[Footnote 73: Cranberries. ]
"New York is an immense city; it has nearly 400,000 inhabitants, and is as noisy as Paris. There are some 80,000 Catholics and only eight churches, but religion is making progress. The next time I write to you, it will be from our house of the Sacred [{312}] Heart. I am burning with impatience to be in it; for though we are extremely comfortable with the good Sisters of Charity, who are truly sisters to us, we nevertheless long to be at home, where we can live in conformity to our rule and customs.
"What news of my brothers? How happy I shall be when you can tell me that all is well with them! I would give a thousand lives for that. The day and hour of God will come; let us be patient and pray. Say a thousand affectionate things to them for me."
"NEW YORK, Aug. 2, 1841.
"I dare say you will be pleased to learn, dear mamma, that I have just opened a little mission among the Indian savages in Missouri, 300 miles beyond St. Louis. Four of our community have been established there. The population consists of 900 Indians, all converted by the Jesuits. Thanks be to God, his kingdom is extending itself, and what it loses on one side through the wiles of the enemy, it gains on another.
"I never let a month pass without writing to you, despite my many occupations, because I know your anxiety; but do not distress yourself. I am, if possible, but too well, in every respect. Our houses here are like those in Europe; while within doors we never could suspect that we had been transplanted into the new world (that used to be). Don't be afraid about crocodiles. The country abounds in them, as it does in snakes; but nobody thinks of them, and I have never even seen one. Several, however, have been pointed out to me; but as my eyes were cast down, I saw nothing."
"NEW YORK, Sept. 13, 1841.
"Our establishment is well under way; the house is finished, and we have already twelve pupils. I have no doubt their number will increase next month to twenty, and perhaps more, for there have been already at least forty applications. Beside this, I have just established a mission among the Potawatamie Indians in the Indian Territory. There is a population of 3,000 Indians in the place where our ladies are, 1,000 of whom are fervent Catholics; the others are pagans, but to some extent civilized. We have there already a school of fifty little girls, and a great many women come to learn from us how to work.
"I shall leave New York and pass the winter in Louisiana. I am quite well—better than in Europe; but I am over-burdened with work. You may readily believe it when I tell you that beside governing this house, and my province, which comprises seven houses, I have had to paint three large pictures for the chapel, and to finish them in six weeks. At last, thank God, they are done, and our chapel is really charming. What a pity that you cannot come and hear mass in it!"
"En route, between St. Michael and Grand Coteau, Dec. 4, 1841.
"From a tavern on the banks of the Mississippi I write to wish you and all the family a happy New Year! I pray devoutly that it may be fertile in graces and divine blessings; everything else is superfluous and valueless, and therefore unnecessary. I have travelled a good deal since I wrote you from Harrisburg, Penn. I am now going to our house at Grand Coteau, where I shall stay about five weeks; then I shall spend an equal time at St. Michael. This will bring me to the end of February; after which I shall start for St. Louis, and visit our other establishments in Missouri, including our new mission among the Potawatamie savages. Don't let the word 'savages' frighten you. They won't eat me; for they are more than civilized. One thousand of them are Catholics, in the place to which I have sent our sisters, who are only four in number, and have a school which succeeds admirably. Our good savages are so fervent that they come every day to church at half-past five in the morning. They say their prayers, meditate for half an hour, and then hear mass, [{313}] during which they sing canticles in their savage fashion. After mass one of the Indians teaches the catechism to about thirty little boys and a like number of girls; that over, they go off to their respective employments, and about six in the evening they come back to the church to say their prayers together. It was the Jesuits who converted this tribe, and they are still doing a vast amount of good out there. I shall probably go there in April; it will be a three-weeks' journey. After that I mean to return to New York, and probably about the 1st of June I shall sail for Havre. So there you have my route; you see that I lead the life of a regular courier more than ever. But fortunately, to one who has the happiness of being a religious, all things are indifferent, provided they are in accordance with holy obedience. I am very much afraid I shall miss some of your letters, for they must follow me at a gallopping pace or they will not overtake me.
"Assure yourself, my dear mamma, that Russia is not the coldest country in the world. The so-called burning Louisiana is colder. From the 25th to the 30th of November we had hard frosts which chilled us through and through. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I have a pleasant recollection that in November at St. Petersburg we have more rain than frost. In a word, now that I have tried, so to speak, all climates, I am firmly persuaded that there is not a warm country on the face of the earth, and I have resigned myself to look for pleasant and eternal warmth only in the next world.
"What news of my brothers and my sisters-in-law? Are they as great vagabonds as I? Ah, if their hearts and minds could only be composed and settled in God alone! It will come, some day or other; we must hope, even against all hope. Our Lord is the master of hearts, and he wills from all eternity that these hearts shall be wholly his. A touch of his grace will soften those of my brothers; the day of illusions will pass away, and we shall sing eternally with them that God is good and his mercies are unspeakable. A thousand kisses, dear mamma; bless your dutiful and grateful daughter
ELIZABETH."
In 1842 Madame Elizabeth went to Rome to give an account of her fruitful mission to her superiors. I have before me a last letter of hers, written to her mother, whom she had just lost at St. Petersburg almost at the same hour in which her eldest brother died in Paris in the bosom of the Catholic Church.
"I confess to you," she says, "that for several months past, I have continually felt impelled to make a sacrifice of my life for my brothers. Perhaps you will think this presumptuous on my part, so I will explain myself. When I am making my preparation for death, according to custom, the thought often comes into my mind to offer the sacrifice of my life in advance, and to beseech our Lord to accept it, as well as all the sufferings I may have to undergo, especially at that terrible moment when the soul is separated from the body, in order that I may obtain the conversion of my brothers. I have asked permission to transfer to them all the merit which, by God's grace, I may acquire through resignation or suffering—not only in my last sickness, but even during the period of life which yet remains to me—so that, accumulating no more merits by way of satisfaction for my own sins, I may have, for my part, purgatory without any alleviation; for in that place of propitiation and peace I can no longer be of any use to them. I hope our Lord will grant my request: all I know is that since that time my habitual gladness of heart is increased a hundred-fold, and that I think of death with unspeakable consolation."
This sacrifice, which reminds one of a similar incident in the life of St. Vincent de Paul, [Footnote 74] seems to have been [{314}] accepted by God. Returning to America in 1843, Madame Elizabeth had not time to enjoy the fruits of her labors. She was attacked at St. Michael by the yellow fever, and there fell asleep in the Lord on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, saying: "I do not fear death; I long for it, if it is God's will." [Footnote 75]
[Footnote 74: One day, moved with compassion at the state of an unfortunate priest, a doctor of theology, who had lost his faith, because he had ceased to study the science of divinity, St. Vincent de Paul besought God to restore to this man the liveliness of his faith, offering to take up himself, if necessary, the burden which this poor brother was unable to bear. His prayer was heard at once, and for four years this great saint remained as it were deprived of that faith which was nevertheless his life. "Do you know how he passed through this trial?" says an admirable master of the spiritual life. "He passed through it by becoming St. Vincent de Paul; that is to say, all that this name signifies."—GRATRY, Les Sources, p. 82.]
[Footnote 75: Writing from Lyons to Bishop Hughes in September, 1842, Madame Galitzm said: "I avail myself of this opportunity to write a few lines, although detained in my bed with the fever for upward of three weeks. My health is in a poor state, and if I go on as I did these two months, there is more prospect for me to go to heaven next year than to return to America." The letter is in English, which she wrote with apparent ease and considerable approach to purity. ED. CATH. WORLD. ]
"What more glorious title of nobility," says Monseigneur the Duke d'Aumale, "than to count saints and martyrs among one's ancestors?" My object is not so much to lay claim to this distinction, as to show, for the honor of my country, the part which some of her children have taken in the genesis of civilization and Catholicism in America. And this ambition will perhaps seem excusable to those who admit that every gift of God ought to be an object of our most religious care.