When the time came for assuming the religious habit, the novice might well have doubted her own identity, so strangely and utterly was she changed. Illusion had vanished, and truth had triumphed In laying aside the secular dress, she seemed to be, in a moment mysteriously divested of the spirit of the world. Its imaginary attractions ceased to tempt, now that she could see them in their false colouring; its deceitful promises ceased to allure, now that she could correctly interpret their hollowness and insincerity. And if her ideas of the world were changed, so likewise were her views of the religious life. Deeply appreciating the immense favour which God had conferred on her in calling her to it, she devoted herself heart and soul to all its duties, embracing its penitential rigours with holy eagerness, and making it her great aim to hide her good works from all but God. She pronounced her vows with a joy that was more of heaven than earth, and would be named 'Mary of the Incarnation;' that hearing herself called by the name of her aunt, she might be perpetually stimulated to imitate her virtues. She had the advantage of a constant correspondence with Her, and after a most holy life, went to rejoin her in the blessed home to which the saintly Mother had long preceded her. In a letter of October, 1671, we meet the following words, the last ever addressed by the Venerable Mother to the beloved niece whom she had been the first to offer to God at her birth, and for whose salvation she had endured so much:—"Oh! how ardently I desire that you may become a saint, at the cost of any suffering or sacrifice to myself! As my farewell, permit me to say to you in the words of our Lord, 'He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.'"
After having borne her heavy interior crosses for seven years, with only partial and temporary alleviation, the Mother of the Incarnation was inspired to apply for relief to the Blessed Virgin. It was on the Feast of the Assumption, 1647. Hardly had the petition been presented, when it was granted. Suddenly she felt, she says, as if divested of a leaden garment, which had long oppressed her with its crushing weight, and on the arrival of the next vessel from Europe, she learned that the period of her emancipation from suffering exactly coincided with that of her niece's clothing in the convent at Tours. Her soul, she writes, overflowed with a peace which it would be impossible to describe in human language. Capable of understanding the advantages of tribulation, she blessed God with the Psalmist, that He had humbled her; that He had led her through the thorny ways of the cross, to a higher experimental knowledge of the sacred maxims of the Gospel, in which she found strength and support for her soul, not only under the pressure of spiritual trial, but amidst the multiplied difficulties and embarrassments which her arduous external duties entailed.
In order not to interrupt the history of the conversion of her niece, chronological order has been slightly anticipated. Retracing our steps a short distance, we meet some new names intermingled with those already so well known to us. The evergrowing eagerness both of French and Indians for instruction, and the continual increase in the number of applicants for it, had rendered more help indispensable. The harvest was greater than the few labourers could reap, so they appealed once more to France, which sent them Mother Anne of the Seraphim, from Ploermel in Brittany, in 1643, and the Mothers Anne of St. Cecilia, and Anne of our Lady from Tours, the year following. The two first returned to France, the one after thirteen, the other after eleven years in Canada.
In 1645, we find the Venerable Mother relieved from the burden of Superiority, which consistently with the Constitutions of the Ursuline Order cannot be borne by the same individual for more than six consecutive years. This high position had been a heavy cross to her, not only on account of the responsibilities which it entailed, but also because its arduous duties left her comparatively little time for the occupation which she prized beyond all others, the instruction of the Indians. She was succeeded by Mother St. Athanasius, the two continuing alternately to govern the community until death deprived them of the Venerable Mother.
The same year, according to the example of St. Teresa, she made a vow allowable only under very exceptional circumstances, to do, say, and think in all things whatever she considered most perfect, and most conducive to the glory of God, and so naturalized had she become by long habit to the practice of every virtue, that this vow never caused her an uneasiness. "Although I am but a poor sinful creature," she said, "God assists me to avoid every voluntary imperfection inconsistent with my promise. If involuntary faults mingle with the observance of it, I trust in His goodness to forgive them." She had at this time acquired that high degree of the habit of virtue, in which its acts are performed not only without pain, but with pleasure.
The first novice professed in Quebec was Charlotte Barré of St. Ignatius, the former companion of Madame de la Peltrie. She made her solemn vows on the 21st of November, 1648, and a few days after, her example was followed by Sister Catherine of St. Ursula, the first Canadian lay sister. Henceforth the little community continued gradually but steadily to increase in numbers.
From the first opening of the schools, the advantages of education had been extended to the French as well as to the Indians. Even in the small tenement which had served as a temporary convent, there were two French boarders; at the period now under consideration the number had increased to eighteen or twenty. That of the seminarists had amounted to eighty.
The year 1649 at which we have arrived, brings us to a tear-stained page in the annals of the infant Church of Canada. By a reference to the introductory chapter, it will be seen that this was the date of the massacre of the concerted Hurons and their saintly pastors, by the savage Iroquois. The sad event afflicted every heart in the colony, but perhaps most of all, the hearts of the Venerable Mother and of the Mother St. Joseph. The survivors, who numbered only four or five hundred, took refuge in Quebec, where they were received with extreme kindness. Some were located on a portion of the Isle of Orleans belonging to the Ursulines, and generously transferred by them to the unhappy fugitives. To relieve their distress, the religious deprived themselves of a good part of the food and clothing which they could very badly spare. The Mother of the Incarnation admitted many of their daughters into the seminary, and undertook, though in her fiftieth year, to learn the Huron tongue, that she might be enabled to impart the blessing of spiritual instruction to the exiles. Her teacher was Father Bressani, who had almost miraculously escaped from the hands of the Iroquois, after having undergone the ordinary course of torture prescribed by savage cruelty. She and the Mother St. Joseph divided the charge of teaching these new pupils, who besides ample instruction, received also generous alms. It was at this time that bread was first seen to multiply in the hands of the Venerable Mother: with only two or three loaves to divide among fifty or sixty persons, it was found that every one had a sufficient share. She perceived the prodigy herself and said quite simply, as she went on dividing the loaves, "I think our good God is multiplying this bread for His poor necessitous creatures." Even before this special demand on her charity, she had arranged that whatever might be their own distress, no Indian should ever be refused an alms at the monastery, and for this purpose, a supply of Indian meal porridge was always kept in readiness. Once, when she was Superior, a poor woman not satisfied with all she had already got, represented her great want of a pair of shoes in addition. Without the least discomposure at the unreasonable importunity, the charitable Mother took off her own and presented them to her, reserving for herself a very poor, slight pair, quite insufficient to protect her from the cold. The time was fast approaching, when she who had been ever ready to give her strength and life, and all else that she possessed for the relief of others, was to be reduced to the last degree of want, and left without even a shelter for her head!