Chapter III (9)

She did not, however, propose the step either to her director or to the superior of the convent, with whom she soon formed a holy friendship; but one day, visiting the convent to felicitate Mother Mary of St. Bernard on her re-election as superior, it came into her mind that her friend would offer her admission into the community, and she had no sooner congratulated her than the superior exclaimed: “I know well of what you are thinking: you believe that I am going to offer you a place in our community. I do indeed, and it depends on yourself to become one of our number.” Her director, however, showed no favor to the project until the divine call became so distinct and irresistible that he could not oppose it.

The Archbishop of Tours authorized the convent to receive her without a dowry; her sister assumed the education and future care of her son, and, giving him her last instructions, she parted with him and her aged father. Then, with the blessing of the archbishop, she entered the convent, expecting to commence her novitiate as a lay sister, but to her confusion was placed among the choir nuns.

She had reached the haven for which she had so long prepared herself by prayer and mortification; but a storm soon arose. Her son, excited by some who disapproved of her course, made his way into the convent, and by cries and complaints and boyish threats so interfered with the order of the community that it seemed impossible to retain the novice. A Jesuit Father, however, becoming acquainted with her great virtues and the difficulty of her position, took charge of young Martin’s education and placed him in a college of his order.

Thus freed from the last care, Mme. Martin took the white veil of a novice, and assumed in religion the name of Mother Mary of the Incarnation. In the sacred abode of piety new lights seemed to be given her. A knowledge of Latin was imparted to her without study, and an infused understanding of the Scriptures. Her fellow-novices listened to her eloquent and solid expositions with breathless wonder. But in a moment darkness overspread her soul, and she was assailed by the most horrible temptations. All her spiritual life seemed an error and an illusion; a self-deceit and a deceit in her director. Unfortunately her wise and experienced spiritual guide was removed about this critical time, and was replaced by one who regarded her as an ill-directed visionary. Her devotions in behalf of the obsessed sisters of Laudun made her the object of terrible visitations. Her son, after a brilliant opening at college, was led astray, and tidings came that he was threatened with expulsion. Everything seemed to thwart the vocation of the servant of God; but for two years amid all these trials she persevered in her novitiate, and when her superior directed her to prepare for her profession she obeyed, and pronounced her vows on the 25th of January, 1633, rewarded for a brief period with the highest spiritual consolation, only to be followed by a fresh season of trial.

At last a new and experienced director enlightened and relieved her soul; and this strong woman, taught in the bitter school of experience, became mistress of novices. Soon after in a prophetic vision she saw the Blessed Virgin and our Lord overlooking some vast land sunk in the depths of heathen darkness. Without knowing yet to what part of the world this vision seemed to call her, she became filled with a desire to aid by her prayers and other good works the missionaries laboring in pagan lands. But this did not divert her from her duties as mistress of novices. Her instructions to the young candidates were full of unction, and based especially on the words of Holy Writ. She explained fully and clearly to them the Psalms of David, which form so large a part of their office, and the Canticle of Canticles, in which the great masters of spiritual life have seen such mysteries of the union between the elect souls of predilection and our Lord. She also composed for their use a catechism, which the judicious Father Charlevoix, the historian of New France, regarded as perhaps the best then extant in French. “We may at least aver,” he adds, “that there is none in which the truths are explained with greater order, precision, and conciseness. The selection and application of the passages of Scripture show that Mother Mary of the Incarnation was one of those who in her age knew the Holy Scriptures most thoroughly. All breathes a wonderful simplicity which avoids that dangerous curiosity, the ordinary cause of pride, levity of mind, and insensibility of heart.”[130] The novices formed by her showed how solidly she had grounded them in spiritual life, and how fully her great experiences and trials had enabled her to guide them through all the dangers of that period where unwise and rash directors make shipwreck of so many vocations or hurry the unstable and doubtful into professions for which they have no grace of state. The novices of Mother Mary of the Incarnation can be traced among the superiors and important officers of many of the greatest Ursuline convents of France.

The interior sense of a vocation to the foreign missions grew steadily within her till her very body wasted under the longing and yearning to know the will of God. Her prayer was incessant. At last a divine light suffused her soul, and at the same time these words were spoken to her: “Ask me through the Heart of Jesus, my most amiable Son; it is through it that I shall grant thy desire.” From that moment, she declares, she felt so intimately united to the Heart of Jesus that she spoke and breathed only through it.

Among the points she often inculcated on the novices was a constant devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, of which she was one of the early propagators, although God did not make her the instrument of its general diffusion. She would say to her novices: “The Eternal Father has made known to a person that he is ever disposed to grant what is asked of him through the Heart of his Son.”

One day she explained to her director, the Jesuit Father Dinet, her interest in the foreign missions and her mysterious dream. He remarked that it seemed very possible, and that Canada was probably the country designated in the vision. She had never heard of the colony begun there by France some twenty-five years before, and knew absolutely nothing about it; but some days afterwards, while in choir, she had an ecstasy and the vision was repeated, but she heard distinctly: “It is Canada that I show thee; and thou must go thither to found a house in honor of Jesus and Mary.” God’s designs were becoming clearer; and when a few days later she received from the Jesuit Father Poncet—now known for his labors and sufferings in Canada and New York, but then a perfect stranger to her—one of those Jesuit _Relations_ which our bibliophiles so eagerly seek, and a pilgrim’s staff from Loretto, she felt that the land for her future labors and prayers was beyond the Atlantic. Father Poncet sent with the pilgrim’s staff these words: “I send you this staff to invite you to go and serve God in New France.”

In her heart she responded fully; but how was she, a cloistered nun, to begin a convent in a distant colony of a few log huts, a colony with no female population, where everything was poor, scanty, struggling, and laborious? How was she to become the pioneer nun among the backwoodsmen who had begun to clear the Canadian forest? Nothing could seem to most minds more preposterous in a nun in a quiet convent in a quiet provincial town in France. Yet Providence was guiding her surely to her work. A holy young widow, Mme. de la Peltrie, who had reluctantly entered the marriage state when her heart was in the cloister, had responded to a call in a Jesuit _Relation_ of Canada, where Father Le Jeune exclaimed: “Alas! cannot some good and virtuous lady be found willing to come to this land to gather up the blood of Jesus Christ by instructing the little Indian girls?” She resolved to devote herself, and, when stricken down by illness and given up by physicians, she made a vow to St. Joseph, promising to consecrate under his patronage her fortune and her life to the service of the Indian girls. A recovery from the very brink of the grave, that seemed a miracle, confirmed her. Baffling all the objections of her family, she sought some community of religious to begin the work in which she desired to take an active part. The Jesuit missionaries from the shores of Lake Huron were writing to Mother Mary of the Incarnation; the Jesuits in France had resolved to attempt an Ursuline convent in New France. Mme. de la Peltrie and Father Poncet wrote to Mother Mary of the Incarnation to undertake the great work. The divine call so mysteriously given was at last accomplished. Her letter to the holy widow shows the fulness of her heart.

“Ah! my dear lady,” she writes, “beloved spouse of my divine Master,
in finding you I have found her whom I love in truth, since there is
no greater or truer love than to give one’s self and all one has for
the person beloved. And since it has pleased His mercy to give me
the same sentiments, it seems that my heart is in yours, and that
both together are but one in that of Jesus, amid those vast and
infinite spaces where we embrace the little Indian girls, teaching
them how to love Him who is infinitely amiable. Do you really mean,
madame, to do me and those of my companions whom God well chose this
favor, to take us with you and connect us with your noble design?
For five years now have I been awaiting the opportunity to obey the
urgent summons which the Holy Ghost has made me; and, not to speak
untruly, I believe that you are the one whom his divine Majesty
wishes to employ to enable me to enjoy this blessing.”

This was in November, 1638. So rapidly did all progress that early in spring two pious companies gathered at Dieppe to found amid the unbroken wilderness of Canada the first convents of religious women—the first, indeed, between the Mexican frontier towns and the icy ocean.

On a vessel devoted to St. Joseph, already designated to Mother Mary as the patron of Northern America, embarked May 4, 1639, Mme. de la Peltrie and her attendant, Mother Mary of the Incarnation, and Mother St. Joseph, the only Ursuline of Tours who was permitted to join her, though all desired to do so; with Mother Cecilia of the Holy Cross from the Ursuline convent at Dieppe, three Hospital Nuns of the order of St. Augustine, Father Vimont, Superior-General of the Jesuit Missions in Canada, with two missionaries for that field, Father Chaumonot and Father Poncet.

The voyage was menaced at first by pirates and cruisers; was long and stormy, and the vessel escaped as by a miracle being crushed by a mountain-like iceberg. Yet, amid storm and blast, the vessel was a monastery and chapel; Mass was said, and the nuns, in two choirs, chanted the office of the day. On the 15th of July they reached Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay, and the passengers in a smaller vessel then ran up the river to Quebec.

At daybreak on the 1st of August the whole population of the little settlement was gathered on the height, their eyes fixed on Ile Orleans. At last boats were seen putting out. The Chevalier de Montmagny, Knight of Malta, Governor of Canada, marched to the water-side with his garrison, followed by all the settlers, and the cannons of the fort saluted the sisters as their barks touched the strand.

Mother Mary of the Incarnation had reached the field of her labors, designated so long by heaven. It was a land endeared to her by the will of God. When she stepped ashore she and her companions prostrated themselves and kissed with respect the land so long desired. They were then escorted to the Church of Our Lady of Recouvrance, where a _Te Deum_ was chanted and Mass offered up. All communicated, and Mother Mary remained long before the altar in a holy ecstasy.

The work of building up her convent began. After visiting the Indian mission at Sillery the Ursulines took up their temporary residence in a little house in the lower town. One of the two rooms was choir, dormitory, and refectory; the other a school, where their first pupils were six Indian and some French girls born in the colony. A little chapel was erected beside this rude convent, and here this little community spent three years amid trials, hardships, and suffering, awaiting the completion of the new structure. Quebec was but a hamlet of two hundred and fifty souls, and, though Mme. de la Peltrie generously devoted her fortune, the work made but slow progress. In the selection of the site Mother Mary showed not only a superior judgment and prudence but a holy submission of her will. When the question of the site was raised their director, Mme. de la Peltrie, and the sisters fixed upon a spot. Mother Mary alone recommended a different one, and gave her reasons. Her opinion was rejected almost without examination, and the building was begun at the proposed place; but the difficulties and disadvantages were soon seen. The work was stopped, and the site suggested by the servant of God was adopted as really the only practicable one.

When the Ursulines were installed in this temporary convent Mother Mary of the Incarnation was at once elected their superior. The instruction of the Indian girls being one of the principal objects of the foundation, Mother Mary commenced the study of the Algonquin language, spoken by all the tribes on the St. Lawrence. It was no easy task, but she acquired it with an ease that astonished all.

The discomforts of these pioneer nuns were not yet completed. Their little convent was crowded to its fullest extent with Indian girls, whom they washed and clothed, and were endeavoring to form to European life, when the good nuns were dismayed to find the smallpox make its appearance in the Indian villages. Their school became an hospital, and the Ursulines stripped themselves of all their linen for the use of the sick.

The arrival of two sisters from the Ursuline convent at Paris gave the holy superior great joy, but the members of the little community were now from three different houses, each with special rules of its own, and great diversity of opinion prevailed as to the rule to be adopted. The patience, piety, and caution displayed by Mother Mary were those of a saint; and her really great mind and thorough knowledge of nature and grace enabled her to blend all into one happy community actuated by the same spiritual instinct.

But the very existence of the house was menaced. The expenses, especially in the great multitude of articles that it was necessary to import constantly from France, and the aid given to the Indians in health and sickness, exceeded all their income, and Mme. de la Peltrie withdrew for a time to Montreal, depriving them of her usual and stipulated contribution. Their agent in France assured them that the establishment must be abandoned, that there was no way left except to return to France. But Mother Mary was undisturbed. Her holy soul never lost its calm, its union with God. She wrote incessantly, and her appeals to hundreds of charitable souls in France brought alms that saved the convent.

Mme. de la Peltrie returned to the community she had helped to found, and on the 21st of November, 1642, the Ursulines took possession of their new monastery. It was not the only consolation of the venerable superior. Letters from France announced that her son, after securing a favorable position at court, had abandoned the world and entered the novitiate of the learned order of St. Benedict, where in time he became an illustrious member.

The new building was spacious, but in their poverty they still had much to suffer, especially in the long Canadian winters. Then came the overthrow of the Hurons in Upper Canada, the massacre of many holy missionaries personally known to Mother Mary, who beheld at her doors a crowd of fugitive Hurons. Their language she learned, to be able to labor for their good, if God spared the colony; for the Iroquois, intoxicated with success, now ravaged the valley of the St. Lawrence, and no one was safe even at Quebec.

While all were paralyzed by fear, and the colony in its sorest distress, fire broke out in the convent one December night toward the close of the year 1650, and before dawn naught remained but the walls. Mother Mary was the last to leave the burning structure. The whole community and their pupils were left in the snow, in their night-dresses, nothing having been saved of their clothing or stores. The Hospital Nuns received them with open arms and the whole town endeavored to meet their wants.

All was gone. There seemed no course but to return to France. Such was not, however, the decision of Mother Mary and her heroic companions. “The resolution was that, without further delay, we should rebuild on the same foundation, inasmuch as our courage had not been crushed by the weight of this disaster, and as our vocations were as strong or stronger than before, and the girls of French and of Indian origin needed our services.”

The work was begun at once, Mother Mary and the other sisters helping to clear away the ruins. A little house which Mme. de la Peltrie had erected became their temporary convent, while by loans they paid the workmen to continue the work on the new building. The work cost thirty thousand livres, and the furnishing and supplies required still more. Yet all came so wonderfully that Mother Mary of the Incarnation declared it to be a miracle and ascribed it to the special protection of the Blessed Virgin.

Soon after an Iroquois army spread terror through Canada, till a heroic band sacrificed themselves in an attack on the ferocious enemy, and by a glorious death so crippled them that the savages retired. During the panic caused by these cruel invaders the Ursulines were forced to leave their convent, which became a fortified house. Then came an earthquake which convulsed the whole country, attended by meteors that filled all with terror and alarm. Amid all these dangers Mother Mary of the Incarnation preserved unruffled her calm and serenity of soul.

One of the founders of the colony, she lived to see it develop and strengthen; children born on the soil had grown up under her guidance and become mothers of families, handing down to coming generations the solid Christian instruction imparted to them by Mother Mary of the Incarnation and her sisters in religion. Canada had grown, too, from a mere mission to an organized church with a holy bishop at its head, a seminary for the training of candidates for the priesthood, a Jesuit college, and inferior schools. Her work was well-nigh accomplished. In 1664 she felt the first symptoms of the disease which was to terminate the long death of her earthly existence and unite her for ever to her heavenly Spouse. Extenuated by austerities, labor, and vigils, she was attacked by a continued fever, accompanied by effusion of bile and violent pains which gave her no rest by night or day. Her constitution, naturally so strong and enduring, could no longer resist the inroads of the malady. She was soon at the point of death, and received the last sacraments amid the sighs and tears of her spiritual children. All Quebec was in tears, for there was scarcely a family in which she was not looked up to as a guide and mother. The continual prayers seemed to move Heaven to spare her to them for a time. But she survived only to remain on the cross in a state of continual suffering. Masses, novenas, prayers were offered for her complete recovery; but she herself offered none. Several persons, among others Bishop Laval, who visited her regularly, implored her to solicit her cure from God; but she replied that she felt utterly unable to frame such a prayer. “Of what use can an infirm old woman of sixty be? Oh! do not prolong my exile; let me go to my God.”

She did not even beg for a cessation of her pain or her state of suffering. The office of superior had been for the third time conferred upon her; from this she now asked to be relieved, as she was unable to discharge the duties incumbent on it. But when her director declined to permit this she submitted without a murmur and continued to bear the burden.

“My present condition,” she wrote to her son, “is most dear to me,
because the cross is the pleasure and the delight of Jesus. I can
never recover from my long malady, which has very painful and
torturing consequences. But nature grows tame to suffering and
becomes familiar with pain. I even feel attached to it; and I fear
that my tepidity will oblige the divine goodness to deprive me of
it, or at least to moderate it. Everything I take is like wormwood,
and constantly brings to my mind the gall in the Passion of our
Lord. This makes me love this state.”

Yet in a state which would have kept most persons prostrate on a bed she labored as unremittingly as ever. She rose the first and retired the last, attended all the duties of the community, conducted an extensive correspondence, and, when too weak to do other work, employed her time in painting or embroidery. Her existence during the eight years she spent in this state was as great a mystery as her whole mystical life had been.

Her missionary zeal never flagged, and the great consolation of these years was to instruct in the Algonquin and Huron languages the younger members of the community, to enable them to continue after her death the instructions which she had been in the habit of giving. It would seem as if her wish had been gratified, for two centuries after her death Huron girls were among the pupils in the convent she founded, playing beneath the very tree where she and Mme. de la Peltrie had washed, dressed, and instructed the Indian children.

Her works compiled for the use of the sisters, had they escaped the conflagrations of the monastery, would give her a high rank among the authors in Indian languages, for they comprised two extended Algonquin dictionaries, an Iroquois catechism, and a huge volume of Bible stories in Algonquin.

She could now walk only when supported. Mother Mary of St. Joseph went to receive her reward. Mme. de la Peltrie was also taken from her.

On the night of the 15th of January, 1672, an oppression of the chest seized Mother Mary of the Incarnation, attended with incessant vomiting and fever. The end had come, but amid the most exquisite suffering not a sigh, not a complaint, scarcely the quivering of a muscle, betrayed what she was undergoing. She seemed absorbed in an ecstasy. She received the last sacraments with unspeakable joy, and asked pardon of her director, her superior, and the community for all the trouble she had given them. She spoke to the younger sisters in the most touching and eloquent terms to excite them to esteem their vocation and to encourage them to care for the Indian children.

But the community could not part with its founder. They offered up earnest prayers in her behalf, and her director, Father Lalemant, commanded her to join her prayers with them. Though anxious to be united to God, she obeyed. An immediate improvement ensued. She rallied so as to join the community in the devotions of Holy Week.

On the evening of Good Friday the pain of two tumors that had formed became intense. An operation was performed, but she sank gradually, and on the 30th of April entered into her agony. It was long; but the strength of purpose evinced in life enabled her even then to raise the crucifix repeatedly to her lips when speech and hearing were gone. At six o’clock in the afternoon, after looking around on her sisters, as if to take a last farewell, she gave two sighs and expired.

The news of her death spread rapidly. She had been regarded as a saint, and all flocked to the convent. Every pious person in Quebec desired some relic; so that everything belonging to her was carried away, and the Ursulines had great difficulty in retaining her large rosary, which has been preserved to this day as their chief relic. Her funeral service was attended by all the dignitaries in church and state, and a sermon by Father Jerome Lalemant, her chief director during her long mission in Canada, depicted her labors and her sublime virtues.

Her body was interred in the chapel vault, and amid all the vicissitudes of war, conflagration, and change of nationality the Ursulines have continued guardians of the precious remains of their foundress.

She had in life impressed all as one elevated above the common order, one who received extraordinary graces from God, and who corresponded with them. The missionaries, men versed in the direction of souls and the paths by which divine grace leads them, all entertained the highest esteem for her virtues. Her fellow-Ursulines living with her, watching her minutely from day to day and from year to year, could aver that they had never seen her commit a fault against meekness, patience, humility, charity, modesty, poverty, or obedience, and that she never let an occasion pass unheeded of practising those virtues.

When, therefore, all could piously believe that she was reigning with Christ, the confidence of the afflicted led them to seek her intercession, and the consolation derived has kept alive devotion to her to this time; while her letters, published by her son, revealed to the masters of spiritual life the wonderful interior and mystic life led by this nun in a rude convent amid the handful of log-houses which constituted the capital of New France.

Father Charlevoix alludes to the opinion of “two learned prelates who have not always been of the same opinion [evidently Bossuet and Fénelon], but who, nevertheless, agree in regarding her as one of the brightest lights of her age.” Bossuet in one of his arguments says:

“Mother Mary of the Incarnation, Ursuline, who is called the Teresa
of our days and of the New World, in a lively impression of the
inexorable justice of God, condemned herself to an eternity of pain
and offered herself for it, in order that God’s justice might be
satisfied, provided only, she said, ‘that I be not deprived of the
love of God and of God himself.’”

Mr. Emery, superior of St. Sulpice at Paris, wrote:

“The Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation is a saint whom I
revere most sincerely, and whom I place in my esteem beside St.
Teresa. In my last retreat her life, her letters, and her
meditations alone constituted my reading and the subject of my
mental prayer.”

Father Charlevoix wrote her life in gratitude for favors obtained by her intercession.

“Indebted,” says he, “as I have reason to believe, to the merits of
the foundress of the Ursulines in Canada that I did not end my days
in a foreign land in the flower of my life, it seemed to me that I
could not do less than extend her knowledge among men. Not that she
was hitherto unknown. The eulogium pronounced upon her by the
greatest men, and her own works, in which we admire an exquisite
taste, sound reason, a sublime genius, and that divine unction which
so well distinguishes the writings of the saints, have already
placed her in the rank of the most illustrious women.”

Father Galifet, in one of his spiritual works, says:

“Her life was full of marvels by the heroic virtues she practised,
by the supernatural gifts with which she was endowed, by the
choicest favors of her divine Spouse, by unspeakable communications
of the Divinity, by the wisdom she derived from the Scriptures and
from the mysteries of faith, and finally by the experience she had
of all conditions of interior life, which rendered her a thorough
mistress in this Divine knowledge.... This wonderful servant of God
had an extraordinary devotion for the Sacred Heart of Jesus at a
time when this devotion was yet unknown. She could have learned
nothing about it from men. It was from God himself that she learned
this in a heavenly revelation.”

Even Protestant writers, to whom all Catholic spiritual life is something unreal and deserving only of scorn and contempt, _blasphemantes quæ ignorant_, recognize in Mother Mary of the Incarnation a woman of a rare and singular combination of qualities, and never ascribe to her a fault. “She had uncommon talents and strong religious sensibilities,” says Parkman. “Strange as it may seem, this woman, whose habitual state was one of mystical abstraction, was gifted to a rare degree with the faculties most useful in the practical affairs of life.” “Her talent for business was not the less displayed.” “Now and henceforward one figure stands nobly conspicuous in this devoted sisterhood. Marie de l’Incarnation, ... engaged in the duties of Christian charity and the responsibilities of an arduous post, displays an ability, a fortitude, and an earnestness which command respect and admiration.” “Marie de l’Incarnation in her saddest moments neither failed in judgment nor slackened in effort. She carried on a vast correspondence, embracing every one in France who could aid her infant community with money or influence; she harmonized and regulated it with excellent skill; and in the midst of relentless austerities, she was loved as a mother by her pupils and dependants. Catholic writers extol her as a saint. Protestants may see in her a Christian heroine, admirable with all her follies and faults.”

The follies and faults consisted in her being a Catholic, a nun, and in rising to the higher states of mystical life.

And how are we to regard this inner life of this remarkable woman? Was this clear and gifted mind, this pure soul, this person devoting a long life to incessant occupation and free from all selfish taint, one to be readily self-deceived? Was anything that passed in her soul, as described by her, without its parallel in the history of the church? By no means. It is, indeed, the state to which few comparatively are called by God, and to which all who are called do not rise. But it is one recognized by the church, which is the pillar and ground of truth, and from the case of St. Paul there have been ever in the church remarkable examples of great souls combining the exterior activity with the highest contemplation. Wise and spiritual directors are seldom wanting as guides, and the highest authority in the church is frequently called upon to decide questions that arise.

“Moreover,” says Father Charlevoix, in reference to this very case,
“we have general rules which, being founded on good sense, are
within the reach of all; and they are given to us by the Doctors of
the church and by all the masters of interior life, as sure means to
guarantee us against seduction. I will not mention all, as the
detail would lead me too far, and the rules can readily be found. I
shall speak of only one of the most important, which includes the
principles of all the others. According to this rule, we may believe
that what passes in the soul is a favor of heaven, if in the conduct
of the person who receives it, in the matter in question, in the
manner in which it occurs, and in the effects which it produces,
there is nothing that does not lead to God, nothing savoring ever so
little of one’s own mind, or which can come from a suggestion of the
devil. For if in a vision, revelation, or any similar impression
nothing can be discovered that is not conformable to pure doctrine
and sanctity of life, if there is no ground for prudently fearing
surprise or deceit, on what basis can we pronounce the whole to be
frivolous? It may be that after all it is only an effect of the
imagination, but, at least, nothing is risked if the soul in which
it occurs remains in distrust of self and in humility.

“But if it is only an operation of the enemy of salvation to seduce
and lead into sin, a little application and experience will soon
reveal the venom hidden under the appearance of piety....

“When, then, we are told of a person to whom it is said that God
communicates himself in an extraordinary manner, if this person is
recognized by all acquainted with him to have a sound and upright
reason, a firm mind, imagination under control, solid virtue based
on Christian simplicity, humility, and distrust of self; if his
conduct never belies itself; if he perseveres to the end in the
exact discharge of his duties; if on all occasions he does works
worthy of that sublime state in which he is represented to be—there
is, I admit, no indispensable obligation of giving credit to what is
said in regard to him; but there is, it seems to me, a reasonable
prejudice in favor of this person, and we can scarcely avoid a want
of the respect due to God’s gifts in a soul which has all the
appearances of being so singularly adorned. I may even go further,
and if Lactantius has proved the truth of the Christian religion by
showing that it is in all points conformable to reason and nothing
contradicts it, would I not have some right to maintain that we can
recognize God’s operation in a soul when what passes there is in
perfect accord with good sense, faith, reason, and itself?”

When two centuries had elapsed after the holy death of Mother Mary of the Incarnation, and her memory was still fresh in the minds of the Canadian people and of the few remaining bands of Indians, and temporal and spiritual graces were constantly ascribed to her intercession, a process in due form was drawn up by the authority of the Archbishop of Quebec in regard to the miracles attributed to the servant of God. This was duly authenticated, and sealed and despatched to Rome in 1868 by a clergyman selected for this duty. These documents were presented to the secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and, according to a wise regulation, must lie there untouched for ten years, during which time nothing is to be done in regard to the desired beatification.

The Ursulines solicited the beatification of the illustrious member of their order; the remnant of the once powerful Huron nation attested the traditional reverence for her who had welcomed them when wretched fugitives from Iroquois cruelty, and had lavished her kindness on the hapless women and children, teaching them to suffer as Christians and training them to die worthy of the name.

The hierarchy of Canada, assembled in Provincial Council in that year, gave to the Holy See their testimony in regard to the fame of the servant of God.

“Nearly two centuries have elapsed,” say these venerable prelates,
“since the death in the Lord of Mary Guyart, called in religion
‘Mary of the Incarnation,’ first superior and foundress of the
Ursuline convent erected in this city of Quebec. How illustrious she
was both in the theological virtues and in the observance of the
religious life is attested by history and by constant tradition. The
tree is still shown under which she sat and taught the Indian girls
the rudiments of the faith; the wandering tribes still retain a
tradition of the benign mother who first introduced into this land,
then seated in darkness and in the shadow of death, such an
illustrious example of monastic life in her sex.

“As years have gone by, the fame of her sanctity and her miracles
has not decreased, but is rather increased from day to day,
especially as many aver openly every day that they have obtained
great temporal and spiritual benefits through her invocation....

“Assembled in provincial council, turning to your paternity with the
utmost confidence, we cannot refrain from expressing our most ardent
desire, as well as that of our diocesans, and of all the Ursulines
scattered throughout the whole Catholic world, of soon publicly and
solemnly invoking her whose assistance we now often implore
privately but efficaciously.”

Such was the testimony of the Archbishop of Quebec and the bishops of Montreal, Ottawa, Hamilton, St. Boniface, Kingston, Toronto, St. Hyacinth, Three Rivers, St. Germain, and Sandwich, given in the most solemn form.

The ten years of patient waiting had almost ended in 1877, and further steps could be taken. The documents were by a special permission opened, the life of the servant of God and her writings were proposed. It was then for the Holy See to decide whether they presented such a case that the cause of her beatification could be introduced, and the long law-suit, so to say, be commenced in which her life, writings, and miracles should be subjected to the severest scrutiny. The Sacred Congregation of Rites reported favorably, and one of the latest acts of the great Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IX., was:

“Our most Holy Father, Pope Pius IX., having deigned to permit on
the 9th of September of last year that the question of the signature
of the commission charged with introducing the cause of the servant
of God, Sister Mary of the Incarnation, be brought up in the Sacred
Congregation of Rites, in ordinary session, and without the
participation and the vote of the consultors, although it is not ten
years since the day of the presentation of the process of the
ordinary in the Acts of the Congregation of Rites, and that the
writings of the said servant of God have not been inquired into or
examined;

“The Most Eminent and Most Reverend Cardinal Aloysius Bilio, Prefect
of the said congregation, in the name and in the absence of the Most
Eminent Cardinal Bartolini, reporter of the cause, at the instance
of the Rev. Benjamin Paquet, Private Camerlengo to his Holiness, and
Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the Catholic University of
Quebec, designated as postulator in this cause, in view of the
postulatory letters of a great number of cardinals of the holy Roman
Church, of venerable prelates and persons illustrious by their
ecclesiastical and civil dignity, to-day proposed at the session of
the Sacred Rites, held at the Vatican, the discussion of the
following question: ‘Should the commission of introduction of the
cause, in the case and for the object in question, be signed?’

“The same Sacred Congregation, having maturely examined all things,
having heard the address and report of Father Lorenzo Salvati,
promoter of the faith, has decided to answer affirmatively, that is,
that the commission should be signed, if such was the will of the
Holy Father.—September 15, 1877.

“The undersigned secretary having then made a true report of all
the foregoing to our Holy Father, Pope Pius IX., His Holiness
ratified and confirmed the decision of the Sacred Congregation,
and signed with his own hand the commission of introduction of the
cause of the venerable servant of God, the said Mary of the
Incarnation.—September 20, 1877.

“A., Bishop of Sabina,
CARDINAL BILIO, _Prefect_.
”PLACIDUS RALLI, _Secretary_.”

Years will be spent in the investigation; and meanwhile the hearts of the devout, not only in Canada but throughout this country, will turn with confidence to this wonderful and holy woman, this early propagator in the western world of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, soaring to the highest mystical contemplation, yet immersed in constant, active labor—a fitting patroness indeed for so many of us who find the best and holiest impulses of our lives choked and stifled by the thorns and brambles of earthly cares and duties. Her intercession will be as powerful as it has been, and it may be in God’s providence that confidence will be rewarded by some striking mark of favor to attest the sanctity of his servant.

* * * * *

The body of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation, at the time of the removal of the remains of the deceased members of the community to the new choir in 1724, was placed in a leaden coffin with those of Mme. de la Peltrie and Mother St. Joseph. They were again taken up in 1799 and placed under the communion screen. On the 30th of April, 1833, the ever-constant devotion to Mother Mary of the Incarnation led to another verification of her relics. The leaden coffin was found full of clear, limpid water, which was devoutly preserved as a relic of the holy foundress, and has been, under God, the instrument of many cures which are regarded as miraculous.

The first of these occurred, we may say, on the spot. One of the scholars, Miss Margaret Mary Gowan, had for a year been deprived of the use of an arm. Full of confidence in the Venerable Mother Mary, she began a novena, applying the water that had touched her venerated relics. A total cure followed. This remarkable restoration was soon made known, and far and wide the afflicted turned as of old to this holy servant of God for temporal and spiritual aid.

Cures like that of Father Charlevoix had taken place from time to time, but the authentications had been neglected or perished in the repeated destructions of the convent by fire. The miracles of recent date are well attested. Miss Gowan became a Sister of Charity, and is, we believe, still alive to give her testimony of the cure wrought in 1833.

The devotion of the Venerable Mother Mary is generally a novena, using especially her prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus[131] and the application of the water.

Among the prodigies ascribed to this servant of God are the cure of Mary Coté, a girl of twelve living at Black River. She had been blind for five years after an attack of small-pox. No pupil, iris, or cornea could be distinguished in either eye, and the pain, especially in winter, was intense. Dr. Morin examined her and declared it an incurable case of _leucoma_. By the advice of Miss Bilodeau, the teacher at the place, to whom the child was brought to prepare for her First Communion, she began a novena to Mother Mary of the Incarnation, applying a drop of the water. On the fourth day, during Mass, the child felt all pain leave her eyes, and, raising them for the first time, saw the altar and a large statue of the Blessed Virgin upon it. On examining the eyes they were found clear and limpid. A few reddish stains remained for some days in the left eye, but gradually disappeared. The cure was complete and durable, and was attested by the physician, the teacher, and others who were eye-witnesses. This remarkable cure occurred June 8, 1867.

The cure of James McCormac, a boy five years old, in 1868, is also attested in a most satisfactory manner. He suffered from terrible internal pain, especially in the bowels, and from a contraction of the leg, and hip disease. No sooner had a novena been begun and the water applied than the pain ceased and the child was able to get upon his feet and walk, though uncertainly, like a young infant not yet accustomed to step. At the end of the novena he walked perfectly, and from that time enjoyed complete health. Damian Gavard was similarly cured at St. Alban in 1876.

The devotion to the Venerable member of their order extended to the Ursuline convents in Europe, and cases are reported from Aubresles, Quimperlé, Carhaix, Blois, Mons, in France and Belgium, as though Providence was preparing near the Eternal City testimony of the sanctity of the Canadian nun.

Footnote 130:

It was published in France in 1684 under the title of _L’Ecole
Chrétienne_.

Footnote 131:

Prayer of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation:

“It is through the Heart of Jesus, my way, my truth, and my life, that
I approach thee, O Eternal Father. Through this divine Heart I worship
thee for all who worship thee not; I love thee for all who love thee
not; I acknowledge thee for all the wilfully blind who through
contempt acknowledge thee not. I wish by this divine Heart to fulfil
the duty of all men. In spirit I traverse the whole world to seek all
the souls ransomed by the most precious Blood of my divine Spouse, in
order to satisfy thee for them all by this divine Heart. I embrace
them in order to present them to thee through it, and by it I ask of
thee their conversion. Wilt thou, O Eternal Father, suffer them to be
ignorant of my Jesus, or live not for him who died for all? Thou
beholdest, O divine Father, that they live not yet. Oh! make them live
through the divine Heart.

MABEL WILLEY’S LOVERS.

Early one June morning, not many years ago, a young couple might have been seen strolling along by the side of a babbling brook a short distance from the village of North Conway, New Hampshire.

Harry Fletcher, although a late riser when at home, had determined to be up betimes this morning and catch a mess of trout for breakfast. Not for his own breakfast, however, but for that of Miss Kitty Gibbon, who, like himself, had come to pass a few weeks at the Kearsarge House.

“’Twill please her,” thought Harry, “to hear how I left my comfortable couch for her sake, at an hour when only farmers are stirring.”

But Miss Gibbon, who had seen him the evening before making ready his fishing-tackle, had said to herself: “I’ll be up early, too, and go with him.” And she kept her word; nay, she was down before her admirer. And when the latter discovered Kitty seated on the piazza reading _Middlemarch_, he of course invited her to accompany him; which invitation Kitty accepted, but not until he had asked her a second time; and then she closed the book slowly, lingering a moment over the last line and exclaiming: “What an interesting tale this is!” So that Harry was half tempted to apologize for thus interrupting her reading.

“The truth is, Miss Gibbon,” he said, as they wended their way toward the stream—“the truth is, I know that you like fresh trout. For no other human being would I have risen at such an unearthly hour.”

“Indeed!” returned Kitty with an air of perfect indifference. Yet, accustomed as she was to receiving attention and to hear flattering words, she could not prevent a tiny rose from blooming on her pallid cheek when Harry went on to assure her upon his honor that this was the truth.

In our opinion Miss Gibbon is an attractive young lady. But most people might not agree with us; and not a few of her rivals declare it is only her money that makes her so pleasing to the gentlemen. There is, indeed, a slight cast in one of her eyes, and her forehead is somewhat too broad for a woman’s. But then she is gifted with a melodious voice (a rare gift among American women) and has exquisite teeth, which she knows how to display to the best advantage by a merry laugh practised before the mirror. Her hair, too, wonderful to relate, is all her own, and, despite the care which she bestows on her toilet, one glossy ringlet always manages to escape from its thraldom and fly hither and thither. But the best feature Kitty possesses—at least so think we—is her nose. It is a bold Roman nose, which proclaims her to be a girl of character; and we are convinced that, however spoilt she may be by fortune, there is a solid groundwork of worth in Kitty which would reveal itself if the occasion demanded it.

Her mother, who is a rich widow, has been living five or six years abroad, most of the time in Paris, and Mrs. Gibbon only came home this summer because she thought that a trip across the ocean would be good for her daughter’s health.

Harry Fletcher, Kitty’s companion this June morning, is the son of a prominent New York banker; and as it seems to be one of the laws of nature that wealth should attract wealth, we cannot wonder if he and Miss Gibbon have very soon become known to each other.

“He will be as good a catch for you, child, as you will be for him,” spoke the watchful mother. “And if you play your cards right we may be back in Paris before October, bringing Mr. Fletcher along with us; and, considering his prospects, he will do almost as well as a count.”

It would be untrue, however, to say that there was no real love between this youthful pair. Money may, indeed, have first drawn them together; but now, after only a fortnight’s acquaintance, we doubt, if one of them were suddenly to be stricken with poverty, whether poverty would separate them.

“How charming this walk is!” exclaimed Harry, as he took Kitty’s hand to help her over a fallen tree.

“In Paris such a delightful walk would not be possible,” answered Kitty.

“Do you really enjoy it?” said Harry. “It must seem so different from the Champs Elysées and the Bois de Boulogne.”

His companion was silent a moment, and ’twas not until he repeated that the pine woods and stony fields of New Hampshire must appear very rugged and unpleasant to her that she said:

“Well, but here, sir, I do for once in my life feel that I am free. Why, at the fashionable _pensionnat_ where mother put me I was not allowed to walk out alone even with my cousin Arthur.”

“Oh! you can’t imagine how I long to see Paris,” continued Harry.

“Well, despite what I have just said,” answered Kitty, “it is a most fascinating city—the queen of cities; and there is a large colony of Americans there, who have made up their minds to die in Paris, and who look upon their countrymen here as semi-barbarians.”

In a few minutes they reached the brook and Harry cast in his fly. But no fish rose; and presently he gave another throw. This time it was not skilfully done, or rather it was most skilfully done, for the fly, as it went circling round his head, got caught in Kitty’s truant curl, who laughed and said: “You have hooked a big trout now, Mr. Fletcher.”

“Well, I came purposely to catch a mess for you,” returned Harry. “But may I crave leave to keep this one dear fish all for myself?”

“What do you mean?” laughed Kitty, as he tried to disentangle the fly.

“I mean—” here his fingers stopped working and his voice trembled. “I mean—” Kitty, who understood him well enough, in another moment gave the happy response, and Harry was so overjoyed that he wound up his line and did not fish any more.

But they did not return immediately to the village; they felt drawn nearer to each other in the lonely woods, with only the trees and the brook to watch them; and so on and on they wandered, until by and by they emerged from the forest and saw before them an old farmhouse with moss-covered roof, on which the morning sun was shining, and round about the homestead the stream made well-nigh a circle—a bright, silvery circle, murmuring sweet music to those who dwelt there. The lovers paused a moment and gazed upon the scene without speaking. Then presently Kitty said: “I could live in such a spot all my life.”

“So could I,” said Harry, turning his sparkling eyes upon her. “With you I could live anywhere.”

“Let us draw nearer,” continued Kitty, “and speak to the young woman who is feeding the turkeys by the door; and quite a pretty girl she is,” Kitty added in an undertone, as Mabel Willey turned towards them.

“Yes, if one admires a dark complexion,” said Harry.

“And buried among these hills!” continued Kitty compassionately. “But I forgot what I said a moment ago; if I could be happy here with you, dear Harry, why, she may have a lover too, and not pine one bit for city life.”

The genial way in which Mabel returned their greeting quite won Kitty’s heart, while Harry inwardly confessed that, although he did not like brunettes, she was the handsomest one he had ever seen. And when presently he glanced down at her bare feet she did not blush, but quietly remarked:

“I have been gathering lilies, sir, at the pond, and I had to wade in after them.”