“In Rama was a voice heard, weeping and lamentation: Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” Poor mothers of Bethlehem, what must you not have suffered! But you, ye “flowers of martyrdom,” as the church salutes you—you who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth—how happy were you to die for him who had come to die for you!
Dear sister, we followed her to the church, and then Karl and René set out, taking this coffin with them to Ireland. The family have wished it thus. This sorrowful journey has a double object: Karl is going to settle his affairs, and in two months at most he will enter the Séminaire des Missions Etrangères, the preparatory college of the foreign missions. He will see you at that time. He was sublime. God has been with us, and the soul of Ellen shone upon these recent scenes. My mother would not consent to my going also. I was weaker than I thought. On returning to the chalet I was obliged to go to bed. What an inconvenience I should have been to the dear travellers! But how sad it is to end a year, a first year of marriage, without René! This beautiful sky, this luxuriant nature, all the poetry of the south, which I love so much—all this appears to me still more beautiful since that holy death. Why were you not with us? There are inexpressible things. I have understood something of what heaven is. Sweet Ellen! What peace was in her death, what suavity in her words! I did not leave her after her death, but remained near her bed, where I had so much admired her. I tried to warm her hand, to recall her glance, her smile, until the appearance of the gloomy coffin. O my God! how must Karl have suffered. Those hammer-strokes resounded in my heart!
Dear, she is with God; she is happy. Sweet is it thus to die with Jesus in the soul. It is Paradise begun.
I embrace you a hundred times, my Kate. We had some earth from Ireland, and some moss from Gartan, to adorn Ellen’s coffin. O
death! where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory?
January 1, 1868.
O my God! pardon me, bless me, and bless all whom I love.
Dear sister of my soul, the anniversary of my marriage has passed without my having been able to think of it to thank you again for your share in making my happiness. But you know well how I love you! It is the 1st of January, and I wish to begin the year with God and with you. May all your years be blessed, dearest, the angel Raphael of the great journey of my life! I have wished to say, in union with you, as I did a year ago, the prayer of Bossuet: “O Jesus! by the ardent thirst thou didst endure upon the cross, grant me a thirst for the souls of all, and only to esteem my own on account of the holy obligation imposed upon me not to neglect a single one. I desire to love them all, since they are all capable of loving thee; and it is thou who hast created them with this blessed capacity.” I said on my knees the last thought copied by Ellen in the beautiful little volume which she called Kate’s book: “Everything must die—sweetness, consolation, repose, tenderness, friendship, honor, reputation. Everything will be repaid to us a hundred-fold; but everything must first die, everything must first be sacrificed. When we shall have lost all in thee, my God, then shall we again find all in thee.”
Yesterday the Adrien family arrived. What nice long conversations we shall all have! George and Amaury have been heroic. All are in need of repose. How delightful it is to meet again en famille! And René is far away. May God be with him, with you, and with us, dear Kate!
January 6.