"Taper and Host and Book they bare,
And holy banner flourished fair
With the Redeemer's name.
They passed around the chapel, chanting Tantum Ergo, and then returned to the altar to give the benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The richly gilded chapel was radiant with reflected light, and the strains of O salutaris Hostia! seemed to float upward in celestial tones, as they issued from lips purified by solitude and prayer. I never felt more devotion at this solemn rite than there, in the shadow of the Pyrenees. I forgot my fatigue, and yielded to heartfelt emotion. Exiled from my native land, to which I might never return, and among those who were almost entire strangers to me, I felt myself folded to the bosom of divine Providence, and that the All-Father would have me consider every part of his world as my home, and all those souls, which he has breathed into human forms, as my brethren and sisters.
It was a late hour when I fell asleep on my hard bed at the Hotel de la Paix. Coldly looking down upon me from a rude frame was, for my guardian saint, a picture of Napoleon le Grand; but, though he had routed many a formidable host, he did not put to flight a single sweet fancy or holy thought that thronged my brains, waking or sleeping.
At an early hour I was again before the altar of Our Lady. Priests were celebrating the holy mysteries at every altar when I entered the chapel. At seven o'clock, M. le Supérieur offered the Holy Sacrifice for my intentions, at which I communicated. ...
My devotions ended, I rambled around the garden and through the cloisters, drank again from the fountain, and then prepared for my departure. I had gone to Garaison with a deeper intent, more serious purpose, than is my intention to unveil here. I bore in my heart a burden—a burden common to humanity—which I laid down at the feet of Mary, thinking, as I did so:
"Oh! might a voice, a whisper low,
Forth from those lips of beauty flow!
Couldst thou but speak of all the tears,
The conflicts, and the pangs of years,
Which at thy secret shrine revealed
Have gushed from human hearts unsealed!"
I left that chapel in the strong embrace of the everlasting hills, and with sunlight flooding its walls like a glory. Turning to give it a last look, at the last turn in the valley, it seemed like a lily rising up in the green meadows—fit type of her to whom it is dedicated.
Since that time I have visited many a shrine of la belle France, but I turn to none with a more grateful heart than NOTRE DAME DE GARAISON.