I was lost in thought, and dreaming of the incidents I had been permitted to see, when the vast hall and its dark recesses recurred to my mind, and the radiant angels, the recorders of noble actions, were again before me, lofty figures of light holding back the cloudy draperies, and bringing before me now an Italian countryside, hilly, rocky, its distant town, and campanile, the angelus sounding in the air; up the mountains and rugged hillsides a few peasants’ huts, and in woods and valleys, brooks and waterfalls making a music of their own, through which the angelus seemed to breathe the peace and rest of religion.
The evening sunshine threw a golden glow over woods and mountain, valleys and chestnut woods, and in one of those huts I saw a woman—a working woman past the first bloom of youth—alone, noted for her skill in needlework, one of dignified, calm, and modest demeanour. She was troubled at the distress of a friend, a young orphan girl who was forsaken and helpless, and, unfortunately, too young to live in that country without some responsible protector. She had come to Rosa in her trouble. “Come to me,” Rosa said. Her name was Rosa Govona. “Here shalt thou abide with me. Thou shalt sleep in my bed, thou shalt drink of my cup, and thou shalt live by the labours of thine own hands.”
I saw the young guest docile and industrious, a success and a comfort. Her safety and happiness became evident, and I saw inmate after inmate, young, helpless, and orphaned, gathered into Rosa’s home in the hills, working and learning, adding one industry after another amidst calumny and persecution. Ignorance and Vice lost no time in attacking them, and only their silence and patience, loyalty to their Head, and blameless lives, could, and did at last, quiet their enemies.
I saw, after a while, the authorities of the town (Mondovi) offer Rosa, whose community had grown too large for the little village where they first lived, a large house in the flowery plains of Carcassonne, but the foundress of the home still could not receive all who flocked to her. Lonely and poor girls, exposed to so many temptations of want and evil, pleaded for admission to the shelter and order of her home, and a still larger house at Brao rose, with its serene religion, its peaceful order, its intelligent work, its ceaseless industry.
Years went by, and lo! another scene arose before me—Turin, the bright capital of Piedmont, girt with its snow mountains, Monte Viso and the lesser heights around it—Turin, its stately palaces and white streets; and into this city came a poor working peasant, Rosa Govona, on whose wisdom and goodness a large household now depended, her suite two or three of the poor friendless orphan girls whom she had saved and befriended.
“I saw the Fathers of the Oratory of St. Philip moved for the love of God to give her a few rooms, and the soldiers at the barracks, roused to enthusiasm by the reports ringing through the town of the good work she had done, ransacked the place for straw mattresses and tables.
“Blessing and praising God, the little army of working women and girls march into Turin, and in a short time large buildings which belonged to a suppressed monastery are given over to Rosa and her people. The buildings are large, but they are soon filled with forsaken orphan girls, and the King (Charles Emanuel III.) considers and approves the judicious rules laid down by Rosa, and orders the factories of the establishment to be organised and registered by the magistrates who regulate commercial matters.
“I see this vast organisation under the special patronage of the Sardinian Government.”
Two great factories under the Rosinas (so called in honour of their foundress) have risen into public usefulness, the one of cloth for the army, the other of the best silks and ribands.
Thanks to this single-handed, poor working woman, Rosa Govona, I see three hundred women, without dowry, without any resource save their own labour and their conscientious discipline, earning an honest and comfortable livelihood, and able to provide in youth for the comfort and independence of old age.