[SISTER M. B.’S ARRIVAL IN MONTREAL, 1654.]
It is now two hundred years and more
Since first set foot on Canadian shore
That saint-like heroine, fair and pure,
Prepared all things for Christ to endure;
Resigning rank and kindred ties,
And her sunny home ’neath France’s skies.
A lonely sight for her to see
Was the wilderness town of Ville Marie!
The proud St. Lawrence, with silver foam,
Touched softly the base of our island home,
But frowning forest and tangled wood
Made the land a dreary solitude.
Nor mansion, chapel, nor glinting spire
Reflected the sunset’s fading fire;
The wigwam sent up its faint blue smoke,
The owlet’s shrill cry the stillness broke,
While the small rude huts of the settlers stood
Within frail palisades of wood.
Undaunted by fear of the savage foe,
Wild midnight blaze or th’assassin’s blow;
Careless of suffering, famine, want,
That haunted the settlers like spectres gaunt,
Sister Bourgeois had but one hope, one aim—
To humbly work in her Master’s name.
Kindly she gathered around her knee
The dusky daughters, unfettered, free,
Of forest tribes, and, with woman’s art,
Ennobling, softening each youthful heart,
Fashioned them into true womanhood,
Slow unto evil but prompt to good.
And their pale-face sisters had full share
In this gentle teacher’s tender care;
And grew up, holding as holy and dear
The sacred duties of woman’s sphere;
Adding the firmness and courage high—
Chief need of our sex in days gone by.
Sister Bourgeois’ daughters have nobly all
Responded unto her gracious call;
Through sunshine and joy, through storm and pain—
In one unfailing, unbroken chain
Of teachers devoted—nought left undone
To fulfil the task by their foundress begun.
[A TOUCHING CEREMONY.]
The following verses were suggested by a touching ceremony which
lately took place in the chapel of the Congregation Convent,
Notre Dame, Montreal, the beloved Institution in which the happy
days of my girlhood were passed. The ceremony in question was the
renewal of her vows by the Venerable Mother Superior, just fifty
years from the date of her first profession, which was made at
the early age of fifteen. In the world, in the few rare instances
in which both bride and bridegroom live to witness the fiftieth
anniversary of their union, the ”golden wedding,“ as it is
usually called, is generally celebrated with great pomp and
rejoicing; tis but just, then, that in religion, the faithful
spouses of the Saviour should welcome with equal satisfaction the
anniversary of the epoch which witnessed the mystical union
contracted with their Heavenly Bridegroom.