The first of these occurred, we may say, on the spot. One of the scholars, Miss Margaret Mary Gowan, had for a year been deprived of the use of an arm. Full of confidence in the Venerable Mother Mary, she began a novena, applying the water that had touched her venerated relics. A total cure followed. This remarkable restoration was soon made known, and far and wide the afflicted turned as of old to this holy servant of God for temporal and spiritual aid.
Cures like that of Father Charlevoix had taken place from time to time, but the authentications had been neglected or perished in the repeated destructions of the convent by fire. The miracles of recent date are well attested. Miss Gowan became a Sister of Charity, and is, we believe, still alive to give her testimony of the cure wrought in 1833.
The devotion of the Venerable Mother Mary is generally a novena, using especially her prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus[[131]] and the application of the water.
Among the prodigies ascribed to this servant of God are the cure of Mary Coté, a girl of twelve living at Black River. She had been blind for five years after an attack of small-pox. No pupil, iris, or cornea could be distinguished in either eye, and the pain, especially in winter, was intense. Dr. Morin examined her and declared it an incurable case of leucoma. By the advice of Miss Bilodeau, the teacher at the place, to whom the child was brought to prepare for her First Communion, she began a novena to Mother Mary of the Incarnation, applying a drop of the water. On the fourth day, during Mass, the child felt all pain leave her eyes, and, raising them for the first time, saw the altar and a large statue of the Blessed Virgin upon it. On examining the eyes they were found clear and limpid. A few reddish stains remained for some days in the left eye, but gradually disappeared. The cure was complete and durable, and was attested by the physician, the teacher, and others who were eye-witnesses. This remarkable cure occurred June 8, 1867.
The cure of James McCormac, a boy five years old, in 1868, is also attested in a most satisfactory manner. He suffered from terrible internal pain, especially in the bowels, and from a contraction of the leg, and hip disease. No sooner had a novena been begun and the water applied than the pain ceased and the child was able to get upon his feet and walk, though uncertainly, like a young infant not yet accustomed to step. At the end of the novena he walked perfectly, and from that time enjoyed complete health. Damian Gavard was similarly cured at St. Alban in 1876.
The devotion to the Venerable member of their order extended to the Ursuline convents in Europe, and cases are reported from Aubresles, Quimperlé, Carhaix, Blois, Mons, in France and Belgium, as though Providence was preparing near the Eternal City testimony of the sanctity of the Canadian nun.
MABEL WILLEY’S LOVERS.
Early one June morning, not many years ago, a young couple might have been seen strolling along by the side of a babbling brook a short distance from the village of North Conway, New Hampshire.
Harry Fletcher, although a late riser when at home, had determined to be up betimes this morning and catch a mess of trout for breakfast. Not for his own breakfast, however, but for that of Miss Kitty Gibbon, who, like himself, had come to pass a few weeks at the Kearsarge House.
“’Twill please her,” thought Harry, “to hear how I left my comfortable couch for her sake, at an hour when only farmers are stirring.”