She then stopped, as if to breathe a little for a few minutes. She added:
“In the name of God, tell me, can my child forgive me her death? Can she ask God to look upon me with mercy? Can she cause the blessed Virgin Mary to pray for me and obtain my pardon?”
But before I could answer, she horrified us by the cries, “I am lost! When drunk I killed my child! Cursed wine!”
And she fell a corpse on the floor. Torrents of blood were flowing from her mouth on her dead child, which she was pressing to her bosom even after her death!
That terrible drama was never revealed to the people of Quebec. The coroner’s inquest was that the child’s death was accidental, and that the distressed mother died from a broken heart six hours after.
Two days later the unfortunate mother was buried, with the body of her child clasped in her arms. Many tears were shed on that tomb, and this dear little child’s guardian angel must have written with its blood on that tomb: “Wine is a mocker; look not at it. It biteth like a serpent, and stings like an adder.” However, what I had just seen and heard could not be buried and forgotten in the grave.
After such a terrible storm, I was in need of solitude and rest, but above everything I was in need of praying. I shut myself in my little room for two days, and there, alone, in the presence of God, I meditated on the terrible justice and retribution which He had called me to witness. The unfortunate woman had not only been my penitent: she had been, with her husband, among my dearest and most devoted friends. It was only lately that she had become a slave to drunkenness. Before that, her piety and sense of honor were of the most exalted kind known in the Church of Rome. Her last words were not the commonplace expressions which ordinary sinners proffer at the approach of death; her words had a solemnity for me which almost transformed them into oracles of God in my mind. Each of them sounded in my ears as if an angel of God had touched the thousand strings of my soul, to call my attention to a message from heaven. Sometimes they resembled the terrible voice of thunder; and again it seemed as if a seraph, with his golden harp, were singing them in my ears, that I might prepare to fight faithfully for the Lord against His gigantic enemy, alcohol.
In the middle of that horrible night, when the darkness was most profound and the stillness fearful, was I awake, was I sleeping? I do not know. But I saw the calm, beautiful and cherished form of my dear mother standing by me, holding by the hand the late murderess, still covered with the blood of her child. Yes! my beloved mother was there standing before me; and she said, with power and authority which engraved every one of her words on my soul, as if written with letters of tears, blood and fire: “Go all over Canada; tell every father of a family never to put any intoxicating drink before his children. Tell all the mothers never to take a drop of those cursed wines and drinks. Tell the whole people of Canada never to touch nor look at the poisoned cup, filled with those cursed intoxicating drinks. And thou, my beloved son, give up forever the use of those detestable beverages, which are cursed in hell, in heaven and on earth. It bites like a serpent; it stings like an adder.”
When the sound of that voice, so sweet and powerful, was hushed, and my soul had ceased seeing that strange vision of the night, I remained for some time exceedingly agitated and troubled. I said to myself, “Is it possible that the terrible things I have seen and heard these last few days will destroy my mind, and send me to the lunatic asylum?”
I had hardly been able to take any sleep or food for the last three days and nights, and I seriously feared lest the weakness of my body would cause me to lose my reason. I then threw myself on my knees to weep and pray. This did me good. I soon felt myself stronger and calmer.