that
her soul had hitherto been a stranger to God's peace; on the contrary, in
writing many years later of the favour now conferred, she says she had
not supposed it possible to enjoy here below a more perfect interior
peace than she habitually possessed, but that after our Lord had
whispered to her heart, "Peace be to this house,"--so profound, so
imperturbable, so transcendent a peace was imparted, that she never for a
moment lost it, although her multiplied afflictions might well have
shaken it, had it not been steadily anchored on loving conformity to the
will of Him who had established His empire in her soul.
The gold of her virtue had been well tried in the crucible of
tribulation, but as yet, it had not been subjected to the fiery ordeal of
temptation; through this, for its more entire refinement it was now to
pass. All at once her ordinary enjoyment of her spiritual exercises was
succeeded by utter disinclination. The sweetness and patience which had
scarcely cost her an effort in her intercourse with her neighbour, gave
place to a sensitiveness and irritability which would have caused her
many faults if she had not been closely and constantly on her guard. Her
childlike submission to her director appear intolerable yoke; her
dependence on her sister a positive degradation. The humiliations so
freely embraced, and so long and dearly prized, seemed in her altered
views, inconsistent with self-respect. The corporal penances hitherto
lightened and sweetened by the unction of Divine love, now assumed their
worst sharpness, and excited her strongest repugnance. Importunate
scruples were added to temptation, and while thus violently assailed on
many sides, she seemed not to receive light or comfort from any. Her only
support in these terrible interior trials was in the remembrance of God's
promise "to be with those who are in tribulation" (Ps. xc. 15), and
truly He was with hers in hers, and by His almighty grace brought her so
triumphantly through them, that amidst her complicated sufferings, she
never failed in her fidelity to her Lord; never omitted the smallest duty
or fell into the slightest impatience. He who does not permit His
creatures to be tried beyond their strength, granted her relief when she
least expected it. In the restored light, she clearly saw that the object
of the tempter had been to lure her from the path of perfection to which
God had called her, and on which, as we have seen, she had already made
gigantic strides; and she discovered with equal distinctness that the
ordeal through which she had passed was a necessary preparation for the
higher graces to come. By her example on this occasion, as well as by her
subsequent instructions, she teaches that however strong may be the
pressure of temptation, however impenetrable the darkness of aridity, the
afflicted soul should not omit any of her accustomed exercises, whether
of obligation or of mere devotion, or lose her trust in that divine grace
which never deserts her in her conflicts, but powerfully, though perhaps
imperceptibly supports her in every difficulty.
CHAPTER VI.
SUPERNATURAL FAVOURS--VISION OF THE MOST ADORABLE TRINITY.--RENEWED
INTERIOR TRIALS.--NEW HEAVENLY FAVOURS.
As the released torrent rushes on with increased impetuosity after a
temporary restraint, so did the emancipated soul of the holy Mother bound
to God with ten-fold ardour, now that the pressure of temptation, and the
darkness of doubt had been removed. As a reward for her fidelity in her
late trials, our Blessed Lord one day showed her His Heart and her own so
entirely united, so completely fused, that they seemed to form but one.
After this grace, her love of God appeared to change its character, and
to become altogether divine. Her heart was no longer her own, for it had
been made the possession of the Heart of Jesus. Absorbed in transports
and ecstasies of holy love, she grieved that even the short time which
she allowed to sleep, should interrupt the recollection of the only
Desired of her soul: She aspired with ever increasing ardour to the
mystic union so long promised and so long delayed. It was to be, as it
were, the culminating point of the Divine favours;--meantime she was
permitted, if not to reach the summit, at least to ascend to mysterious
heights on the holy mountain, and there behold wonders not destined for
sight of mortal eyes;--wonders which she herself confesses to be
inexplicable by human words. Miraculously strengthened to bear the
overwhelming flood of splendour, her soul was elevated even, to the
vision, of the most august and adorable Trinity. She saw the relations
between the Three Divine Persons; their unity, their distinction, their
operations within and outside themselves. She saw their operations also
in the nine choirs of angels, and understood how the human soul is
created to the image of God. It took but a moment, she says, to receive
the impression of all these wonders, whereas the effort to describe them
requires time, for human language cannot express in a word, what the mind
can grasp in an instant. The ecstasy lasted five hours, at the end of
which she found herself still kneeling exactly in the spot of the church
where it had commenced. She describes herself during that time as
absolutely lost in those unfathomable splendours; capable only of
passively receiving the impression of the purely intellectual vision
unfolded to her with indescribable clearness and singleness of view.
Writing of this great favour towards the end of life, she says that it
was then as vividly present to her in all its circumstances as at the
time of its occurrence, adding in her own simple way, that "great things
like this are never forgotten." It has been observed that the terms in
which she speaks of the most abstruse mysteries of faith, are too clear,
top precise, too strictly in accordance with the teaching of theology, to
have come within the natural lights of a woman of ordinary education;
therefore while the style of the narrative has excited the admiration of
the learned, it has left them without a doubt as to the Divine source of
her inspiration. For a long time after the vision, her soul was so
completely concentrated in the most adorable Trinity, that she had no
power to detach her thoughts from the ineffable mystery.
We might anticipate that the wonderful favour just recorded, would be the
last prelude to the elevation of God's chosen servant to the promised
high degree of Divine union, but such is the incomprehensible purity of
the all-holy God, that even after so many delays, so many trials, so much
fidelity, so much love and devotedness, He did not yet find her
sufficiently free from the dust of the earth, sufficiently disengaged
from every creature, sufficiently detached even from His own sensible
gifts, to be worthy of that mysterious union which requires the purity of
an angel. The work of preparation was accordingly to go on; the arduous
work of self-annihilation, of interior crucifixion, of total sacrifice of
every feeling, and absolute death to every inclination. Our Lord showed
her her soul as it would appear when adorned with the required degree of
holiness, and she confessed that He did her but justice in still
deferring the hour for which she sighed.
It is the remark of her son in the Life of his holy Mother, that
temptation is among the most efficacious means employed by the Almighty
for the purification of His creatures, for as in that state, the soul is
pursued by a vivid and constant apprehension of committing sin, she lives
in an habitual hatred of, and watchfulness against it, which are but too
apt to relax when the presence of evil is less apparent, and the
necessity for combating it less urgent. Through this grievous, suffering,
the servant of God had once more to pass. It appeared to her, she said as
if she had suddenly fallen from paradise into purgatory. She found
herself not only deprived of all consolation, but filled with alarm at
the remembrance of past favours, which seemed to her to have been unreal
and delusive. The thought of God was, as usual, ever present to her mind,
but it brought no comfort, for with it came an afflicting doubt of the
sincerity of her love for Him. Far down in the depths of her soul, it is
true, reposed the solid peace founded on submission to His will, but it
was a matter of difficulty to realize the existence of that submission.
Nature had once more asserted its sensitiveness to humiliation and
contradiction. In short, so profound was her anguish of soul that she
could scarcely support herself. This sore affliction, lasted for some
months, then gradually abated, and as it did, she learned to realize the
sweet use of sorrow. Trial, seconded by her own fidelity, had done its
work. Faith had triumphed over sense. Like "a two-edged sword reaching
unto the division of the soul and the spirit" (Heb. iv. 12), it had cut
away the last remnant of natural life, and left behind only the
supernatural. Long disengaged in mind and heart from all things on
earth, she was now so detached even from the consolations of heaven, so
singly centred in God alone, that she could rejoice in her spiritual
poverty, and thank the Lord for seeming to have withdrawn, the favours
which in her humility, she considered exposed to defilement in passing
through her heart. The Almighty who delights in manifesting Himself to
the humble, was pleased to reward her fidelity by a lively impression of
His adorable attributes, and a clear knowledge of the mysteries contained
in the first chapter of St. John. "During a holy week," she says, "our
Lord granted me new lights regarding His Divine attributes. I
contemplated the Unity of God, and in the Unity, I beheld His Eternity
without beginning or end; His immense Greatness; His adorable Infinitude;
and in an ecstasy of admiration, I could only exclaim, 'Goodness! O
Immensity! O Eternity!' I understood how all things have their origin in
God, from whom emanates whatever is beautiful and good, and I cried, 'O
more than Good! more than Beautiful! more than Adorable! Thou art God!
Thou art the great God!' Sinking into the very depths of my lowliness,
feeling in His mighty presence as if I had been the veriest worm, still I
could not refrain from telling Him of my love; still I could not but
rejoice that my God is so great; still I exulted that He is All, and that
I am nothing, for if I had been anything, then He would not have been
All. O Breadth! O Length! O height! O Depth! immense, adorable,
incomprehensible to all but Thyself! my Centre! my Beginning! my End! my
Beatitude! my All!" Unable to satisfy her desire to die,--if that were
possible, in order to render homage to the perfections of her God, she
substituted the slow martyrdom of still more rigorous austerities than
she had yet practised, and, after this new sacrifice, her mind, she
says, was so filled with light as to be in a manner dazzled, and as it
were blinded by the grandeur of the Majesty of the Most High. Thus
purified by trial, sanctified by grace, adorned with virtue, resplendent
with Divine love, elevated above earth and self and all their influences,
her happy soul presented no farther, obstacle to the designs of her all-
gracious Lord: it was ready for the ardently, desired union with Him,--
and now, at last, the promise so long made, and the expectations so long
cherished, were about to be realized.
CHAPTER VII.
SECOND VISION OF THE MOST ADORABLE TRINITY.--REALIZATION OF THE DIVINE
PROMISE.
A second vision of the most august Trinity was granted to Marie Guyart,
just two years after she had been favoured with the first. She was then
in her twenty-seventh year, and seven years had elapsed since the
memorable vision of the application of the precious blood of Jesus to her
soul. In this second vision, the will was more strongly affected than the
intellect; the heart absolutely consumed with the burning fire of love;
the mind, as before, inundated with floods of light. This grace gave, as
it were, the finishing touch to the beauty of her soul, seeming to supply
what had hitherto been wanting to its perfection. While her spirit was
absorbed, and in a manner annihilated in the contemplation of the three
most adorable Persons of the Trinity, the Eternal Word, according to His
promise, united her to Himself in close, mysterious bonds which there are
no human words to describe. [Footnote: The lives of St. Francis of
Assisium, St. Teresa, St Catherine of Sienna, St. Gertrude, and some
other saints furnish instances of supernatural favours similar to that
now granted to the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation.] "He that is
joined to the Lord, is one spirit" (1 Cor. v. 17).
Often had she sighed for this hour, and with the Spouse in the Canticles
besought the Lord to show her His face, and to let her hear His voice--
that face so comely, and that voice so sweet. Now at last, possession had
replaced hope, so now she might entone the canticle of triumph, "I found
him whom my soul loveth: I hold him: and I will not let him go. My
beloved to me, and I to him who feedeth among the lilies. Till the
"glorious dawn of eternity" break, and the shadows of time retire,"
(Cant. iii. 4, ii., 17.) "when I shall see Him as He is, face to face,
and know Him even as I am known" (l Cor, xiii. 12). She seemed to have
passed into a new state of being. Ardent as her love of God had been
before, it now rose to heights hitherto unknown. Her whole soul appeared
to be transformed into love. Her life became one unbroken act, one
uninterrupted hymn of ecstatic love. In the busy streets, in distracting
business, amidst household cares and duties, at all times and in all
places, she gave vent to her irrepressible transports in the sweet song
of ceaseless praise, silently entoned within her own heart, and audible
only to her heavenly Spouse and His angels. Even in sleep, she could
scarcely be said to discontinue it, for while she slept, her heart
watched, and at each interruption to her short repose, it resumed the
strain, returning to the actual exercise of love with the first moment of
full awakening consciousness. Sometimes fearing that her emotions might
betray themselves exteriorly, she relieved their uncontrollable
impetuosity by committing them to writing, afterwards burning these
effusions. A few of them, however, by chance escaped destruction, and
have happily reached us. From these, as well as from the account of her
manner of prayer written at the command of one of her confessors, we
learn something of the holy ardour which consumed her. "O Love!" she
cried, "how sweet Thou art! how captivating are Thy charms! how light Thy
bonds! Sometimes Thou woundest, sometimes Thou enslavest, but still art
Thou ever sweet. As I am all Thine, so art Thou all mine, mine for ever,
O my most desirable Life! And what do I desire of Thee, O my All? I
desire Thy love, and Thy love alone. O Love! O great Love! Thou art all,
and I am nothing, but it is enough that the mighty All should love the
poor nothing, and that the miserable nothing should love the great All! O
great God! mayest Thou be blessed by every tongue and love by every
heart!"
The impossibility of satisfying her holy eagerness to be inseparably
united to her God, caused her inexplicable suffering. It was death to her
that she could not die. "I long, O Lord," she would say, "to be free from
the prison of the body, that I may fly to Thee, and behold Thee in all
Thy beauty and Divine attractions. O Love! when shall I embrace Thee!
When shall I see Thee without cloud or veil! Knowest Thou not that I love
but Thee? Come then, that I may expire in Thy sacred arms. To a soul
which loves Thee, it is a martyrdom to be separated from Thee, and
meantime to see Thee offended by so many of The creatures who are
insensible to Thy goodness, and indifferent to Thyself. Oh! take me from
this scene of sin and misery where there is nothing but sorrow and
affliction of spirit. My heart sighs for Thy eternal mansions; for Thy
incomparable beauty; for the consummation of that blissful union, of
whose sweetness Thou grantest us a foretaste here below. While the
sensible sweetness lasts, we are happy in Thee, our Treasure, our Life,
our Love, but no sooner are we left to ourselves, than we feel once more
the full force of our poverty and misery. Who will grant to my soul to
burst its prison bars and ascend to Thee! May I be all Thine, as Thou art
all mine! O Sacred Heart of Jesus! be Thou the Altar of sacrifice on
which my heart shall be immolated! O Furnace of charity! enkindle in it
that celestial flame in which I desire to be consumed. Can it rest on an
Altar of fire and not be set on fire?" But notwithstanding her desire to
be dissolved, that she might be with Christ, she loved her Lord's will
too purely to wish for death or life except in conformity to it,
therefore she offered herself to bear the burden of existence until the
day of judgment, if God could be thus more glorified,--satisfied if
meantime she accomplished nothing more than to teach some simple soul to
know and love our Blessed Lady. Her chief relief and support was still,
as ever, in daily Communion, which uniting her really, though invisibly
to her Lord and Treasure, consoled her in some degree for the delay to
the eternal union for which she languished. She says of this most
adorable Sacrament, "that it is a fathomless and shoreless abyss of
grace, and that eternity's light alone will reveal the ineffable wonders
which God discovered to her soul at the time of her sacramental union
with him."
We know from the testimony of the saints who have endured the martyrdom
of Divine love, that the greatest of its pains proceeds from the
inability of the soul to lore God with an ardour proportioned either to
her own desire to love Him, or to the extent of His claims on her love.
This suffering the Venerable Mother experienced in its fullest intensity.
From, her insatiable desire of a more perfect love, sprang a fixed
impression of her utter powerlessness to do any thing for, or give any
thing to the great and generous God who had given her Himself, and with
Himself all things. "Thou hast made me for Thyself, O God!" she would
say; "for Thyself who art Love; why then should I not speak of love? But
alas! what can I say of it? I cannot speak of it on earth. The saints who
see Thee in heaven, silently adore Thee, and their silence speaks. Why, O
Lord, cannot we burn like them with silent love? If Thou art their love,
Thou art also ours. They see Thee as Thou art, and in this are more
favoured than we on earth, but when we are released from this prison, we
shall behold Thee like them; we shall praise, embrace, possess Thee like
them; we shall be absorbed in Thee as they are,--in Thee who art my Love,
my only Love, my great and glorious God, my mercy and my All!" While her
soul was thus rapt in a continual ecstasy of love, her bodily strength
wasted away under the action of the consuming fire. In one of the many
phases of the martyrdom of love which it was her privilege to pass
through, it pleased her Lord that the body should suffer more than the
soul, enduring in its turn a real agony, and that so violent, that she
says she must have died if it had lasted a few days.
While these miracles of grace were being wrought in the soul of this
admirable woman, no external sign gave indications of the work going on
within, for she took care to enfold her treasures under the mantle of
humility. Always devoted, laborious and active, she seemed altogether
intent on her harassing duties, yet, multiplied and fatiguing as these
were, she found time to attend to the spiritual interests of her
brother's numerous workmen, sometimes calling them round her to teach
them the Christian doctrine, sometimes profiting of conversation at table
to speak to them of God and the concerns of their souls. Reverencing her
as a saint, they submitted to her like docile children, gave her an
account of their conduct, adopted her advice, bore her reproofs, and
carried obedience so far as to rise from bed to say their night prayers,
if by accident she discovered that any one had retired without complying
with the duty. Solicitous for their temporal, as for their eternal
welfare, she interceded for them with her brother-in-law when they had
incurred his displeasure, and attended them in sickness with truly
maternal devotedness. Although her close attention to the presence of God
never interfered with the fulfilment of her duties, it incapacitated her
from following up the thread of any conversation unconnected with them.
Her brother-in-law perceiving this, sometimes amused himself by asking
her a question referring to something that had been said, but her
confusion on these occasions was so evident, that in order not to
increase it, the subject was quickly changed.
Finally, these vehement transports and exhausting languishings of divine
love were succeeded by a profound and permanent calm. Her soul sweetly
reposed in God, its Centre--that Centre was within herself, and there she
enjoyed a peace surpassing all understanding. In the account written by
her confessor's command of the special favours she had received from God,
she observes in reference to this highest degree of divine union, that
"the soul elevated to it, enjoys as far as possible here below, the
felicity of the blessed. Storms," she says, "may sweep over her inferior
part, but they do not reach the interior temple where the Spouse reigns,
and she rests tranquilly in His presence. It is alike to her whether she
is immersed in embarrassing cares, or buried in most profound solitude.
Amidst the turmoil of life and the distraction of business, she is alone
with God in her heart, enjoying His sweet company, conversing with Him
familiarly, transformed as it were into a paradise, of which His smile is
the light and the bliss. Vainly would she endeavour to explain what
passes in that interior heaven, for the subject is too sublime to come
within the reach of weak, defective human language. She is so elevated
above the world, that all its combined splendours appear to her but as a
contemptible atom of dust. Thus does the Almighty 'raise the needy from
the earth, to place them with the princes of his people,' and in doing
so, He only exalts His own glory, and shows forth His magnificence."
The intimate union with God, here described, became henceforth the
Venerable Mother's habitual condition. It must however be noted that she
does not speak of this privileged state as excluding temptation and
suffering, but only says, that violent and frequent as may be their
assaults, they do not disturb the inner region of the soul where God has
established His Kingdom in peace. The superior part remains tranquil,
although the inferior may be troubled and agitated, just as the ocean
depths repose in peaceful calm while its surface is lashed by the angry
tempest. By noticing this distinction, it will become easy to reconcile
the apparently contradictory statements which attribute to the Mother of
the Incarnation uninterrupted interior peace, with intense and almost
continuous interior suffering.
CHAPTER VIII.
ENTRANCE TO THE URSULINE NOVITIATE AT TOURS.
From her early years, the desires of the Venerable Mother had turned to
the cloister, as we have already seen. Her engagement in married life had
seemed at first to oppose an insuperable obstacle to their fulfilment,
but God who had destined her for religion, removed the impediment,
leaving her free by the death of her husband to follow her first impulse,
as soon as duty should allow her to separate from her little son. That
time had now come; the child had attained his twelfth year, and could
dispense with her immediate care. So far, she had faithfully fulfilled
her obligations towards him, watching over his infancy and childhood with
tender solicitude, training him in the ways of God as she had been
trained herself; forming his tender heart to piety, and giving his first
habits the right bent. The impression of her holy instructions and
example was never effaced, and when in advanced years he referred to the
period of their early companionship, it was in terms of most profound
veneration for her virtues, and boundless admiration of her truly
celestial life.
Like the storm-tost mariner nearing the haven, or the weary traveller
approaching home, she sighed with redoubled ardour for the end of her
pilgrimage, now that the end was 'nigh. It was but natural. Lovely as the
tabernacles of the Lord had looked in the distance, their beauty was
immeasurably magnified by the closer view. If then she had felt even in
the days of her exile, that those are blessed who dwell in the house of
God, can we wonder that she should have absolutely longed. and fainted
for His courts, now that their portals were about to be thrown open for
her admission? But although the hour of emancipation had come, she was
yet ignorant of the particular Order to which God called her. The perusal
of the works of St. Teresa had inspired her with a strong attraction for
the Carmelites, whose particular profession of prayer and recollection
exactly harmonized with her own inclination and practice. On the other
hand, the General of the Feuillants, anxious to secure so precious a
treasure for his own Order, offered in the most flattering manner to
receive her, promising to relieve her of all future anxiety regarding the
education of her son. This latter condition was of such vital importance,
that the proposal filled her with joy and gratitude. Besides, to the
Carmelite spirit of prayer and solitude, the Feuillantine Sisters added
the practice of great austerities, thus presenting a two-fold attraction
to the holy widow. Yet it was not to either of these Orders that God
called her, nor was it indeed to a purely contemplative life that her own
thoughts had originally turned. On the contrary, her earliest inclination
had been for the Ursulines, although strangely enough, she had no
acquaintance whatever with them, and could not even have told where they
were to be found. She merely knew in a general way, that the special
object of their institute is the salvation of souls, and that its mixed
life of action and prayer closely resembles the public life of our Lord
on earth. These two considerations had always strongly influenced her in
its favour, nevertheless, the more austere Orders had not lost their
charms, so, as God had not yet clearly manifested His will, she waited
calmly until circumstances should reveal it beyond a doubt. At length
Divine Providence interposed. About this very period, it happened that
the Ursulines established themselves at Tours, and as if to facilitate
her introduction to them, it further chanced that after a short time they
removed from the house they had first inhabited, to one quite near the
residence of her brother. Some secret attraction seemed to draw her in
the direction of the new convent, which she never passed without
experiencing an indescribable emotion, and a strong impulse to linger
round the precincts. In this monastery there lived a saintly religious,
who had been led to exalted virtue through much the same paths as those
which she had herself trodden. These two souls, alike privileged by
grace, were destined as mutual helps to perfection, and for the
furtherance of this great design, the wondrous providence of God had so
arranged events, that without premeditation on either side, both should
be associated in community life. Their acquaintance originated in a visit
which the holy widow had occasion to pay at the convent. At the first
interview, each felt that she was understood by the other, yet although,
their intimacy soon ripened into a saintly friendship, Marie Guy art
could never prevail on herself to speak of her perplexities to Mother
Francis of St. Bernard, wishing as ever to leave herself altogether in
the hands of God. Meantime Mother St. Bernard was elected Superior of the
new monastery, and no sooner had she taken office than she felt inspired
to make overtures to her friend to join the community. Having obtained
the necessary permissions, she sent for her, and in a few kind words
offered her a place among the sisters. The generous proposal did not take
the holy woman by surprise, for as she was entering the house, a strong
presentiment had seized her as to the direct purport of the visit. Full
of joy and thankfulness, she humbly expressed her gratitude, and asked
leave, before replying, to consult God and her director. The latter was a
man eminently versed, as already noticed, in the science of guiding
souls. The better to try her vocation, he received the application with
apparent coldness, and seemed for a while to have given up all idea of
her quitting the world, so her state of indecision continued. But one
day, while she was in prayer, all doubts as to her future course were
suddenly and completely removed. Her temporary inclination for the more
austere Orders instantaneously vanished, giving place to an ardent, fixed
desire to join the Ursulines, and that as speedily as could be
accomplished. Her director recognised the voice of God in the urgent
inspiration, and exhorted her to obey it without hesitation or delay.
But it was not to be expected that Satan would relinquish the prize
without yet another struggle. The career of the future Ursuline was to
bring great glory to God through the salvation of many souls; clearly,
then, his interest demanded a last strong effort to deter her from the
life to which her Master called her. The artifice employed was so much
the more dangerous, as it wore the semblance of good. The tempter
represented her flight from the world as a violation of her duty to her
little son, suggesting that so unnatural a neglect of her sacred maternal
obligations could not but compromise her own salvation, as. well as the
highest and dearest interests of her child. To the stratagems of Satan
were added the persuasive entreaties of some of her friends, and the
violent opposition of others. The two-fold conflict was a hard one, but,
aided by divine grace, she conquered nature once again, as she had so
often done before, and God was pleased to reward her fidelity by so
effectually changing the views of her sister and her brother-in-law, that
in the end they not only consented to her departure, but even promised to
take care of her child.
One more ordeal remained, and it was, indeed, a severe one. She had not
yet acquainted her son with her intention, but he seemed to have an
instinctive presentiment of some event of more than ordinary consequence
to him. He noticed that he had all at once become a general object of
silent sympathy. The compassion which he read on every face communicated
its saddening influence to his little heart; the low tone in which people
spoke in his presence, excited his suspicions. Oppressed by the sense of
some painful mystery, he took refuge at first in solitude and tears, and
before, long, unable to bear up against the weight of melancholy, he made
up his mind to go away altogether from the scene of his troubles. A
fortnight before the time appointed for his mother's entrance to the
convent, he managed to escape unobserved from the school where he was
then a boarder. The discovery of his flight, seemed a signal for general
censure of his mother. The world declared that she alone was to be blamed
for the disaster--she alone to be held accountable for its consequences.
It was difficult to bear, and that, too, at a time when her whole soul
was rent with anguish, when every feeling of nature re-echoed, while
every instinct of grace obliged her to resist the mighty pleadings of
maternal love. The terrible interior combat was immeasurably aggravated
by her efforts to maintain external composure. In her great sorrow she
turned for comfort to her friend at the Ursulines, and had scarcely
concluded her sad account when her director, Dom Raymond, happened also
to call at the monastery. From the habitual charity of this good
religious, she naturally expected his especial sympathy at this trying
moment. Great, then, was her dismay to find that far from attempting to
assuage, he seemed determined, on the contrary, to irritate the wound.
Well convinced by experience of the solidity of her virtue, he seized the
present apparently inopportune occasion of testing it anew. Assuming
great sternness of voice and manner, he told her it was easy to see that
her virtue was only superficial, since she manifested so great a want of
submission to God's will, and of faith in His providence, adding that her
excessive attachment to a creature clearly indicated the ascendancy which
nature still retained over her. Kneeling before her censor, the humble
mother listened to the harsh reproof in profound silence, but a sigh
escaped her, and this Dom Raymond declared to be a distinct confirmation
of his late assertions, ordering her to depart at once from the house of
God, which was not meant to harbour souls so imperfect as she was. She
immediately rose, and, with a low inclination to her director, left the
convent. Perfectly amazed at the heroism of her virtue, the Reverend
Father and the Mother Superior returned thanks to God for having
permitted them to witness so wonderful an example, and, without informing
her of it, sent messengers at their own expense to seek her son, those
whom she had herself employed not having discovered any trace of him.
By a singular coincidence, the flight of her boy occurred during the
octave of the Epiphany, when the Church reads the history of the loss of
Jesus in the temple, and it also happened that he, like the Divine Child,
was twelve years of age at the time of his disappearance. These
circumstances greatly consoled the poor mother in her bereavement: she
united her desolation with that of the Mother of Sorrows, and hoped that,
like her, she would recover her son at the end of three days, and so it
actually happened. Precisely at that time he was brought back by a person
who had accidentally met him at Blois. He then owned that he had planned
to go to Paris, where he hoped to be received by a partner of his
uncle's, resident in that city. The child's return removed the last
obstacle to her departure; and now the day was fixed irrevocably,
notwithstanding the renewed entreaties of her relatives; notwithstanding
the tears of her father; notwithstanding the agony of her own soul at the
parting from her only child whom she loved most tenderly. She recalled
the declaration of our Lord that "he who loves father or mother, son or
daughter more than Him is not worthy of Him" (St. Matt. x. 37), and the
words inspired her with invincible courage. No sooner was her final
decision taken than uncertainty and perplexity vanished utterly.
For the preceding ten years it had been her aim indirectly to prepare the
little Claude for the separation which she knew must one day come.
Believing that the less she had accustomed him to external demonstrations
of affection, the less also he would miss her presence and feel her loss,
she had made it a rule from the time he was two years old, never to
fondle or embrace him, carrying self-denial in this particular so far as
to discourage even his, own childish caresses and endearments. Yet though
grave, he found her ever kind and gentle; though reserved, sweet-tempered
and inaccessible to caprice; though undemonstrative, solidly devoted to
his interests and tenderly alive to his wants; so it happened after all
that he loved her fondly, and all the more so, perhaps, that unknown to
himself, his love was founded on reverence.
How shall the mother summon courage to bid him adieu? Where find words to
say that although he should ever dwell in her heart, her home and his
could be one no longer? That, already deprived by death of one parent, he
was now by her own voluntary act to lose the second too? Poor mother!
great is thy sorrow, yet not as that of another Martyr-Mother, whose
story of anguish thou knowest well. It was at the foot of the cross that
she bade adieu to her Son; there, too, must thou bravely stand by her
side to say farewell to thine. The virtue of the cross will strengthen
thee as it strengthened her; and when thy sacrifice is accomplished, thou
wilt find a balm for thy wounded heart by uniting it to the broken heart
of Jesus on the cross, and of Mary standing in its shade.
Summoning the boy to her side, she said, "My son, I have a great secret
to tell you. I have hitherto concealed it, because you were not old
enough to understand its importance, but now that you are becoming more
sensible, and that I am on the point of taking the step to which this
great secret refers, I can no longer hesitate to confide it to you. When
your father was taken from us, God immediately inspired me with the
resolution of forsaking the world and embracing the religious life. I
could not carry out this intention at once, for you were too young to
dispense with my care, but now that this is no longer the case, I must
follow the call of God without farther delay. I might have gone away
without forewarning you, for when salvation is in question, as in the
present instance, God's command must absolutely be obeyed, but to spare
you a painful shock, I determined to tell you my plans, and ask your
consent to their accomplishment. God wishes this parting, my son, and if
we love Him we must wish it too. If this separation afflicts you, think
of the great honour which the Almighty does me in calling me to His
service. Remember too what a happiness it will be for you to know
henceforth that your mother is occupied day and night in praying for your
salvation. This being so, will you not give me leave to obey God, who
commands me to go away?"
Awed and bewildered by the solemnity of the address, the child could only
say, "But I shall never see you again?"
"Not so, my son," replied the courageous mother; "on the contrary, you
will see me whenever you like; I am only going to the Ursulines, who you
know live quite close, and you can come to me there as often as you
please."
"In that case," he said, "I am satisfied."
An oppressive weight seemed to have been taken from the mother's heart;
now she could breathe freely. "I should have found it very hard to part
from you, my child," she said, "if you had refused, because I do not like
to give you pain, but as you are contented, I shall leave you tranquilly
in the hands of God. I bequeath to you no worldly wealth, for as the Lord
is my inheritance, so do I desire that He should be yours. If you fear
and love Him, you will be rich enough. I entrust you to a heavenly Mother
who will amply make up to you for my loss, for her power to serve you is
far greater than mine. Love that dear Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary; be
faithful to her; call on her as your Mother; turn to her in all your
wants, reminding her that you are her child, and that she is bound to
take care of your interests, and be sure that she will never forsake you.
I have placed you in the charge of my sister, who has promised me to love
you and watch over you. Show her always the same affection and respect as
you have shown me. Serve God faithfully; keep his commandments; love Him,
and He will love you and provide for you in whatever position you may be
placed. Adieu, my son." Then she directed him to kneel at her feet, and
repressing every appearance of emotion, calmly made the sign of the cross
on his forehead, and gave him her solemn blessing. It was the last caress
and the last farewell of this heroic woman to her only child; henceforth
he was to be the child of providence, and she was to be as if his mother
no more. God, jealous of her undivided love, would admit no rival in her
heart; over that, He designed to reign sole Sovereign.
This most painful scene over, the remaining trials seemed easy to bear.
She bade adieu to her weeping relatives, and even to her aged father,
without betraying a symptom of the agony which rent her soul, and then,
on the 25th of January, the feast of the conversion of St. Paul, in the
year 1631, she left her sister's house, accompanied by numerous friends.
The little procession was headed by her niece whom she had asked to
precede her with a crucifix, the standard which she had ever so
faithfully followed, and to which she was now proving the truth of her
allegiance by the severing of every human tie, and the sacrifice of every
human feeling. At her side walked her little son, silent and tearful, but
quiet and resigned. She alone of the whole party manifested no agitation;
her step was firm; her demeanour calm, her countenance beaming as if with
light from heaven. Yet the superhuman victory was not achieved without
mortal anguish; every tear of the weeping child at her side made her
heart bleed afresh; every sob seemed to lacerate her soul, but she says,
in alluding afterwards to her emotions on the occasion, "Much as I loved
my son, I loved my God far more."
At the door of the monastery, she smilingly repeated her farewell to the
child and the rest of the party, and a moment after, was joyfully and
lovingly welcomed by the Mother Superior of the Ursuline Convent.
CHAPTER IX.
SAINT ANGELA AND THE URSULINES.
It was in the sixteenth century that the Ursuline Order took its rise.
The epoch was one peculiarly disastrous in the Church's history. Luther's
heresy was working evil on a gigantic scale. It had spread from nation to
nation with the rapidity of a pestilential contagion, blighting with its
deadly venom all it touched, and everywhere marking its progress by a
wide track of spiritual ruin and desolation, as well as of political
anarchy and social disorganization. Each new success of its unholy work,
necessarily inflicted a new pang on the heart of the sorrowing Spouse of
Christ. Day after day, she had to weep afresh over some new profanation
of her sanctuaries, some new desertion of her faithless children, some
aggravated treason against her God. Nor was it only the ravages of heresy
that she had to lament, but perhaps still more, the disloyalty of too
many among her still nominal adherents. While a vast number of her
disciples revolted openly against her authority, others who recognised it
in words, rejected it in practice. Where the light of faith had not been
utterly extinguished, the fire of charity had but too often cooled. The
lower classes were ignorant, the better instructed careless; both more or
less indifferent. Worse than all, the very guardians of the fold had in
too many instances proved false to their sacred trust, so intent on the
advancement of their own worldly interests, as to concern themselves very
little for the protection of their perishing flocks. The ever spreading
torrent of corruption and infidelity, looked, as though in its fully
gathered strength, it might one day inundate the world. Where could an
efficacious barrier be found to its farther progress? The question was a
momentous one, involving the honour even of Him who had given His life-
blood to purchase the very souls of whom Satan was thus making an easy
prey. All unknown to each other, two faithful children of the mourning
Mother were just then occupied in studying the grand problem, and both
succeeded in discovering the solution. Yet a few years, and they would
give the world the practical result of their researches in the
institution of their respective Orders, the Jesuits and the Ursulines.
With the latter, the name of the Mother Mary of the Incarnation is so
closely interwoven, that a few words on the rise and progress of the
Order, naturally find a place in her biography.
Saint Angela Merici, the Foundress of the Ursulines, was born on the 2lst
of March, 1474, therefore was considerably advanced in life when Luther
took up arms against the Church. Dezenzano, her birth-place, stands on
the south-west bank of the picturesque Lago di Garda in the Venetian
States, about seventeen miles from Brescia. It is ever the saints whom
God employs to do His work, and in the present instance, neither the work
nor the instrument was to be an exception to the rule. Angela entered on
the path of sanctity almost at the same time as on the path of life, and
as she advanced in years, kept ever redoubling her pace, until at last
she may be said to have flown, rather than walked along the blessed way.
From her earliest days she evinced a dread of sin, a love of prayer and
solitude, and an inclination for the severities of penance, very unusual
in children. Ever cherishing a supreme, absorbing desire to live for God
alone, she perpetually added fuel to the heavenly fire by frequent
communion, prolonged prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, and similar
holy practices, unhappily at that time but little observed. After her
admission to the Third Order of St. Francis, she placed so little limit
to her austerities, that she might with strict truth have been called a
living victim of perpetual penance. Her life became one almost unbroken
fast, and she was often known to pass a week at a time without any other
food than the heavenly manna of daily communion. To such perfection did
she carry her spirit of poverty, that after making the simple vow in the
Third Order, she would live only on alms, taking her rest on a mat or a
bundle of faggots, with a stone for her pillow. Thus, as years went on,
her ever increasing beauty of Soul, seemed even more than her remarkable
external attractions, to give literal significance to her name,--Angela,
the Angel.
But her personal sanctification, although her first, was not her only
aim. God had called her to work for other souls as well as her own, and
her apostolic vocation began early to assert itself. The deplorable decay
of faith and piety among nominal Christians of her day, weighed heavily
on her heart. Not content with simply lamenting the growing evil, she
longed for the power to check it. But how could she? How could a feeble
woman arrest an impetuous torrent? Again and again she asked herself the
question, and again and again, clearer than the heaven's light, came the
answer;--if the vices of the adult generation were traceable in a great
degree to the want of early Christian training--as who could doubt?--was
it not manifest that the only check to the transmission of its
irreligious spirit, was the careful education of the young? Yes; let the
ignorant be taught, and little by little God's work would be done.
Success might at first be small, but it would be certain. Each mind
enlightened, would be a heart converted, and even one was worth labouring
for. The single child trained to piety, would at a future day become a
religious mother, capable of imparting to her own family the holy
impressions which she had herself received; the circle of good would go
on extending for ever, and only God could see its final limits. Thus
Angela reasoned, and without delay she determined to carry out her
conclusions.
It was about her twenty-first year that she began her labour of zeal and
love, by assembling the little children of Dezenzano for catechism, and
instructing a vast number of adults in the Christian doctrine. Her
assistants were four in number, and like herself members of the Third
Order of St. Francis. It was but a diminutive plant that sprang at first
from the seed then deposited in the garden of God, but the blessing of
the Most High rested on the feeble seedling, and in that divine sunshine
it throve and grew, until at last it expanded into a great tree, of which
the historian Time can tell no tale, save that although ages and storms
have passed over it, its heart is fresh, its growth is steady, and its
roots are firm to-day, as in the early years, when sown by the hand, and
fostered by the care of Angela, it gave its young promise of luxuriance
and stability. Though she did not live to witness the full realization of
that promise, she was permitted to foresee its accomplishment in a
celestial vision granted her much about the period of the opening of her
apostolate at Dezenzano. One day, while praying with great earnestness
for Divine guidance, a high ladder, like that shown to Jacob, suddenly
appeared before her. One end of it rested on the ground, the other
touched the heavens. Down this ladder, a resplendent band of virgins
slowly descended, moving two and two with perfectly regularity, and
accompanied by angels. Their number was very great; their garments were
rich; their crowns were studded with gems of wondrous beauty, and they
sang a sweet canticle, to which their angelic guardians responded in
choir. Overwhelmed with astonishment, she looked and listened, utterly
unable to comprehend the mystery. At last she recognised in the
procession a beloved companion recently deceased, who told her to take
courage, for that she was the instrument chosen by the Almighty to
establish at Brescia a society of virgins similar to those she then
beheld. The revelation was too convincing to leave room for doubt, yet so
profound was the saint's humility, so deep her sense of her own
unworthiness and incapacity, that she permitted full forty year to pass
without taking any decided measures for its accomplishment. The vision,
however, served to add new fire to her zeal for the Divine honour, and to
intensify her already ardent love for her neighbour. She became
absolutely indefatigable in her efforts for the diffusion of religious
instruction, the reconciliation of enemies, the consolation of the
afflicted, and the conversion of sinners, sparing neither time, fatigue,
nor even frequent journeys in furtherance of these and similar objects of
charity; working among the poor from preference, but never refusing her
help to those also of the better class who sought it. But holy and
profitable as was the work at Dezenzano, she knew all along that it was
only preparatory to the greater work at Brescia. "Take courage, Angela,"
said the prophecy, "for thou shall found a company of virgins such as
these at Brescia." The prediction was explicit as to her future destiny,
but vague as to the period of fulfilment. To that there might be still,
as there had already been, a long delay, but she believed that in His own
time, the Almighty would provide for its accomplishment, and for that
time she waited tranquilly, devoting herself meanwhile to her humble
labours at Dezenzano as entirely as if she had not known full well that
Dezenzano was not her ultimate destination. And in His own time God did
interpose. By means apparently the most simple and natural, his ever-
watchful Providence prepared the way at last for her removal to Brescia,
using as its instruments, two distinguished inhabitants of that city,
whose names her historians have handed down to us, Jerom Patengola and
his virtuous consort Catherine. It happened that this pious couple had
some years before become acquainted with Saint Angela, in one of their
annual visits to their large estates near Dezenzano, and finding the
intimacy highly conducive to their spiritual interests, they had
cultivated it assiduously. In 1516, it pleased God to deprive them in
rapid succession of their only children, two daughters, in whom their
hearts and earthly hopes were centred. In the excess of their anguish,
they turned for comfort to their saintly friend, beseeching her to come
to them without delay. They had been kind benefactors to her little
society, gratitude therefore, as well as charity, pleaded their cause
with her sisters and her spiritual advisers, who all agreed that such
claims were irresistible. Looking on the decision as a manifestation of
the Divine will, she accordingly left Dezenzano where for twenty years
she had pursued her mission of love, and proceeded to Brescia, the city
of the promise, having first secured that the work at Dezenzano should be
continued by her sisters whom she intended to rejoin as soon as possible.
Her visit to Brescia proved a source not only of immense consolation to
her sorrowing friends, but of spiritual benefit to the whole city. To win
all to God by prayer, instruction, and example, was still as ever, the
aim of her life. Attracted by the reputation of her sanctity, as well as
of her natural abilities and supernatural enlightenment, persons of every
rank came to her for advice, and all withdrew benefited by her counsels,
filled with admiration of her wisdom, and edified by her equally striking
charity, sweetness and humility. It was about this period that she
received an infused knowledge of Latin, which she could understand, speak
and translate without having learned it; also of the holy Scriptures, on
the most difficult passages of which she could comment with wonderful
ease and unction.
Her original intention had been, as we have seen, to return to Dezenzano,
as soon as her work of charity in Brescia was completed; she had not
however been long in the latter city, when she became convinced that God
willed her to remain there. The memorable vision of bygone years had
assuredly never at any time faded from her memory; it must on the
contrary have formed the constant subject of her communications with God,
but after her removal to Brescia, it pursued her with an almost painful
persistence. Not once only, but continuously, uninterruptedly, it stood
before her in all the distinctness of its first vivid colouring, and all
the minuteness of its smallest details, so that whatever her occupations,
alone or conversing with others, in the church and in her room, at all
times and in all places, she seemed ever to see the mysterious ladder
with its glorious throng of gem-crowned virgins and dazzling angels; she
seemed ever to hear the words of the yet unrealized promise, "Take
courage, Angela, for thou shalt found a company of virgins like to these
at Brescia." Concluding at last that this almost importunate voice from
the past, must be intended as a warning to guide her movements in the
present, she prayed with all the earnestness of her soul that the
Almighty would manifest His designs, and enable her by His grace to carry
them out most perfectly. In answer to her prayer she clearly understood
that God willed her to remain at Brescia, and she accordingly established
herself in a retired lodging in the town, there to continue her career of
zeal and usefulness;--but many years more were to elapse before the
foundation of her Order.
Pilgrimages to consecrated spots seem to have been one of her favourite
practices of piety. Two years after her arrival at Brescia, she made one
to the tomb of the Venerable Mother Hosanna Andreassi, a religious of the
Order of St. Dominick; who had lately died at Mantua in the odour of
sanctity. Six years later, in 1524, her ardent love of our Divine
Redeemer prompted her to undertake a journey of devotion to the Holy
Land. On the way, God was pleased to test her love of the cross by a most
severe affliction. Just as the vessel touched the port of Canea in the
island of Candia, which she was the first to discern, she was in one
instant struck with total blindness, to the inexpressible sorrow and
consternation of her companions. The trial was a peculiarly painful one,
and it served to display the heroism of her virtue in a clearer light
than ever. She accepted it in the spirit of the saints, and refusing the
kind offers of her friends to accompany her back to Italy, she completed
the journey to Palestine, now attended with so much additional
difficulty. In the Holy Land, she redoubled her habitual most rigorous
fasts and other austerities, and as if to compensate for being denied a
sight of the blessed places which she had come so far to see, she poured
out her heart's love over them with a seraphic fervour which sensibly
affected the spectators. On her journey homewards, her patient submission
was rewarded by the recovery of her sight at the very place where she had
lost it. This favour was granted her while she prayed with great devotion
before a celebrated image of the Crucifixion, exposed to public
veneration in one of the churches of the town. After a narrow escape from
shipwreck, she reached Venice, and so strong was the impression of her
sanctity produced in that city by the reports of her companion pilgrims,
that she was earnestly entreated to fix her abode there, and take charge
of some of its institutions of charity. Tempting as was the offer, she
resolutely declined it, for she knew that God's will called her to
Brescia, where after an absence of six months, she returned, to the great
joy of the inhabitants.
But before again settling down to her old manner of life in this home of
her adoption, she had yet another journey of devotion to accomplish. Next
to the consecrated land of Palestine, Catholic Rome had ever presented
the strongest attractions to her faith and piety. She longed to pray at
the shrine of the Princes of the Apostles; to kiss the soil, bedewed with
their blood, and as a faithful daughter of the Church, to kneel at the
feet of God's visible representative, and beg his blessing on her
projected work. The publication of the great Jubilee of 1525, by Pope
Clement VII., supplied a fitting opportunity of carrying out her pious
wishes. In company with one of the numerous bands of pilgrims who
thronged the ways, she proceeded to the holy City, and here, not only had
she the consolation of receiving the benediction of his Holiness, but she
was honoured by an invitation from him to remain permanently at Rome, and
accept the superintendence of some of the public institutions for the
sick poor. This offer she humbly declined like that at Venice, and for
the same reasons, and returning once more to Brescia, resumed her life of
retirement, mortification and charity. At the end of nearly four years,
she was unexpectedly compelled to leave the city once again. The Duchy of
Milan was at this time passing through a severe political crisis. It had
long been the theatre of a disastrous struggle originating in the
pretensions of the French Kings, Louis XII. and Francis I., to the
reversion of its crown, and as a portion of the Duchy, Brescia had been
more or less involved in the troubles of the times. In 1529, the date
which we have reached, the war had lasted for many years, and with varied
success; Louis and Francis had each in turn won and lost the prize. One
Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, had died a prisoner in France; another,
Maximilian, had resigned his claim; a third, Francis, had fled from his
dominions. In 1525, Francis I. of France had been totally defeated at
Pavia by the confederate princes, at the head of whom was the Emperor
Charles V., but this event had not pacified the distracted country, as
might have been hoped. The victorious imperial troops continued to
overrun the north of Italy, and serious apprehensions were entertained,
that in the flush of success, they would lay siege to Brescia. Rather
than risk a renewal of the horrors of the first siege in 1512, many of
the inhabitants determined to abandon the city without delay. Among
others, Angela was induced to accompany a family of her acquaintance to
the neighbouring town of Cremona. Here she was visited as usual by
numbers of persons of all conditions seeking advice or consolation, and
among others by the fugitive Duke of Milan, Francis Sforza, who in his
reverses had sought an asylum at Brescia, and thence followed the
refugees to Cremona. He had already met the saint during his stay at
Brescia, and her gentle counsels had materially helped him to meet his
afflictions in the spirit of Christian resignation. Angela was happily
instrumental to many signal conversions at Cremona, but her active career
was suddenly arrested by an illness which brought her apparently to the
gates of death. There seemed little human probability that so utterly
exhausted a frame could resist so violent a malady, but she had yet a
work to do, and ardently as she sighed for her heavenly country, her
exile was to be prolonged until that work had been accomplished. Contrary
to expectation, she recovered under circumstances deemed miraculous, and
in thanksgiving for her wondrous restoration, made a pilgrimage in
company with other devout persons to a renowned sanctuary of our Blessed
Lady in the environs. On the conclusion of peace in 1530, she returned to
Brescia after six months' absence.
Although in her humility and self-distrust she still shrank as much as
ever from the responsibility of founding a religious Order, she could not
conceal from herself that the time had come, when, for various reasons,
decisive measures should no longer be deferred. Urged onwards by the
counsels of her director, as well as by the voice of inspiration, she
therefore determined at last to take the definite, though only
preparatory step, of assembling a few companions whom she could gradually
initiate in her views and form to the intended institute. Accordingly,
about the end of the year 1533, she proposed to twelve pious ladies of
the town to associate themselves with her in a life of prayer and good
works, to which they readily agreed. She then explained to them the
nature and object of the future foundation in which they would one day be
expected to co-operate with her, at the same time suggesting the
necessity of a certain course of preliminary training under her personal
direction. With one accord they placed themselves wholly at the disposal
of the saintly Mother, who devoted herself with all the ardour of her
zeal to imbue them thoroughly with the true spirit of the holy state to
which they aspired. She allowed them to reside with their families as
before, but required that they should assemble every day in a common
oratory for prayer and instruction, and employ their time in the
particular works of charity appointed at the daily meetings. These were
held at first in a room given to the saint by the Canons of the Church of
St. Afra; it adjoined the church, which enabled her to spend a
considerable portion of the night in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.
Being soon found too small for a general oratory, a more commodious one
was substituted through the generosity of a pious widow.
For two years more, no farther progress was made. Angela was sixty-one,
and the prophetic vision of full forty years before, was but a vision
still. When would it become a reality? Soon now, for our Lord Himself was
about to interpose, and by mingled reproach and reproof, to conquer the
irresolution of His humble servant. Condescending to appear to her in
person, He reprimanded her for her hesitation, thus at once overwhelming
her with regret and confusion, and dispelling every lingering shadow of
doubt as to His designs. A moment's hesitation after this would have
seemed too long; she commenced her preparations at once, and on the feast
of St. Catherine, November 25th, 1535, just one year after the
establishment of the Society of Jesus, she inaugurated the infant
institute at Brescia. On the same day, she was joined by fifteen
additional members, making with the original twelve, the twenty-seven
pillars on which the edifice was to rest, she being herself the
foundation stone. Too humble to attach her own name to the Congregation,
she decided on. giving it that of the Holy Virgin and Martyr St. Ursula,
who had previously appeared to her in a celestial vision, and encouraged
her to carry out her inspiration.
In the design of Saint Angela, the life of the Ursuline was to be a union
of prayer and action. She was to employ nearly as much time in the
functions of Mary as if belonging to the contemplative orders, and to
devote herself besides to the instruction of the ignorant, and first, and
before all, to the education of the young. With these, the duties forming
her specific end, she was to combine the special practices now attached
to the Sisters of Charity.
Considering the spiritual apathy then so generally prevalent, it was not
to be expected that persons needing instruction would go far to seek it,
therefore, to adapt her work to the exigencies of the ages Saint Angela
decided that instead of retiring within convent walls, the members of the
Society should continue to live in their own homes, whence they could
more easily go in pursuit of the ignorant, and where too they would have
wider opportunities of, doing good by the silent influence of example.
"In these critical times," said the holy Foundress, "let us place models
of virtue in the midst of the corrupt world itself, and oppose living
barriers to the ravages of heresy and the inroads of vice." The Sisters
were to continue to meet at their oratory for spiritual exercises,
conferences, and necessary business arrangements; their dress was to be
dark in colour and plain in texture, but no particular form was made
obligatory. Foreseeing the social changes which time would effect, St.
Angela with her characteristic prudence empowered the Sisters to modify
the manner of life now adopted, as future circumstances might render it
desirable. She arranged in detail the internal organization of the
Society, and her regulations bore ample evidence to her wisdom,
intelligence and heavenly enlightenment. The Rule drawn up by the holy
Foundress, and accepted by the Sisters, received the unqualified approval
of the Bishop of Brescia, and on the 18th of March, 1537, she was
unanimously elected first Superior of the Society, notwithstanding her
earnest petition to be allowed to labour until death in the lowest rank,
which she said was the only one suited to her. It is a tradition among
the Ursulines, that on the eve of the election, the glorious St. Ursula
again appeared to her during one of her frequent ecstasies, and consoled
her by the assurance that she had taken the institution under her special
patronage, that it was agreeable to God, and that it would be perpetuated
from age to age, even to the end of the world. In little more than a
month after its foundation, the number of the members had increased from
twenty-seven to seventy-two, all filled with the spirit of their holy
Mother; all inflamed with liveliest zeal for the glory of God and the
salvation of their neighbour. They were to be seen teaching the ignorant,
relieving the poor, visiting the prisons and hospitals, and diffusing all
around the good odour of Jesus Christ, and so great was the veneration
which the Society inspired, that it was usually designated as _the holy
Company_. Far from opposing, the authorities both civil and
ecclesiastical favoured its progress, and the highest dignitaries of the
city gladly assisted at the spiritual instructions given on certain days
in the oratory of Saint Angela and her Sisters.
The first great aim of the new Superior was to train her fervent novices
to perfection, inspiring them with thorough detachment from the world, an
ardent desire of God's glory, and a tender charity for their neighbour.
Her second object was to procure the solemn approbation of the Holy See
for the Society; but this she did not live to receive, having survived
the foundation only three years. In the spring of 1539 she gradually sank
into a state of utter physical exhaustion, which she correctly
interpreted as a certain, though not, perhaps, an immediate, forerunner
of dissolution. She lingered until the commencement of the following
year, when, increased debility warning her that the end could not be far
distant, she summoned the leading members of the Society to receive her
last counsels. Happily the golden words had been previously committed to
writing, and thus the treasure has descended to her spiritual daughters
of all generations. She concluded her impressive advice to the
Directresses by making them the bearers of her final farewell to all the
Sisters. "Tell them," she said, "that I shall ever be in the midst of
them, and that I shall know them better, and help them more
efficaciously, after my departure, than when on earth. Tell them not to
grieve at our temporary separation, but to look forward to our meeting in
heaven, where Jesus reigns. Let them raise their hearts and hopes to that
blessed home, high above this passing world, seeking their Treasure and
their Friend in Jesus alone, who sits at the right hand of the Father in
the kingdom of eternal peace." Her "Last Testament," as it was called,
was addressed to the Sisters in general, and reserved by her own
direction to be read to them after her death. As a compendium of her
lessons of holiness, and an effusion of her sweet spirit of charity, it
may well be considered a legacy worthy of such a Mother. It concludes by
the consoling declaration that "the Society is assuredly the work of the
hand of the Most High, who will never abandon that work while time
endures."
And now the earthly task of the dying saint was accomplished. After
lingering yet a few days among her sorrowing children, she received the
last rites of the Church in presence of the whole Ursuline family,
numbering one hundred and fifty members, and, after the solemn ceremony,
exhorted them to charity, obedience, humility, observance of rule and
love of God. "O Jesus!" she said in conclusion, "bless this company of
virgins irrevocably consecrated to Thy service. Grant that as they
increase in numbers, they may also grow in grace, in fervour and in
wisdom before Thee and before Thy servants." At her own desire she had
been clothed in the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis, and that she
might die in the practice of her beloved poverty, she had herself
removed, tradition says, from the poor bed she had occupied in her
illness, to the rush mat on the ground which had formed her ordinary
resting-place in health. Her dying words were fervent acts of the
theological virtues, but she seemed to dwell, by preference, on the act
of charity, returning to it continually. "Yes, my God, I love Thee!" she
said. "Why cannot I love Thee infinitely? Holy Virgin! Blessed Spirits:
lend me your hearts to love Jesus. How long shall I be banished from Thy
presence, O Lord? Who will give me wings to fly to Thee, the only Object
of my love? Break the chains of my captivity. Receive the soul which
languishes for Thee; which can no longer live without Thee." Then, with
Jesus on the cross, she exclaimed, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my
spirit!" They were her last words, no sooner spoken than she gave up her
soul to God--"peacefully," says her historian, "as a child composing
itself to sleep in its mother's arms." She died on the 27th of January,
1540, at half-past nine in the evening, aged sixty-six or sixty-seven.
Her precious remains repose in the Church of St. Afra, at Brescia, and
are in a state of wonderful preservation. They are clothed in the brown
habit of St. Francis, with its white cord. The apartment in which she
breathed her last has been kept with religious veneration in exactly the
same condition as when she occupied it during life, except for the
introduction of a few engravings representing the principal events of her
history. On the wall, opposite the window, is an inscription, in gilt
letters, to the following effect:--"This poor room was the resort of the
most learned theologians and the most gifted ecclesiastics, who departed
from their conferences with St. Angela, amazed at the lights which she
had communicated to them." Her portrait, preserved at Brescia, and said
to be a true likeness, is of great beauty; it was taken after death. Her
statue at St. Peter's occupies the first niche on the upper row at the
left of the Confession of St. Peter. Although of colossal dimensions, its
elevated position apparently reduces it to life-size. It is a common
tribute of love and veneration from all her children throughout the
world. The name of Angela was enrolled on the catalogue of the saints in
1807 by Pope Pius VII. In the foregoing outline of her history, no
attempt has been made to portray the beauty of that inner life, which is
to the saint what the perfume is to the rose. Many elaborate works have
already done justice to the subject, which does not enter into a passing
notice like the present, intended only to trace to its origin the Order
illustrated by the virtues of the Mother of the Incarnation, as well as
of its holy Foundress.
On the 9th of June, 1544, Pope Paul III. granted a Bull approving and
confirming the Institution of St. Angela, but, as already noticed, she
had then been called to her reward. After her death, the institute spread
rapidly through many towns of Italy. Among the first to adopt it was
Dezenzano, the scene of her early labours. In Milan, especially, it found
an efficacious patron and protector in the great St. Charles Borromeo, to
whose zeal it is immensely indebted. In 1568 he introduced it into his
diocese, where it spread so wonderfully that, in the capital alone, it
counted eighteen houses and six hundred sisters.
We have seen that the saintly Foundress gave an anticipated sanction, for
such modifications of the primitive Rule as might be found necessary in
the practical development of the great work which she had lived to
establish, but not to perfect. The first modification was introduced by
St. Charles. Anxious to consolidate a work whose utility to the Church he
clearly foresaw, he procured from Pope Gregory XIII. a Bull renewing and
ratifying the first approval of the Rule, authorizing Ursulines to make
the three simple vows after a probation of one or two years, and
permitting them to live in community. He also organized the schools, and
introduced a mitigated form of cloister, the Sisters not being allowed to
leave the house without a particular permission. This branch of the
Society is known as the Congregation of Milan.
But although the Ursuline Order took its rise in Italy, its perfect
development is to be sought in France, a country connected with the name
of its glorious Patroness, St. Ursula, as Italy is identified with that
of its blessed Foundress, St. Angela. It was to the French shores that
the royal maiden was steering her course when she and her retinue fell
into the hands of the savage Huns, and, in defending the crown of their
virginity, won, in addition, the diadem of martyrs. Here, then, we
naturally expect to find a numerous company rallying round the standard
of St. Ursula and St. Angela; nor are we disappointed. Before the great
Revolution, France numbered fully three hundred and sixty houses of the
Order; many of those then suppressed, have not been restored, yet she
still counts at least one hundred and thirty, and it is her especial
boast that, while in other lands the Ursuline has lived and laboured for
her Master's cause, here she has not only lived and laboured, but died a
martyr's death for it.
The first house of French Ursulines was established at Avignon in 1594 by
two ladies named De Bermond. This branch of the Society, known as the
Congregation of Avignon, adopted the Rules of the Congregation of Milan,
and quickly spread through other parts of Provence. A few years later,
the Institute of St. Angela was introduced into Paris by Madame Acarie,
now venerated as the saintly Carmelite, Blessed Mary of the Incarnation.
Though not the second foundation in order of date, the Paris house
occupies a prominent position in the annals of the Ursulines, as their
first monastery. As we have already more than once observed, the Sisters
were not originally cloistered, bound by vows or monastic observances, or
even irrevocably consecrated to their manner of life, but the time was
come when by the adoption of these essential obligations, the Society, as
St. Angela herself had called it, would receive its full development by
being converted into a regular monastic Order. This alteration in the
form, changed nothing in the substance of the Saint's original
institution. Whether a member of a simple confraternity, or of a
religious order in the restricted meaning of the word, the Ursuline was
at all times equally bound to devote her life to the instruction of the
young, and to work out her own sanctification by the practice of the
evangelical counsels. The instrument of the great work in question was
Madame St. Beuve, a pious and wealthy widow, who at the request of her
relative, Madame Acarie, consented to accept the title and
responsibilities of Foundress of the house at Paris, on the express
understanding that it should in due time be formed into a monastery. In
this object she finally succeeded to her entire satisfaction. The
reigning Pontiff, Paul V., approved the design, and on the 16th of June,
1612, issued a Bull converting the Congregation into a Monastery, under
the patronage of St. Ursula and the rule of St. Augustine. His Holiness,
moreover, ordained that for the greater stability of the order, the
religious should add to the three ordinary solemn vows, a fourth of the
instruction of the young. The Bull of Pope Paul V. was confirmed in 1626
by Urban VIII. The convent in Paris, so interesting to Ursulines from its
associations, "le grand couvent de St. Jacques," as it was called from
its locality, was among those destroyed in the first Revolution, but, by
an inscrutable permission of Divine Providence, it is not among those
restored. Still, even in its ruins, it not only lives in the hearts of
Ursulines, but may be said actually to survive in its numerous
foundations and their offshoots. Between its establishment in 1612, and
the death of its venerated Foundress in 1630, eleven houses of the
Congregation had sprung up in the north of France. Its subsequent
diffusion was equally satisfactory.
Congregations of Ursulines were established at Bordeaux and Lyons, under
the respective dates 1605 and 1611, and, within a few years after their
foundation, were erected into Monastic Orders by Pope Paul V.; from
these, numerous filiations have also sprung. There are other
Congregations of Ursulines, but the three named are the most numerous.
Although the spirit and the essential end of Ursulines are in all cases
the same, the various Congregations differ more or less on certain
points, and each retains the name which distinguishes it from the others.
Notwithstanding the suppression of numbers of its houses, the Order of
St. Angela now registers about three hundred, the greater portion in
Europe, some in Oceanica, and a large number in America. The history of
the Mother of the Incarnation will shortly introduce us to the first in
the New World. Of late years, the old tree seems to have renewed its
vitality, so vigorously is it putting forth fresh branches. In Belgium
alone, thirty houses have been founded by one priest in our own times;
and although, unhappily, the work of suppression has been steady in
Germany, the dispossessed communities have not perished, but only removed
to other countries.
The increase of devotion to St. Angela keeps pace in our day with the
extension of her Order. Pope Pius IX., of revered and cherished memory,
gave a considerable impetus to this devotion, by raising the saint's
festival to a higher ritual rank, permitting the universal celebration of
her office, and proclaiming her the "Patroness of Christian mothers, and
the Protectress of young girls." The establishment of the arch-
confraternity which bears her name, has greatly contributed to the same
end. It was commenced at Blois in 1863 by the Abbé Richaudeau, a zealous
patron of the Order, and is widely spread wherever Ursulines are to be
found. Its objects are the honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the triumph
of the Church, the deliverance of the suffering souls in purgatory, and
the extension of the work of St. Angela by word and example, or the
apostolate of woman. It is enriched with indulgences, and the holy
sacrifice of the Mass is offered on the first Tuesday of every month for
the associates.
During the three and a half centuries of its existence, the Ursuline
Order is calculated to have given to the Church more than one hundred
thousand religious, by whom multitudes of young girls of every grade have
been trained to piety. Only the angels have kept the record of the
multitude of saints whom it has given to heaven, some bearing the palm
branches of victorious martyrs, all clad in virgin robes, and swelling
the celestial canticle which only the Spouses of the Lamb are privileged
to sing.
SECOND PERIOD, 1631-1639.
HER RELIGIOUS LIFE IN FRANCE.
CHAPTER I.
SISTER MARY OF THE INCARNATION, AN URSULINE NOVICE.--VIRTUES AND TRIALS
OF HER NOVITIATE.--THIRD VISION OF THE BLESSED TRINITY.--HER CLOTHING.
Marie Guyart was in her thirty-first year when she commenced her career
as an Ursuline. Even without her own testimony, we could easily have
understood, that after her long and severe probation. in the world, the
novitiate of religion must have appeared to her like a very heaven of
peace. She compared her entrance into the sanctuary to the opening of the
gate of a terrestrial paradise, and dwelt with holy joy on the happiness
of having exchanged a life of embarrassment, responsibility, and care,
for the blessed condition of a simple novice, whose only affair is to
sanctify her soul by the observance of her rule.
It was not long before her superiors had an opportunity of testing her
virtue, and satisfying themselves that it was genuine. She had been for
years accustomed, as we have seen, to the severest rigours of corporal
mortification, but, having now embraced community life, in which
singularities even in devotion are inadmissible, it had become necessary
to restrict her penances to those in ordinary practice. To persons
unacquainted with her spirit, the question may naturally have occurred,
whether it would cost her much thus to alter the whole tenor of her
external life, and submit unconditionally to the rule in the matter of
austerities, as of all else. But those who knew her well could have
predicted, that as attachment to her own will and judgment had never
mingled, however slightly, with her penitential works, she would renounce
them, in compliance with the Divine will, as readily as she had embraced
them from the same motive--and so it was.
Knowing that the sacrifice of obedience is more acceptable to God than
the sacrifice of victims, she at once submitted, not only without a
remonstrance or a hesitation, but even without a thought or a feeling
contrary to the will of her superiors, thus early establishing her
religious perfection on the solid virtues of humility and obedience, its
only secure foundation. A great love for common life became henceforth
one of the marked characteristics of her spirit as a religious, and,
except either by the actual direction, or with the immediate sanction of
authority, she never to the end of life departed from its rules. In her
later instructions, she remarks, that in good works of our own selection,
there is generally a mingling of the human spirit, and, therefore, a
proportionate deficiency of the Spirit of God, whereas in the observance
of the established ordinances of religious life, there is no room for the
intrusion of the human spirit, seeing that the will is not free to choose
between them, but must simply submit to each and all without distinction.
Although in every respect so superior to her sister novices, she took her
place among them with a sweet, child-like simplicity that charmed and
edified all who witnessed it. Forgetting her age, her talents, her
experience, her profound knowledge of the spiritual life, and her
extraordinary communications with God, she conversed with, and
accommodated herself to the youngest sisters as if she had really been
the least, and the most ignorant of them all. It was her delight to apply
to them for information regarding the practices and ceremonies of
religion; she was always pleased and grateful when they taught her
something new, and ever ready to admit her ignorance and apologise for
her mistakes. It was but natural that her mature years and her reputation
for sanctity should have elicited a certain degree of deference from her
youthful companions, but nothing confused her more than any external
manifestation of the feeling. The more her sisters would have
distinguished her, the more she tried to pass unnoticed in the crowd, and
far from considering herself an example to the others, she was never
tired of admiring their spirit of self-denial and exactitude to regular
observance, which she looked on as a lesson to herself. She made it her
especial study to carry out even the least direction public or private,
of her mistress of novices, the perfection of the accompanying interior
spirit elevating these trivial acts to the height of sublime virtue.
While her external life exhibited in every feature a living model of that
beautiful work of grace, a perfect novice, her heart was filled with so
deep a joy, that it almost seemed to her as if no trouble could reach her
more; no storm ever break on the peaceful haven to which the hand of God
had at last guided her. But it was not so; the cross was her portion, and
even now, its shadow flung itself across the sunbeams.
It happened that after giving her up so bravely, her little son repented
of his heroism, instigated to rebellion by various persons who persuaded
him that he had done a very foolish thing in permitting his mother to
become a nun, and that he ought to go boldly to the monastery, and demand
her restoration, an advice which he was not slow to adopt. The new
building being at that time in progress, his plan was much facilitated,
for the doors were left open for the workmen, and thus he easily managed
to enter the otherwise inaccessible inclosure, making his way, now to the
choir, now to the refectory, now to the parlour grate, and everywhere
announcing his presence by the plaintive cry, "Give me back my mother!
Give me back my mother!" She tried to appease his childish grief by
little presents given her for the purpose, but the tempest was allayed
for the moment, only to burst out afresh with renewed vigour. Once a
relative of hers wrote some pathetic verses on the desolate condition of
the forsaken child, and gave them to him to present to his mother; she
read them with exterior composure, but every word pierced her heart. His
companions, who loved and pitied him, determined at last to take the law
into their own hands. "It is because you have no mother," they said,
"that you are deprived of the indulgences and gratifications which we
enjoy, but come with us to the convent, and we shall make such a terrible
noise, that they will be forced to give you back yours. We shall insist
on getting her, even if we have to break down the doors." Forthwith the
self-constituted champions formed in battle array, and armed, some with
sticks and some with stones, they proceeded to besiege the monastery, if
not strictly according to the rules of war, at least with resolute hearts
determined never to yield until the fortress had surrendered. Many of the
spectators laughed as the belligerents passed along; many more looked
grave and applauded the children's spirit. Great was the clamour when the
little army reached the monastery, but the inmates were not left long in
ignorance of the object of the invasion, for high above the din and
uproar rose the familiar cry of a now well-known voice, "Give me back my
mother!" For once, that much tried mother's courage almost faltered.
Immovable in her own resolution to make her sacrifice to God at the
expense of every feeling of nature, she feared that the forbearance of
the sisters must be by this time exhausted, and that rather than submit
to continual disturbance from her son, they would recommend her to return
to the world, and resume the care of him, which she says would have been
very reasonable on their part, but an inexpressible trial to her. We are
not told by what arguments the doughty warriors were induced to abandon
the siege; all we know is that the fortress surrendered neither itself
nor its saintly inmate, whom our Lord Himself soon after consoled and
fortified by an interior assurance that notwithstanding all obstacles,
she would make her religions profession in this house.
Her troubles about the child were not yet, however, at an end. Before her
entrance to the convent he had been remarkably good and docile, but now,
so completely had his temper been soured by the irritating remarks of
injudicious advisers, that he had grown idle, self-willed and absolutely
reckless. This was the worst pang of all; she dreaded more than any other
misfortune, that of his offending God; the news of his death would have
been a light sorrow in comparison. To avert this greatest of evils, she
offered herself as a victim to the Almighty, consenting to endure any
suffering it might please Him to inflict, provided only her boy were
preserved from sin. The contract was ratified in heaven, and it bore its
fruits on earth; fruits of sorrow to the mother, of future sanctification
to the son. Some time after, at the request of the Archbishop of Tours
the Jesuits agreed to take charge of the child, and removed him to their
College at Rennes. Those who had most severely censured his mother, now
altered their opinion, and declared that in the step she had taken, she
had but obeyed the voice of God.
About two months after her entrance to the novitiate, Marie Guyart was
admitted to another of those supernatural communications, which the
Almighty seemed to delight in imparting to her pure and humble soul. It
was a third vision of the most adorable Trinity, differing from the two
preceding in this, that while in the first, she had been illuminated as
to the nature of the mystery and in the second, closely united in heart
to the Word, in this, her soul was chosen as the abode and possession of
the three Divine Persons, in highest fulfilment of the promise of Christ,
"If any man love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him,
and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him" (St. John xiv.
23). It was the greatest favour she had yet received, as our Lord was
pleased to signify to her. While it elevated her to new heights of love
for a God of such infinite condescension, it lowered her, as did all
similar graces to deeper depths of self-contempt and interior
annihilation, with an increased desire to prove her love for her Divine
Benefactor by suffering for Him ever more and more. A few days after this
ecstasy, she received the holy habit, and with it, the now well-known and
widely revered name of Mary of the Incarnation.
CHAPTER II.
INFUSED KNOWLEDGE OF SCRIPTURE.--INTERIOR SUFFERINGS.--RELIGIOUS
PROFESSION.--NEW TRIALS FROM HER SON.
So great was the joy of the fervent novice at finding herself clad in the
livery of her Divine Master, that she tells us she at first sometimes
instinctively touched her veil to make sure that her happiness was no
delusive dream. Proportioned to her gratitude, was her fidelity to her
heavenly Spouse. The only change observable in her after she had received
the habit, was a daily progress in the perfection of which she was
destined to be so bright a model to religious persons. Her virtues she
could not conceal for they betrayed themselves by their own sweet
fragrance. Neither could her humility altogether hide certain
supernatural privileges, granted her perhaps as much for the benefit and
comfort of others, as for her own advantage. Among these were an infused
knowledge of Holy Scripture, the capability of understanding it in Latin
without previous study of the language, and a singular facility for
speaking on spiritual subjects. So familiar was she with the Scripture,
that its words of life seemed to occur to her quite naturally on all
occasions. Whether her object was to lighten the burden of the suffering,
or to brighten the joy of the happy, she was never at a loss for some
appropriate sentence whereby to recall the thought of Him who is the only
true Comforter of our sorrows, as well as the only unfailing Source of
our bliss. It was in prayer, not by study, that she acquired her truly
wonderful acquaintance with the Sacred Writings. In the fulness of the
light imparted by the Divine Instructor, she was enabled to penetrate so
far beyond the literal meaning, alone apparent to ordinary readers of the
inspired words, that she sometimes feared lest the abundance of knowledge
should lead to curious speculations of the understanding, and that her
union with God in simplicity of soul, might in consequence be even
slightly impeded,--but the dread of such a danger was necessarily a
security against it. She had a very particular devotion to the Divine
Office, and in her trials of interior desolation, sometimes found in the
chanting of the Psalms, a relief and consolation which no other exercise
could impart. Very truly might she have exclaimed with the Psalmist, "How
sweet are Thy words to my palate! more than honey to my mouth. O how have
I loved Thy law, O Lord!" (cxviii. 103, 97).
A sister novice once asked her to explain the passage of the Canticles,
"Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth," which she had happened to
meet in her prayer-book. Their mistress was present, and to mortify her,
as she declared, ordered her to take a chair and proceed. No sooner had
she commenced, as desired, than her subject transported her as it were
out of herself. A torrent of sacred eloquence flowed from her heart to
her lips. She spoke with a fluency than amazed her hearers, and at the
same time, with an unction that penetrated, and a charm that fascinated
them. Suddenly she stopped, as if the remainder of the effusion were
meant to be reserved for the ear of her Lord alone. Her sisters dared not
interrupt the colloquy, which only the angels were privileged to hear.
But this ray from Thabor, served as usual but to light her back to her
ordinary abiding place on Calvary. Again her soul was plunged into an
apparently fathomless abyss of desolation, and inundated as by a deluge
of temptations; temptations to despair and blasphemy; temptations to
pride and vanity; temptations against faith, against charity, against
obedience, and against the angelic virtue,--sometimes assailing her one
by one, sometimes overwhelming her all at once. She was in constant
apprehension of having consented to the enemy's most extravagant and most
impious suggestions. The passing comfort which she derived from her
director's counsels, was counteracted by the after dread of having
deceived him. Even this, her only sensible succour, was taken from her
when she seemed to need it most, Dom Raymond of St. Bernard, who had
helped her through so many difficulties; being appointed Superior of his
Order, and obliged in consequence to change his residence. The spiritual
guide into whose hands she nest fell, increased her perplexities by
assuring her that she had hitherto been ill-advised, and pronouncing her
heavenly favours delusions. Finally, as the climax to her trials, she
seemed to have lost trust in the superintendence of Providence, that
strong anchor of the troubled soul. It was the most painful form in which
despair had yet assailed her, and as an apparent encroachment on one of
the attributes of God, the supreme Object of her love, it caused her
intense affliction.
If she could but have bathed her soul in the dew of Divine consolation at
prayer, how much it would have refreshed her! But she seemed to feel
only a loathing for the things of God; meditation, in particular, had
become her torture, for it appeared as if there especially, the torrent
of temptation was let loose. Her understanding was obscured, her memory
for spiritual things weakened, her imagination troubled, her heart sad.
From the constant strain on. her mind, and the unceasing struggle to do
violence to nature, she contracted an habitual headache which added to
the difficulty of her external duties, yet through all her multiplied
troubles, she never lost either the view of God's presence, or her
interior peace; she never formed a desire for the diminution of her
crosses, nor ever omitted any observance of rule, and so admirable was
her self-control, that only the Mother Superior and her director were
aware of her state of mental anguish. Her one only aim was to maintain
her patience; to avoid every deliberate imperfection, and to conform to
the will of God even without the sensible support of knowing that she did
so. The terrible interior trial lasted for more than two years almost
without intermission, and then the Divine Consoler of the afflicted came
Himself to her aid. As she prayed before the Blessed Sacrament with
entire abandonment of her will to the will of God, she seemed interiorly
to hear the words, "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy" (Ps. cxxv.
5). She had never before, she says, understood the whole import of those
words, although in the daily habit of repeating them in choir, bat now
they struck her with their full force, revealing to her for the first
time, hitherto hidden springs of encouragement and consolation.
The cross was not removed, it is true, but a great increase of esteem and
love for it was imparted to her. Thus strengthened, she embraced it with
her whole heart, satisfied to bear it to the last moment of existence, if
thus she could at last attain the eternal joy to which those blessed
words pointed, as to a star of hope illumining the close of life's long
path of tears. The cross was not removed, but it was so far lightened by
her love for it, that in her renewed courage she could say with heart, as
with lips, "Thy yoke, O Lord, is sweet, and Thy burden light!" "I am not
tired of suffering, my God! I am not tired of suffering!"
As the time for pronouncing her vows drew near, she fully expected that
her sisters would reject her, on account of her numerous imaginary
disqualifications, but conscious only of possessing in her a treasure of
virtue, and a precious gift from heaven, they gladly admitted her to holy
Profession on the 25th of January, 1633: she was then in the thirty-third
year of her age. On the eve, her interior sufferings vanished as if by
magic, giving place to indescribable raptures of Divine love and heavenly
sweetness. After the ceremony, she retired to her cell to give vent
unobserved to the ecstasies of her joy and gratitude, and there it was
revealed to her, that henceforth she must incessantly fly in God's
presence on the six wings of her three vows, and of the virtues of faith,
hope and love. This respite from the cross is compared by one of the
writers of her life, to the clearing of the sky between two storms; it
lasted but eight days, and then the tempest burst forth afresh and with
redoubled violence. She might perhaps have doubted the reality of her
vanished joy, had it not left a substantial trace in her renewed ardour
for the cross, and her heightened aspiration after the perfection of
utter detachment from self and every creature.
The sermons of the following Lent were preached in the cathedral of Tours
by a Jesuit of great eminence, Father George de la Haye, with whose
saintly and enlightened spirit the Ursulines were well acquainted, from
his frequent exhortations to themselves. Full of compassion, for the
prolonged sufferings of Sister Mary of the Incarnation, the Mother
Superior was inspired by her own charity to procure her an opportunity of
conferring with this experienced director. Before forming a conclusive
judgment on her state, he required to see a written account of the graces
she had received through life, and of the manner of her correspondence
with them. The humble servant of God consented to prepare it, on
condition that she should at the same time be allowed to write a
confession of all her sins and imperfections. Such was the origin of the
first account of her life by herself, so frequently referred to in these
pages. After mature consideration of the document, and fervent prayer for
the light of heaven, the Father assured her unhesitatingly that her
method of prayer had been inspired by God, and that she had all along
been guided by His Spirit alone, a decision which filled her soul with
indescribable peace. Shortly afterwards, her interior trials were
instantaneously and totally removed.
Summing up the advantages of these at a later period, she says that they
are a source of self-knowledge and a stimulus to self-correction;--that
in the abundance of spiritual consolation, the soul is carried on by an
ardour which she mistakes for virtue, whereas, when the inferior part is
deprived of all sensible succour, she discovers that she is full of human
life and feeling, which she must begin at last in real earnest to mortify
and crush. Viewing interior suffering in this light, she conceived so
great a love for it, that if permitted to choose between spiritual
enjoyment, and her multiplied most bitter crosses, she tells us she would
have selected the cross.
Shortly before her Profession, she had the great grief of hearing that in
consequence of her son's recent insubordination, his removal from the
college at Rennes had become inevitable. One of his aunts accordingly
brought him back to Tours, where removed from the influence which had led
him astray, he quickly reformed. To complete his mother's obligations to
Father de la Haye, that good religious charged himself with the boy's
future education, and with that object took him to Orleans, where under
his own immediate direction the child continued his studies up to the
class of rhetoric. This he was sent to follow at Tours in a Jesuit
college lately founded, and then Father de la Haye recalled him once more
to Orleans for the completion of his course of philosophy.
CHAPTER III.
MOTHER MARY OF THE INCARNATION IS APPOINTED ASSISTANT MISTRESS OF
NOVICES--PROPHETIC VISION OF HER VOCATION TO CANADA--SPIRITUAL MAXIMS AND
INSTRUCTIONS.
In the second year after her profession, Mother Mary of the Incarnation
was appointed assistant Mistress of novices, a striking proof of the high
estimation in which she was held by her superiors. Much about the same
time, she had the remarkable vision of her vocation for Canada, which she
thus describes. "One night, after conversing familiarly with our Lord; as
usual, before falling asleep, I seemed as in a dream to see a strange
lady in a secular dress standing near me. Her presence surprised me
extremely, as I could not imagine how she had come to my room. Taking her
by the hand, I led her from the house in great haste, through a very
rugged, fatiguing road, without knowing in the least where it was that I
wanted to conduct her, or of course the way to our destination. We
advanced steadily through multiplied obstacles, until at last we came to
an inclosed space, at the entrance of which stood a venerable looking man
clothed in white, and resembling the ordinary representations of the
Apostles. He was the guardian of the place, and motioned to us to enter,
signifying by a gesture that we had no alternative but to pass through,
this being the only road on our way. It was an enchanting spot; the
pavement appeared to be composed of squares of white marble or alabaster,
united by richly coloured bands of brilliant red; its only roof was the
canopy of heaven; its greatest ornament and charm the stillness which
reigned around. To the left, at some distance, was a beautiful little
white marble church, with a seat on the top occupied by the Blessed
Virgin holding her Divine Infant. From the eminence on which we stood, we
could see a vast region beneath, thickly interspersed with mountains and
valleys, and covered with a heavy mist in every part except one, the site
of a small church. The Mother of God was gazing fixedly at this desolate
land to which there was access only through one rough narrow path; she
looked as immovable as the marble on which she was seated. I relinquished
the hand of my companion to hasten to her, stretching out my arms eagerly
towards her. Her back was to me, but I could see that as I approached,
she bent to her Divine Child, to whom, without speaking, she communicated
something important. I felt as if she were directing his attention to
this poor, forsaken country and to me, and I longed to attract her
notice. Then with ravishing grace, she turned to me, and sweetly smiling,
embraced me in silence. A second and a third time, she repeated the same
movements, filling my soul at each new embrace with an unction which no
words can describe. She looked about sixteen years of age. I could never
depict the enchanting beauty and sweetness of her countenance. My
companion was standing at the distance of two or three steps, as if
preparing to descend to the forlorn-looking land, and from where she
stood, she had a side view of the Blessed Virgin. I awoke with an
impression of extraordinary peace which lasted some days, but the vision
was yet a mystery whose meaning I could not divine."
A grand work of zeal lay before the Mother, but until it should please
God to reveal His future designs, her aim was to acquit herself perfectly
of the duties assigned her by providence in the present moment. The most
important of these was to form the novices to religious life by
conferences on its spirit and its obligations, and at the same time to
prepare them for the special function of the Ursuline institute, by
instructions on the Christian doctrine. She had a natural facility for
expressing her thoughts on every subject, but when spiritual things were
her theme, she surpassed herself, her abundant and most appropriate
quotations from Scripture adding immeasurably to the weight of her words.
Her talent for writing on pious subjects equalled her facility for
speaking of them. It was while second Mistress of novices, that she
composed her catechism, one of the most complete works of its kind,
combining, with admirable dogmatic instructions, equally valuable
practical lessons of conduct.
Habitually, the Mother of the Incarnation spoke little, and when obliged
to break silence, never used many words. This habit which she had
contracted in the world, she retained all her life, perfecting it more
and more as she advanced in sanctity. Her words, though few in number,
were comprehensive in meaning, as may be seen in the following specimens
of the maxims which she most frequently inculcated.
"A soul," she said, "which would follow her call to the perfection of the
spiritual life, must prepare first to pass, gradually through spiritual
death with all its varied and prolonged agonies. Those who have not
endured the ordeal, can scarcely calculate the degree of interior
crucifixion, or, the amount of self-abandonment required."
"Many desire, and would gladly accept the gift of prayer, but few aim at,
and labour for the spirit of humility and self-abnegation, without which
there can be no true spirit of prayer or recollection. Devotion
unsustained by mortification is of a doubtful character."
"Mortification and prayer cannot be separated. They have a close
connection, and are a mutual support."
"The gift of prayer and fervent devotion is not for the great talker; it
is impossible that the heart and lips should be uselessly occupied with
creatures, and at the same time employed with God."
"Interior purity is an essential condition for Divine union. As the sea
casts out corrupted matter, so God, the infinite Ocean of perfection,
rejects souls dead in sin, uniting Himself only to those who live by
grace and resemble Him in purity."
"There is no greater obstacle to the progress of the soul than curious
speculations in prayer, and the desire to know more than God intends. We
may exceed in the desire of knowledge, but never in the desire of love."
"The most sublime life is that which combines the external practice of
the virtues of the Gospel, with interior familiarity with God."
"We make God our debtor, if I may say so, when we cast ourselves into His
arms with child-like confidence. We should lose ourselves lovingly in
Him, for although it is true that we are nothing, while He is all, we
shall for that reason be more easily and more happily lost in Him."
"The Eternal Father has made known to a certain soul that whatever she
asks of Him through the most Sacred Heart of His Son, He will grant her."
Every day we must begin anew to love God, persuaded that the day before
we did not love Him truly; seeing only defects in the past, and work to
do in the present and future."
"I cannot imagine," she would sometimes say, "how a soul can seek her
pleasure in intercourse with creatures, when she can at all times
converse with the ever-present Creator. I wonder," she remarked on other
occasions, "how, having God for our Father, we are not always perfectly
contented. The reason is that we are too much occupied about ourselves."
"Even to the end of life the holiest souls experience the assaults, of
corrupt nature, which furnish a constant occasion of interior
humiliation."
"The practical experience of our weakness is the true teacher of contempt
of self and compassion for others."
"The nearer the soul approaches to God, the more clearly she sees her
nothingness."
"I cannot understand," she said, "how a religious soul who desires to
love God and to be loved by Him, can fail in obedience or find a
difficulty in it, knowing as she does that it is the certain means of
fulfilling the will of God."
"There is no shorter road to the perfection of the interior life, than
the universal retrenchment of all reflections, not only on annoying
subjects, but even on such as do not lead to God and the practice of
virtue."
"The effect of over-eagerness to finish one action, in order to hasten to
another, is that both are done imperfectly."
"Our afflictions are not chance accidents, but graces from God, to detach
us from creatures, and unite us to Himself."
"It seems strange that we rebel against trials, since everything that God
sends is good and desirable?"
"Resignation in suffering is a mark that the soul is near to God and His
mercies."
"Peace reigns in the heart, which, through holy self-hatred, endeavours
to destroy the very last vestiges of corrupt nature."
She had a hatred of all vices, but especially of deceit, and was
accustomed to say that "when the mouth opens to a falsehood, the heart
closes to God."
Another of her sayings was, that her temptations had been to her useful
practical lessons, teaching her how to govern others, by having taught
her first to command herself. She often inculcated that "to suffer and
pray is the only means by which, in the present life, we can honour the
Church Triumphant, and help the Churches Militant and Suffering."
From these few examples we can form an idea at least of the solidity of
her lessons, which she never intruded, always maintaining a strict
reserve unless pressed to speak by charity or obedience. Not only the
novices, but even many of the elder religious delighted in listening to
her spiritual instructions. Among other matters, she explained the Psalms
and the Canticle of Canticles in a style at once so sublime and so clear,
that both beginners and proficients derived profit from her words. Among
the numerous novices formed to the interior life by her example and
counsels, some became eminent for holiness. As her son remarks, the
beauty of the copies is the highest tribute to the perfection of the
original, and the solid virtue of the disciples, the best proof of the
excellence of the teacher.
CHAPTER IV.
INCREASED ZEAL OF THE MOTHER OF THE INCARNATION.--REVELATION OF THE
DEVOTION TO THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS, AND OF HER CALL TO THE CANADIAN
MISSION.
From her first years, zeal for the salvation of souls had been a special
characteristic of the Mother Mary of the Incarnation. Her early delight
had been, as we know, to travel in spirit over infidel lands with the
holy missioners, and unite in heart and intention with their labours. Now
that the dream of her childhood was about to become a grand reality, the
holy fire acquired a ten-fold vehemence, as if her Divine Master would
thus predispose her for the revelation of His designs. She seemed
actually to burn with desire that the only Object of her love should be
known and adored by every creature, and, unable to endure the thought of
the triumph of Satan over Jesus, she gathered the poor perishing souls of
all unbelievers into her heart, and, presenting them to the Eternal
Father, reminded Him that He had promised the dominion of the nations to
His Son, who ought no longer to be deprived of the inheritance purchased
at the dear price of His own most precious blood. "The zeal of God's
house absolutely consuming her" (Ps. lxviii. 101), she continued to
traverse heathen lands in spirit, praying for a voice strong enough to
proclaim to the extremity of the earth that her heavenly Spouse is worthy
of the love and homage of every human heart. The worst torments of the
martyrs would have seemed light to her if by them she could have gained
these straying souls to her Lord. She besought God to inflict on her the
last excess of pain, and that until the Day of Judgment, if thus she
could extend the Kingdom of Christ. She might literally have said with
the Psalmist, "My zeal hath made me pine away" (Ps. cxviii. 139), for,
the inflamed ardour of her soul reacting on her bodily strength, she was
reduced to such great exhaustion, that it was feared she would have died.
Still the prayer seemed unheeded, though still it went on redoubling in
earnestness, until at last the Eternal Father made known to her that if
she would obtain her petition, she must present it through the Heart of
His Divine Son. Thus was the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus made
known to the Mother Mary of the Incarnation long before it was revealed
to the world through another of its fervent clients. All through her
remaining life, she cherished a most ardent devotion to that ever-
adorable Heart. She offered nothing to God, she asked nothing of Him,
except through it. She made it her refuge in difficulty and her
consolation in suffering; her repose in weariness, her treasure in
poverty, her all, for love of which she despised herself and renounced
all things created.
At the time of her vision, her director had remarked that the country
shown her might perhaps have been Canada, which was then exciting some
attention. It was a new light; she had never before heard of Canada;
neither had she for a moment imagined that God intended her to labour for
souls otherwise than by the interior practices of zeal and charity to
which she was accustomed. All doubt was removed when, in a repetition of
the vision, God revealed to her that it was indeed Canada which she had
seen, distinctly telling her at the same time that she was the instrument
chosen to build a house there for Jesus and Mary. Now, at last, she knew
her destiny. "Oh, my great God!" she exclaimed, "Thou art omnipotent, and
I am all weakness; if Thou wilt assist me I am ready. Do in me and by me
Thy most adorable will."
In every phase of her vocation to Canada, we are struck by the visible
intervention of the wonder-working, ever-watchful Providence of God. Thus
it happened that at this very crisis, she received for the first time a
"Report" of the affairs of the Church in the infant colony. It was the
one for 1635, the year following the regular establishment of the Huron
Mission, and was sent her by Father Poncet, a Jesuit. Without having the
least idea that their destinations were similar, he informed her of his
own vocation for that mission, sent her a miniature pilgrim's staff which
he had brought from Loretto, and invited her to join the great work. As
she knew that the good Father was absolutely ignorant of her spiritual
state, the whole affair greatly surprised her. How would her wonder have
increased had she been aware that the same Report of 1635 was to be the
means under God of deciding another vocation, on which hung the success
of the Ursuline Mission to Canada! She could answer the Father's
invitation only in general terms, unwilling, on the one hand, to speak of
the supernatural revelation granted her, and ignorant, on the other, of
the means by which the Almighty intended to execute His will in her
regard. The enterprise was one demanding not only superhuman courage, but
also pecuniary resources; in proportion as the Mother of the Incarnation
abounded in the one, so was she destitute of the other, but her future
was in the hands of Him to whom it is as easy to dispense the treasures
of earth, as the riches of heaven. While she tranquilly abandoned
herself as a passive instrument to His designs, His Almighty Providence
was employed in preparing for her a co-operatrix endowed at once with the
zeal and the wealth, each indispensable in its way,--Madame de la
Peltrie, to whom the next chapter will introduce us.
CHAPTER V.
MADAME DE LA PELTRIE, FOUNDRESS OF THE URSULINES IN CANADA.
Marie Madeleine de Chauvigny, better known as Madame de la Peltrie, was
born in 1603, at Alençon, a town in Normandy. Through both her parents
she claimed connection with the noblest families of the province, and
from both also she derived a far more precious inheritance than exalted
birth, the imperishable heritage of piety. The virtues which reflected so
bright a lustre on her name, both in her own land and in the New World,
were, under God, the fruit of their teaching; but it must be owned that
her natural docility and amiability of disposition rendered her early
training an easy task. Compassion for the poor seemed so identified with
her nature, that she could not see a want without trying, according to
her opportunity, to relieve it, and when the power to do this failed, she
endeavoured to make up for the disappointment by an ever-ready and most
tender sympathy. She seemed to have no taste for the toys and sports of
children, preferring for her recreation the exercises of devotion, which
she had learned by observing them in others. In admiration of her early
piety, her parents loved to fancy that heaven must surely have some
singularly blessed destiny in store for her.
Under her mother's guidance, she received an education suitable to her
high social position and brilliant prospects, and when she had attained
her seventeenth year, she was informed that being of course intended for
married life, she would do well to accept a very excellent proposal which
had just offered. Most cordially despising the world with its pomps and
vanities, and desiring with her whole heart to have no spouse but a
Heavenly One, she was utterly overcome by the announcement. She had never
had a thought but of consecrating herself to God in religion, and had
refrained from speaking of her intentions merely because she believed
that the favourable time for doing so had not yet arrived. In the present
unexpected disappointment of her dearest hopes, she fancied that if she
were but once secure within the walls of a convent, her parents might
not, perhaps, carry their authority so far as to oblige her to leave it;
accordingly she went in all haste to a neighbouring abbey and asked
admittance for a few days to make a retreat. This step exceedingly
irritated her father, who at once insisted on her return home, and, as no
persuasion could induce him to alter his determination respecting her
future destiny, her spiritual guides finally decided that the will of God
in her regard was manifested by that of her parents, and that no
alternative remained but to submit. After much prayer for the light of
heaven, she consented to espouse the husband of their selection.
Monsieur de la Peltrie, her partner, was in every respect worthy of her,
and their union was one of such unbroken peace, that he often expressed a
hope of living long, in order to benefit by her holy influence, and to
enjoy the Christian happiness of which she was to him the ministering
angel. But God had decreed otherwise; five years after their marriage he
died in the very vigour of manhood. Their only child had passed at once
from earth to heaven.
Her worldly ties thus broken at the early age of twenty-two, the young
widow deliberated how she could most profitably dispose of herself and
her possessions for the glory of God. A hundred and a hundred times a day
she repeated, "Do with me, O Lord! as it shall please Thee; my heart, my
life, my riches, all are Thine!" She had not lost her first inclination
for the religious life, but the doubt arose whether, with her great
wealth, she might not, perhaps, promote the Divine honour more
effectually in the world than in a life of voluntary poverty. An ardent
zeal for the salvation of souls lighted up her heart, and, like the
Mother of the Incarnation, she flew in thought to the homes of the
heathens, there to aid, at least by her prayers and desires, the labours
of the missionaries. She panted to lend active succour to the work, bat
could not yet see how this was to be brought about. Meantime the
Providence of God was working out her destiny in its own sweet and
wondrous way. After years of incertitude and indecision, she accidentally
met with one of the Reports of the progress of the Canadian Mission. It
was a copy of the same which had been sent to the Mother of the
Incarnation by Father Poncet, bearing, as may be remembered, the date
1635. In burning accents of holy zeal, the writer asked whether no
Christian heroine could be found willing te co-operate with the designs
of Jesus by devoting herself to teach the Indian children the name of
their unknown God, and the value of the precious blood which had redeemed
them. The stirring appeal was an instantaneous answer to the doubts of
years; it revealed her vocation as plainly as if an angel's voice had
spoken. In a moment she saw that God destined her for the Canadian
Mission, and with equal promptitude she resolved to obey the call. Soon
after this first inspiration, God was pleased to confirm her resolution,
by distinctly revealing to her that it was His will she should go to
Canada, and there labour for the conversion of the Indian girls,
promising that He would bestow great graces on her in recompense. "O
Lord!" she exclaimed, "surely favours like these are not for a worthless,
sinful creature as I." And out Lord answered, "You speak truly; but the
more unworthy the object of My favours, the more is My liberality exalted
in bestowing them. I desire to employ you as the instrument of My mercies
to Canada, and, notwithstanding all obstacles, you will go there, and
there, too, you will end your days." Unmistakably as the project appeared
to be marked with the will of God, she would take ho measures for its
execution until competent judges had examined it in all its bearings,
pronounced it the work of the Holy Spirit, and decided that she ought to
carry it out without delay. Her vocation received its final confirmation
in a dangerous illness which brought her to the very verge of the tomb.
When the last hope had vanished, and her soul seemed on the very point of
hearing the great summons to eternity, she felt inspired to vow that if
her life were spared, she would build a church in Canada in honour of St.
Joseph, and devote herself and her wealth, under his patronage, to the
service of young Indian females. No sooner had she made the promise than
she fell into a sweet refreshing sleep, from which she awoke in restored
health. The amazement of the physicians was something wonderful. "What
has become of your illness, Madam?" they asked. "It seems to have gone to
Canada." Greatly surprised at the remark, she smilingly answered, "Yes,
sir, as you say, it is gone to Canada."
Thus miraculously snatched from the arms of death, she thought only of
fulfilling her vow as quickly as possible, but nearly four years were to
pass before she could realize her pious wishes. As might have been
expected, the enemy of all good set every engine at work to frustrate the
design. Her father insisted that she should marry again, and after
exhausting arguments and entreaties, he had recourse to threats,
declaring that he would disinherit her if she persevered in opposing his
washes, and that if she persisted in going to Canada, it would cost him
his life. As time passed, obstacles seemed only to multiply, and her
perplexity in consequence to increase, but before matters had finally
come to a crisis, it pleased God to call her father out of life after a
severe but short illness. This event, in removing one difficulty, created
another. Some of her relatives who had long had designs on her property,
eagerly seized the opportunity of securing the prize. With this object,
they declared her incompetent to manage her own affairs, in consequence
of her extravagance, as they termed her liberality to the poor and to the
Church. They had recourse to law proceedings to prove the statement, and
actually managed to procure a verdict in their favour. Just when her case
seemed hopeless, she was extricated from the difficulty by following the
advice of a kind friend, Monsieur de Bernières. At his suggestion she
appealed to the Parliament of Rouen, and obtained a reversal of the first
decision, with a full recognition of her rights. This great victory she
attributed to the intercession of St. Joseph, in whose hands she had
placed her cause, at the same time renewing her vow to build a church in
Canada under his invocation, and devote her remaining life to the service
of the Indians.
Her affairs no longer requiring her presence at home, she proceeded to
Paris to complete her preparations for the voyage. She profited of the
opportunity to submit her plans to two of the great lights of the age,
Père Condren, General of the Oratorians, and St. Vincent of Paul, who
both consoled her by the assurance that her vocation was genuine, and her
work the work of God. Even here her relatives continued to disquiet her.
Unwilling to relinquish their prey, some of them actually followed her to
the capital with the intention of seizing her person, and so closely did
they watch her movements, that, to baffle pursuit, she had to disguise
herself in the dress of her maid when obliged to go out on business. Once
more she had recourse to Monsieur de Bernières, and at his appearance,
the conspirators dispersed.
This good friend of Madame de la Peltrie and the Ursulines, was the scion
of an illustrious house in Normandy, and resided at Caen where he
occupied a high official position. Fearing that the distraction of
worldly business might divert his attention from the one thing necessary,
he had early assembled around him a little community of ecclesiastics and
pious laymen, who, united by the bonds of faith, charity, and prayer,
served as mutual helps in the pursuit of a common end--Christian
perfection This association, called "The Hermitage," once numbered among
its members Monseigneur de Laval, the first Bishop of Canada. A faithful
picture of the angelic soul of Monsieur de Bernières can be found in his
own work entitled "The Interior Christian," which is in fact the history
of his inner life written by the direction of his confessor. His ardent
zeal for the Divine honour inspired him with the liveliest interest in
the Canadian mission, to which he continued until death a devoted and
efficient friend. To Madame de la Peltrie in particular, he preyed
himself an invaluable assistant just at the time when she most needed
counsel and support. Her contradictions were not yet at an end; one
indeed seemed removed only to stake way for another. So it ever is with
the work of God, for the. sign by which that work conquers is the sign of
the cross. It was now the month of November, 1638. On applying for a
passage to Canada for the following spring, she was told that all the
vessels for the ensuing season would be fully freighted, so that no
alternative remained but to defer her departure for another year. Nothing
daunted, she declared that if necessary, she would charter a vessel at
her own expense, and when the time of departure came, so she actually
did.
CHAPTER VI.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE MOTHER OF THE INCARNATION'S VOCATION FOR CANADA.
While the Almighty was thus slowly preparing the way for the
accomplishment of his designs, the Mother Mary of the Incarnation was
still calmly awaiting the manifestation of His will, in utter
unconsciousness of the progress of events. At the date to which we have
brought the history of Madame de la Peltrie, more than two years had
passed since she and the Venerable Mother almost simultaneously learned
by Divine revelation, that the Canadian mission was to be the scene of
their future labours. Having followed the progress of the destined
Foundress' vocation during those years, we shall now retrace our steps to
consider the development of the Venerable Mother's in the same interval.
The great work in prospect was to be the work of God alone, and nothing
of the creature was to be permitted to mingle with it, therefore, before
the time for carrying it into effect arrived, the Almighty signified to
his faithful servant, that even in the execution of the command which He
had himself imposed, her own will was to have no share. As once He had
assumed the dominion of her heart, He on this occasion assumed the
dominion of her will,--the heart of the soul,--not depriving her of the
faculty, but uniting it so closely to His own will, that hers became
absolutely absorbed and lost in His. It was, she says, as if while she
endeavoured to bend His will to hers, by her ardent prayers for the
extension of the Kingdom of His Son, He on the contrary triumphed over
hers so completely, that now she could will only as He willed.
Thenceforth, she waited in silence and peace for the further
manifestation of His designs, and deeply as she prized her vocation, she
constantly prayed that if He willed her to work for Him in another sphere
and another way, He would raise insuperable obstacles to her ever going
to Canada. The secret of her future destiny she buried in her heart,
until at the end of a year, the Almighty Himself commanded her to divulge
it. When she did so, the communication entailed on her only mortification
and humiliation. Her director rebuked her for indulging silly fancies;
the Mother Superior asserted that if God granted her request, it would be
only as a punishment for her presumption; others, whose judgment she
equally deferred to, pronounced the project visionary and delusive, yet
her great courage never failed, for it was founded on a perfect
confidence that in His own time, God would do His own work, using her as
his instrument, all unworthy though she was. In two letters, she fully
explained her position to her former spiritual guide, Dom Raymond of St.
Bernard, who like herself, aspired at this time to the Canadian mission,
though as the event proved, unsuccessfully. In one of these, she says,
"God is stronger than man; He commands the winds and calms the waves. If
He will have us in New France, He will surely conduct us thither in
defiance of all the obstacles which look like mountains in human eyes,
but before Him are only as straws and spiders' webs. When I consider my
great misery, I cannot help feeling that it may in the end divert His
choice to some worthier instrument, but if such should be His will, I
bless Him in anticipation for the selection; whatever it may be, coming
from Him, it must necessarily be all-wise." The humility, the trust in
God, the total absence of all attachment to her own will and judgment
which marked her communications, convinced this enlightened director that
her vocation was genuine, and he therefore promised to promote its
success to the best of his power. As God had decreed that she should
concur in the great enterprise by something more than mere passive
acquiescence, He again inspired and even urged her to repeat the
information which by His order she had already given on the subject to
her Superiors. This time, she addressed herself to Father de la Haye, who
approved of the undertaking, encouraged her to pursue it, and expressed a
hope that the time of its accomplishment was near at hand. An important
link was added to the chain of Providence by the communication just
referred to. Father de la Haye confided it to Father Poncet, who was a
good deal concerned in the affairs of the Canadian mission, and thus was
the Mother's cause placed in the direct road of success. Some time more
was, however, to pass, before the mysterious chain of Providence should
be perfected.
Although careful to avoid unnecessary allusion to her own especial
vocation, she spoke in such glowing terms of the happiness of labouring
for the salvation Of the infidels, that she effectually communicated her
apostolic spirit to her community, who all joined her in prayer and works
of penance for the conversion of heathen nations. The reputation of her
zeal had even reached New France, whence she received urgent petitions
from the missioners to hasten, to the aid of their dear converts. These
appeals, some of them traced on bark by saintly men who soon were to
water with their blood, the land blessed by their labours, she kissed
reverentially and bedewed with her tears.
All her letters from Canada were not, however, of this description. Soon
after the revelation of her vocation, she received two from Father le
Jeune, mortifying enough to have discouraged any soul less humble than
hers. As Superior of the missions in New France, he thought it advisable
to try her spirit before she was permitted to follow her call;
accordingly, he twice addressed her in the most humbling terms, dwelling
particularly on her intolerable presumption in aspiring to functions far
above her capacity, and aiming at a position in every way beyond her
sphere. She read and re-read the painful words with singular
satisfaction, and in showing them to her director, she merely said, "Is
he not a good Father to treat me so? If I ever fall under his authority,
I am sure of finding a true friend in him." When she learned later that
he was using his best efforts to procure nuns for Canada, and that he
especially desired to secure her services, she understood even better
than before, that sharp as were the arrows, they had indeed been guided
by a friendly hand.
Lest self-love or natural ardour should imperceptibly mingle with her
desire for the Canadian mission, she represented herself its most
alarming features, the danger of perishing of cold or hunger; the chance
of being led into captivity and perhaps cruelly tortured by the savages;
the immeasurable privations, the hardships, disappointments and varied
sufferings which without any doubt would he her daily portion, yet the
terrible anticipation rather strengthened than diminished her love for
her great vocation. "No creature," she said in a letter to her confessor,
"could be worthy of one so exalted. It is so grand, so sublime, so
glorious, that only God's gratuitous goodness could inspire Him to bestow
it. Gladly," she continued, "would I purchase it at the price of a
thousand lives if that were possible. Reflecting that 'Christ died for
all' (2 Cor. v. 15), I grieve to think that all do not yet live for Him,
and although confounded at my own presumption, I feel pressed by the
desire to bring unbelievers to the knowledge and love of Him who is the
true Life."
She continued to pray that she might be enabled at last to execute the
command imposed on her of building a house in Canada for Jesus and Mary,
adding a petition that it might be also in honour of St. Joseph, whom she
firmly believed to be the guardian of that country shown her in the
vision. There seemed, however, little present prospect of her
accomplishing her task, for, independently of other obstacles, more than
one promise of the necessary pecuniary aid had ended in disappointment.
Nothing then remained but to submit to the arrangements of Divine
Providence, and this she did so perfectly, that it was difficult to
decide whether most to admire her readiness to go to Canada, or her equal
willingness to give up the idea. "An enterprise undertaken for God,
should be renounced for God," she said, "when He withholds the means of
carrying it into execution." But the thought of Canada continued to be as
usual ever present to her heart, and although there seemed no human
likelihood of her going there, she could not divest herself of a strong
presentiment that the time of departure was approaching.
CHAPTER VII.
MADAME DE LA PELTRIE AT TOURS.--SELECTION OF THE MISSIONERS.--DEPARTURE
FOR PARIS.--THENCE FOR DIEPPE.
We left Madame de la Peltrie in Paris, preparing for her departure. All
her arrangements were made at last, except one, but that was all-
important. The projected work could not go on without the help of
religious Sisters, and none had been engaged; where were they to be
sought? Many voices were raised in favour of the Ursulines of Paris, but
God had chosen His own instrument, and in His own way He would manifest
the selection. Father Poncet was known to be closely connected with the
affairs of the mission, so he was appealed to for advice. His answer was
prompt and satisfactory. "The Mother of the Incarnation had a marked
vocation for New France; she possessed all needful qualifications, would
fly to the ends of earth at the call of God, was to be found at the
Ursuline Convent of at Tours." Following up the welcome hint, Madame de
la Peltrie wrote at once to the Mother Superior of that monastery to
secure the co-operation of so invaluable an assistant, and the letter was
accompanied by one from Father Poncet. It is easy to imagine the effect
of these letters on the two persons most concerned. Recognising in them
the almost visible trace of the hand of Providence, the Mother Superior
could only bow down and adore: equally lost in admiration of the wondrous
ways of God, the Mother of the Incarnation could but exclaim, "Lord, here
I am; send me!"
Thinking herself called on to second this manifest intervention of
Providence, the Mother resolved to communicate personally to Madame de la
Peltrie her wishes and sentiments on the subject of the mission. This
letter gives so beautiful an insight to her mind that a few sentences
from it will probably be read with interest and pleasure:--
"Can it be true, Madam," she asks, "that our Divine Master really calls
you to the terrestrial paradise of New France? Are you, indeed, happily
chosen to spread in that far-off region the heavenly flame of His love?
Icicles abound there, it is true; brambles and thorns grow in profusion;
but the fire of His Holy Spirit can dissolve the one and consume the
other. His almighty power can strengthen weak creatures to endure all
trials, and sacrifice all enjoyments for the salvation of God's children.
O favoured spouse of Jesus! yours is the blessed certainty that you love
Him truly, since you are about to give the strongest proof of love by
renouncing self and all things for His dear sake . . . . Since in His
infinite goodness He has granted me sentiments like your own, I feel that
our hearts are now one in the Heart of Jesus, and that, so united, they
embrace all the heathen children of Canada, whom, as we hope, it will
soon be our privilege to impress with the love of their infinitely
amiable God. Some years have passed since our Lord inspired me with the
desire of labouring for their salvation. Hitherto I could only tranquilly
wait until it should please His Providence to summon me to my work; now
it seems as if the welcome call had come at last through you. Will you,
then, accept me as the companion of your voyage and a co-operatrix in
your future labours? As I could explain myself more fully and
satisfactorily in a personal interview, I venture to promise that if you
can give me the opportunity, our Lord will indemnify you Himself for the
fatigue of the journey. You will meet here many affectionate sisters
ready to welcome you as a messenger from heaven, and I, although the most
unworthy of all, presume to ask a share in your prayers." This letter, so
full of the spirit of God, confirmed Madame de la Peltrie's first
favourable impression of the writer, and strengthened her desire to
secure her as the foundation stone of her projected edifice.
The interview so humbly requested was cordially granted. Accompanied by
Monsieur de Bernières, the Angel Raphael of her travels, Madame de la
Peltrie arrived at the Convent of Tours on the 19th of February, 1639,
having previously communicated the object of her visit to the Archbishop,
and received his unqualified sanction. She was met by the whole community
and conducted with due ceremonial to the choir, where the _Veni Creator_
and the _Te Deum_ were chanted. At first sight, the Mother Mary of the
Incarnation recognised in Madame de la Peltrie the well-remembered
features of the lady who had been represented in her vision as her
companion to the unknown land; and their hearts were drawn towards each
other irresistibly and for ever. The prayer of the Forty Hours was
offered to obtain the direction of Heaven in the choice of the
missioners, and on its conclusion, the selection commenced. The will of
God had been so clearly marked in regard of the Mother of the
Incarnation, that much deliberation would, in her case, have been
superfluous. The Mother Superior must have felt that in acceding to the
request of Madame de la Peltrie by granting her this rich treasure, she
was but concurring in a Divine appointment, which she was not at liberty
to oppose. The sanction of human authority was now formally. attached to
the Venerable Mother's call to Canada; in addition to the stamp of
heavenly revelation which it had so long borne, so she was free at last
to enter on the course which stretched before her. clear, direct and
well-defined, and while her soul magnified the Lord, and her spirit
exulted in God, her generous heart breathed the one aspiration, that she
might prove her gratitude for His mercies by pursuing that blessed course
even to its final term, with a love that would never cool and a fidelity
that would never tire.
As it was understood that one Sister was to accompany the Mother of the
Incarnation, many were the candidates who volunteered their services; it
was remarkable, however, that the one whom God had chosen was the only
one who kept aloof. Sister St. Bernard was full of holy ardour for the
salvation of souls, especially the Indians--an ardour fanned by the
perusal of the yearly Reports of the progress of the faith in Canada--but
her humility persuading her that youth and other disqualifications
unfitted her for the great work, she dared not present herself to Madame
de la Peltrie. She would not even enter her apartment with the others,
but hovered about outside, offering herself to God as a perpetual
holocaust for the conversion of the savages, and promising St. Joseph
that if he obtained for her the favour of joining the missioners, she
would change her present name for his, as a mark of her undying
gratitude. Her private petition to the Mother Superior to be sent on the
Mission had been rejected; the Mother Mary of the Incarnation, Madame de
la Peltrie, and Monsieur de Bernières had all begged for her, and been
likewise refused. Yet, when the community assembled to decide the
question, it was singular that some difficulty or objection arose about
every candidate except herself. This circumstance appearing to the Mother
Superior an indication of the will of God, she feared to persist in her
first indention, much as she regretted the loss of a subject whom she
looked on as a future pillar of the house. Sister St. Bernard's parents
threatened opposition, but He who holds in His hands the hearts of men,
soon changed theirs so completely, that they gave her not only the
desired permission, but their full approval and cordial benediction. Full
of joy and gratitude, she changed her name as she had promised, and
henceforth we know her as Mother St. Joseph. In the world she had been
called Marie de la Troche, and her family was one of the highest in
Anjou.
The aged Archbishop at once ratified the selection of the community, and
warmly blessed the two candidates for the Mission, or, as he called them,
the two foundation stones of the temple about to be erected in the New
World for the glory of God. He prayed that the monastery at Quebec might
be a home of grace, peace and benediction; that the efforts of hell might
never prevail against it; and that the Lord might dwell there as the
Father and Spouse not only of these its first inmates, but of all who
should join or succeed them to the end of ages. He then appointed the
Mother of the Incarnation Superior.
When all the preliminaries seemed satisfactorily concluded, it was found
that an intimate friend of Madame de la Peltrie's had, at the last
moment, revoked a promise to accompany her, alarmed, it would seem, at
the perils of the voyage and the anticipated hardships of life in Canada.
The circumstance was embarrassing, as little time now remained to seek a
substitute, but the difficulty was removed in a manner as satisfactory as
it was unexpected. There was just then in Tours a young person of
respectable position and great piety, who, for the previous six years,
had been determined on consecrating herself to the service of God and her
neighbour in religion, but had deferred the execution of her design,
merely because uncertainty as to the particular Order she was destined
for. By the arrangement of Providence, her confessor, a Jesuit, happened
likewise to be at Tours precisely at the moment of the nuns' perplexity,
and, hearing of it, he suggested to them that the lady in question would
very probably answer their purpose. She was at once presented to the
missioners, and, on being asked by Madame de la Peltrie, whether she
would consent to go to Canada as her personal companion, she promptly
replied that her intention had been to become a nun, but that, since the
Almighty was pleased to offer her so glorious an opportunity of
sacrificing her life for Him, she would accept it with joy and gratitude.
Her family name of Charlotte Barre she exchanged later for that of Mother
St. Ignatius, under which we know her as the first sister professed at
the Ursuline Convent of Quebec.
Another attempt was still to be made by the enemy of souls to frustrate
the design of the Mother of the Incarnation, and her natural affections
were again the arms which he tried to turn against her. Intensely grieved
at the news of her intended departure, her sister employed every
imaginable argument to prevent it, and, finding all else fail, appealed
once more to her love for her son. She declared that if his mother
forsook him, so would every one else, beginning with herself. Threats
producing no impression, she went to the length of actually revoking the
small pension which she had agreed to settle on the boy, as a kind of
compensation to his mother for her services. But all was in vain: nothing
could shake her courageous soul. One last effort remained: it was to
apprise Claude Martin of his mother's intention, and inform him at the
same time, that she was to pass through Orleans, where he was then
studying, so that if he pleased he could have an opportunity of seeing
her and working on her feelings. The hint was not lost on him, as we
shall presently see.
On the 22nd of February, 1639, Mother Mary of the Incarnation bade a last
farewell to the convent at Tours. It is easy to picture the grief of the
Sisters at losing the beloved Mother whose example had been to all a
perpetual stimulus to perfection, and whose counsels had encouraged so
many to tread bravely the narrow path that leads to sanctity. The regret
of the pupils for their saintly teacher, was the highest tribute to the
gentleness and charity which, had so greatly endeared her to them. As to
herself, she seems all through to have had a presentiment that she was in
the monastery only as a deposit, to be one day reclaimed by the Heavenly
Master. Her only ties were those which bound her to Himself; when,
therefore, He demanded His own, her disengaged soul was free to hasten on
the wings of love, even to the farthest boundaries of the globe.
Before her departure, she had a vision in which the church of her adopted
country was represented to her as formed, not of stones, like ordinary
buildings, but of human beings, fastened each to a cross. She was shown
her destined place among the crucified, and made to understand the weight
of her especial cross. She saw, not only in general, but in detail, all
the afflictions that awaited her;--the agonies of interior desolation,
the bitterness of external trials--all were vividly depicted; and it was
intimated to her that henceforth she must serve the Lord at her own cost,
and prove her gratitude for great favours, by great generosity in self-
sacrifice. It was not long before she entered on the dolorous way which
was to be henceforward her path here below. Faithful to his aunt's
directions, her son watched for her arrival in Orleans, and at once
presented himself before her. Feigning ignorance of her project, he
inquired with well-assumed surprise, where she could possibly be
travelling.
"To Paris," she replied.
"But are you not going farther?" he continued.
"Probably to Normandy," she said.
Seeing that she tried to avoid an explanation, he produced his aunt's
letter, with the enclosed deed revoking his pension. She read the letter,
every word of which must have been a torture, picturing as it did in
glowing colours the isolation, the neglect, the actual destitution which
awaited her boy, and raising her eyes to heaven, she exclaimed, "Oh! how
many artifices Satan uses to oppose the designs of God!" Then, with the
mingled tenderness of a mother and heroism of a saint, she asked, "My
son, during the eight years which have elapsed since I left you to
consecrate myself to God, have you wanted anything?"
"No, mother," he replied.
"Well, then," she said, "the past ought to be to you a security for the
future. Prove yourself the worthy child of God, the best of Fathers; keep
His commandments, trust in His Providence, and you will find that He
never disappoints those who fear Him. If I bid you adieu for the second
time, it is again to obey His voice. If you really love me, you will
rejoice that I have been chosen to labour for His honour among the
infidels." She continued for some time thus to speak to him in the
language of faith and love. As she raised his thoughts to heaven, his
better feelings prevailed, and when she concluded, he knelt at her feet
in tears and asked her blessing. He arose quite changed, burned the
exciting letters, and, in the simplicity of his heart, offered to God the
sacrifice of that holy mother whose loss he understood better now than at
their first separation. That sacrifice was to him the source of immense
graces and a fruitful seed of future sanctification.
Five days after leaving Tours, the missioners arrived in Paris, and were
at first lodged near the house of the professed Jesuits, whence they
afterwards removed to the Ursuline house of St. Jacques, where, as the
Venerable Mother remarks, "they found themselves once more in their
element." To their great joy, they succeeded in obtaining permission for
one of the religious of this monastery to accompany them to Canada, but
their satisfaction was of short duration, for the Archbishop soon
recalled the permission, and could not be induced to renew it.
A still more severe disappointment awaited the Mother of the Incarnation
before her departure. Her son, the object of so much solicitude, the
cause of so much sorrow, had just gladdened her heart by most
unexpectedly expressing a desire to become a Jesuit. To leave him in the
novitiate of a religious house, cut off from the troubles and temptations
of the world, and with nothing to divert him from the concerns of his
salvation, would have been the very crown and climax of her happiness--
but the way of the cross was to be hers. The Father appointed to examine
the young candidate thought him disqualified for religion; anxious,
however, to soften the pain of an absolute refusal, he suggested that
there might be a better chance at a future period, when the novitiate was
less crowded. An ever-ruling Providence had destined the youth for
another Order, and when God's time came, the disqualifications complained
of had disappeared; the present trial was, however, none the less painful
to his mother.
Before leaving Paris, the missioners had the honour of two interviews
with the Queen, Anne of Austria, who then expressed and ever after
manifested the liveliest interest in their great work. At Dieppe, the
port of embarkation, they were lovingly received by their Ursuline
sisters, who granted them not only hospitality, but the richer gift of
one of their own religious, Mother Cecilia of the Cross. And now the hour
of departure had come. Their indefatigable benefactor, Monsieur de
Bernières, who had never lost sight of them, continued to the last moment
to watch over their interests. His zeal would have prompted him to
accompany them to Canada, but it was thought he could assist them more
effectually by remaining in France to look after Madame de la Peltrie's
property. After their departure, he returned to Caen, where he resumed
his ordinary life of prayer, retirement, and good works. He carefully
managed Madame de la Peltrie's estate of Haranvilliers, collected the
rents, sent out regular supplies of provisions and other necessaries to
Canada, and proved himself in every respect the visible guardian angel of
the Ursuline Mission. In these charitable offices he persevered for
twenty years from the period of which we now write, and then his holy
life was crowned by a saintly death. On the 8th of May, 1659, he retired
to his oratory for evening meditation, as was his wont. His servant
entering at the appointed hour, found him absorbed in prayer, and left
him, as requested, to continue his devotions. Returning after some time,
he noticed that his master still knelt in the very same spot and attitude
as he had left him. He approached and spoke, but there was no answer: the
hands were clasped, the eyes raised to heaven, the happy soul had flown
to God!
Resuming the interrupted order of our history, we meet the Mother of the
Incarnation for the last time on the shores of France. Her final adieu
was addressed to the Mother Superior of Tours. If this letter breathes a
sigh, it is rather one of longing for the land of her exile, than of
regret for the land of her birth. "It is time for our last farewell," she
writes, "for now our Lord summons us to follow wherever it shall please
Him to lead. To-day the vessel will enter port, and as soon after as the
wind is favourable, we shall set sail. You can understand how long each
moment of delay appears to one who desires to give her life for her God.
O dear Mother! how powerful is the Divine Master of our hearts. If you
could see the effects of His interior operations on our Canadian band,
you would bless His goodness a thousand times. Every soul is on fire with
love, and, at the same time, annihilated in its own unworthiness and
abjection.... Madame de la Ville aux Clercs has presented us with some
rich ornaments for our future church in Canada; she is, then, our first
benefactress next to you, most dear Mother, who will always rank before
all others, since, not to speak of other gifts, you have bestowed
ourselves." Such was her leave-taking of her country, which she was never
to see again; of her home, which henceforth would know her no more for
ever. "The earth with its fulness is the Lord's" (Ps. xxiii. 1),
therefore all parts of it were alike to her, since in all she could find
her God; in all she could unite her heart to the loving heart of Jesus in
His own Sacrement; from all she could see in the distance the heavenly
home where her heart and hopes reposed, for there dwelt her Treasure. Yet
a little while, and the golden gates must open to her, for had she not
our Lord's own promise, that they who renounce all things for His sake
shall have everlasting life in exchange? Meantime, while waiting for the
vision of the beauty of her God, she would find as much happiness as she
looked for on earth, in labouring and suffering to promote His honour and
extend His reign.
THIRD PERIOD, 1639-1672.
LIFE IN CANADA.
CHAPTER I.
EMBARKATION.--VOYAGE.--ARRIVAL IN QUEBEC.--FIRST DWELLING.
It was on the 4th of May, 1639, that the 'St. Joseph' set sail from
Dieppe. The coincidences were cheering: with St. Joseph for pilot, the
sweet Star of the Sea for beacon light, and the Mother of St. Augustine
for protectress, the good ship might fairly have been expected to weather
all storms and brave all perils. It was accompanied by some other
vessels, bound like itself for the Western World. Many a guardian angel
must have rejoiced at the departure of that little fleet, bearing God's
messengers of salvation to nations seated in darkness and enveloped in
the shades of death. On board the 'St. Joseph,' as the safest and most
commodious of the ships, was the Ursuline colony, five in number,
including the Foundress with her secular companion, and three Hospital
Sisters from Dieppe, who were going to establish a house of the Hôtel
Dieu at Quebec, under the auspices of the Duchess d'Aiguillon, a niece to
Cardinal Richelieu. Father Vimont, a Jesuit, took passage in this ship;
Fathers Poncet and Chaumonot each in one of the others, thus the better
to ensure spiritual aid for the whole crew.
It was with joy in her heart, and thanksgiving on her lips, that the
Venerable Mother turned her face towards the great goal of her earthly
hopes, the savage land, where, as she said, she would have the chance of
risking her life for love of Him who had bestowed it. The first movement
of the vessel in that direction seemed to her like a step towards the
bliss of heaven and, under the sheltering wings of Providence, she felt
as tranquil on the treacherous waters as a child reposing at peace in its
mother's arms.
It was not long before the travellers had an opportunity of realizing how
securely grounded are the hopes which rest in God. Scarcely had they lost
sight of the French shore, when they came in view of a Spanish fleet,
evidently bearing towards them. The only means of escape was by sailing
close to the English coast. Thanks to Divine Providence, the plan
succeeded, but as it involved a deviation from their direct course, their
progress was, in consequence, so much retarded, that they did not clear
the Channel until the 20th of May.
The cabin assigned to the Sisters in the 'St. Joseph' was transformed
into a miniature monastery, where the conventual exercises were daily
gone through with admirable fervour and regularity. Meditation, Mass, and
Holy Communion, sanctified the early hours, and at stated intervals the
Office was recited in choir by the Ursulines on one side, and the
Hospital Sisters on the other, Father Vimont presiding. Although the
voyage was very long and tempestuous, the Holy Sacrifice was omitted only
on thirteen days of exceptional storm.
"They that go down to the sea in ships, doing business in the great
waters; these have seen the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the
deep" (Ps. cvi. 23, 24). It was the Feast of the Holy Trinity. The last
sounds of the morning Office had just arisen from the Sisters' little
sanctuary, when with the dying echo of the song of praise mingled a cry
of terror from the watch on-deck. In the dense fog of the preceding
night, the ship had drifted alarmingly close to an iceberg, but of this
peril the crew, of course, remained unconscious while the fog continued.
At last the mist yielded to the sun's rays, and then the awful spectacle
broke on them in all its horrors. The iceberg was of enormous dimensions.
It looked, the Venerable Mother tells us, like a fortified city floating
on the deep; its frowning towers and battlements relieved here and there
by tall graceful spars, which imagination could easily have transformed
into spires and pinnacles of churches and turrets. On it came proudly
through the waters, as if impatient to crush the frail vessel that lay in
its path, utterly helpless and all but hopeless. Even the elements seemed
to have conspired for the destruction of that devoted ship; no friendly
breeze arose to send it bounding beyond the reach of danger; the winds
were hushed, and in the struggle for life, its chances were as nothing.
Death seemed so inevitable and so near, that Father Vimont gave a general
absolution, and all prepared as best they could to meet the fate from
which there appeared no escape. But where, meantime, was the heavenly
Star, to whose guidance they had confided themselves so lovingly and so
implicitly? Temporarily hidden, for the trial of their faith and trust,
but ready to shine out with renewed brightness as soon as both should
have been sufficiently proved. Just as the last faint hope was vanishing,
Father Vimont made a vow in the name of the ship's company to perform a
specified act of devotion in honour of the Mother of God, if she would
deign to take compassion, on them in this extremity of distress. Swifter
than thought, the prayer for mercy reached the throne of Heaven's Queen,
and with equal rapidity came the answer. As a last chance, the captain
issued orders, to turn the helm in a particular direction; the steersman,
misunderstanding, turned it in the opposite, and, wonderful to say, the
apparent mistake saved the ship. Obeying the new impulse, it was borne to
one side of the dreaded iceberg, and, when once out of its direct path,
the imminence of the danger was over. As it floated past the enormous,
moving mountain, the rescued crew could vividly realize the peril which
they had escaped, and estimate as it deserved the extent of their debt of
gratitude to the Heavenly Mother who had befriended them so effectually
in the hour of their extreme need.
After a tedious and in many ways trying voyage of three months, the 'St.
Joseph' touched at Tadoussac, where to their great joy, the Sisters met
several Indians. Never having seen white people before, the poor savages
were lost in astonishment, but how did their wonder redouble when they
learned that these ladies were "great captains' daughters," as they would
themselves have expressed it, who had quitted, home, country, and all the
comforts of civilized life, for no other purpose than to come and teach
them and their children how to escape eternal fire, and ensure
everlasting happiness! They could not comprehend the strange tidings, and
to discover if possible the real object of the new-comers, they followed
along the shore as the ship resumed its way to Quebec, keeping a close
and watchful eye on its movements.
The missioners spent their first night in Canada at the Isle of Orleans,
which they reached on the evening of the 31st of July. As they landed,
the sun had just set in all the splendour which his setting is wont to
wear in Canada. The sky was literally glowing with gorgeous colours of
every hue, intermingled with ethereal gold, as if in descending to his
rest, the mighty monarch had left a fold of his mantle of glory floating
on the western heavens, to symbolize that brighter mantle of celestial
light which soon would envelop the benighted race whom those devoted
missioners had come so far to seek and to help to save. The island was
uninhabited, so three wigwams were constructed in Indian fashion, one for
the Nuns, one for the Jesuits and a third for the sailors. Unable to
contain their holy joy, the Sisters entoned a canticle of thanksgiving,
and for the first time since their creation, those venerable woods re-
echoed with songs of praise to the one true God and His adorable
Incarnate Son.
On the following day, August the 1st, 1639, the missioners reached
Quebec. Their first act on landing was to kneel and reverently press
their lips to the soil of the adopted country which was to be to them
thenceforth in place of home and fatherland. They were received with the
greatest enthusiasm. The moment they stepped on shore, a salute was fired
from Fort St. Louis. They were met at the landing-place by the whole
population headed by the Governor-General, Monsieur de Montmagny, and the
Jesuit Fathers of the colony, and after mutual salutations, were escorted
to the church, where the holy Sacrifice was offered with all the
solemnity that circumstances permitted, the ceremony concluding with the
Te Deum. After having been hospitably entertained by the Governor, the
Sisters of the two communities proceeded to their destined dwellings. As
a mark of the general joy, the day was inscribed in the red letter
calendar and work totally suspended.
The next day, the Jesuits conducted the Sisters to the mission at
Sillery, already noticed in the introductory chapter as formed on the
model of the Reductions of Paraguay. It would need a skilful artist to
paint that beautiful scene; on the one hand, the heavenly joy of the
Mother of the Incarnation and her companions, at sight of the Indian
children, for whose spiritual and temporal welfare their hearts had so
long yearned with more than mother's love; on the other, the amazement of
the little ones at finding themselves the objects of so much unwonted
solicitude. Utterly bewildered, they at first received the Sisters'
caresses with the characteristic caution and reserve of their nation, but
the language of kindness is easily understood, and very soon the children
had rightly interpreted their visitors' affectionate advances. Attracted
by their gentleness, their affability, their unmistakable
disinterestedness, they followed them step by step through the hamlet,
gaining confidence every moment. With the whole savage population for
escort, the Sisters proceeded to the little church, which was the chief
ornament, as well as the great treasure of the village, and there the
Indians all joined in a hymn which the Jesuit Fathers had composed for
them in their own language. The strain was simple, the temple humble, the
congregation illiterate and poorly clad, yet who shall say that
colonnaded aisle or fretted dome of proud cathedral ever resounded with
music sweeter in the ear of heaven, than was that unpretending hymn of
the despised Indians! Who would not envy the emotions of the Venerable
Mother and her fervent Sisters, as they knelt in the lowly church among
the poor savages in the hamlet of Sillery! This visit over, the Ursulines
and Hospitaliers separated, each community repairing to its appointed
home. The Ursulines were located in the Lower Town, at the foot of the
mountain road, not far from the spot occupied later by the Church of Our
Lady of Victories. The Hospital Sisters were lodged near Fort St. Louis.
The abode assigned to the Ursulines until a monastery could be built for
them, contained only two apartments, the larger of which, sixteen feet
square, served at once as choir, parlour, refectory and common dormitory;
the second was reserved for the school-room. A little shed near the house
was fitted up as a chapel, and although so very poor as forcibly to
recall the stable of Bethlehem, it was precious to them beyond words to
tell, for there the adorable Sacrifice was henceforth daily offered, and
there too at all times dwelt quite close to them in the Sacrament of His
love, the Divine Spouse for whose sake they had renounced themselves and
all things here below. A wooden palisade round the dwelling supplied the
place of cloister walls. In this most miserable abode they spent three
years, amidst unimaginable privations and inconveniences, exposed to
extreme cold in winter, and overpowering heat in summer; breathing the
air vitiated by a crowd of Indians, whose uncleanly habits are
proverbial, and whose very clothes exhaled a sickening odour. When the
children presented themselves at the school for the first time, their
attire was scanty, and of the coarsest materials. They wore a mass of
tangled hair, guiltless since first it began to grow, of all acquaintance
with scissors, brush or comb, and they were covered all over with a
greasy substance, which to judge from the care employed in laying it on,
must have been deemed an indispensable finishing touch to the juvenile
Indian's toilet. To bring that untidy hair into order, and to remove that
personal adornment, unsightly in appearance, as unattractive in aroma,
became a question of privilege. The Foundress claimed it as her right,
because as she said, she was fit for nothing else, but others thought
themselves entitled to the honour too, so finally a compromise was agreed
on, and all had their turn. The children's uncivilized ways must no doubt
have at first occasioned many a mortification to the Sisters; for
instance, the Mother of the Incarnation tells us that they daily found
some disgusting mixture in their food, a bunch of hair, a handful of
cinders, or even an old shoe being no uncommon addition to the ordinary
ingredients, yet so completely did grace triumph over nature in these
Christian heroines, that unsavoury as was the seasoning of their soup,
and countless as were the discomforts of their position, they enjoyed
indescribable happiness in their poverty, and preferred their humble
lodging with its uncouth inmates, to the grandest mansion without them.
Their dwelling, they called the "Louvre", and in their poor pupils, the
eye of faith enabled them to discern ornaments more costly, more precious
and more prized than all the splendour which art can devise and wealth
purchase for the embellishment of regal palaces, for what is the value of
a palace, compared with that of a soul?