8 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



were eager to hear her expound her visions, especially one of the Trinity, 

 which is strangely like Dante's in the final canto of his Paradiso : 



Nella profonda e chiara siissitenza 

 Dell 'alto lunie parvenu tre giri 

 Di tre colori e d'una eontinenza : 



In that abyss 

 Of radiance, clear and lofty, seemed, methought, 

 Three orbs of triple hue, dipt in one bound ; 

 And, from another, one reflected seemed. 

 As rainbpw is from rainbow: and the third 

 Seemed fire, breathed equally from both. 



She freely told all that she had seen beyond the veil of the flesh; 

 and by her human aptitudes, no less than by her other-worldliness, she 

 was soon in perfect harmony with the life around her. 



The Ursulines were originally founded on St. Catherine's Day in 

 1537; two years after Jacques Cartier's discovery of Quebec; a time 

 when the full flood-stream of Eenaissance and Eeformation was beating 

 against every bulwark of the Eoman faith and government. Ignatius 

 Loyola and Angela of Merici hurried to the defence of the dangerous 

 breach made in Catholic education, and set to work to rebuild it under 

 fire. In 1540 Loyola drew up the constitution of the Jesuits, in which 

 the education of boys stood first of all in relative importance. Four 

 years later the Sovereign Pontiff approved the constitution of the Ursu- 

 lines, in which the first place was given to the education of girls. " I 

 have just given you some sisters," said Paul III, to St. Ignatius, after 

 signing the document. How this Pope would have rejoiced to see his 

 famous dictum so signally borne out a century later, in the distant mis- 

 sion field of Canada ! 



The novitiate over, La Mère Marie chose the conversion of St. Paul 

 for her profession; and accordingly, on the 25th of January, 1633, she 

 made her final vows. At the^time, she seems to have chosen this day only 

 because it reminded her of her own conversion, and not from any sense 

 of missionarv zeal. But two years la.ter she dream i5 of meeting a lady 

 she had never seen before, and of taking her by tlie hand and going a 

 long journey into a strange country, pointed out by an apostle who met 

 them by the way. An idea that she was not to spend her life among the 

 Ursulines of Tours kept on recurring ; but it seemed so impious that she 

 kept on as continually repulsing it. The other nuns began to notice her 

 obsession ; and one day she broached the subject to Father Dinet. This 



