28 '-ZV1 ■'\-:':-. ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



rangs pour la béatification; mais la personne qui avait pris la chose à 



cœur n'est plus " And so it went on, at intervals, for more than 



a hundred years. Everyone who examined her life freely admitted that 

 she olight to become Ste. Marie de Tlncarnation, yet nobody appeared 

 with sufficient influence at Eome to get a place on the calendar for this 

 remote Canadian saint. In 18GT, the year of Confederation — so long 

 8go as that — Archbishop Baillargeon of Quebec succeeded in getting 

 her cause definitely begun. Some of the lettres posiuJatoires sent to 

 Eome on her behalf are rather remarkable documents. The Canadian 

 Zouaves, who went to uphold the Temporal Power in 1870, might per- 

 haps be expected to address Pio Xono thus : " Nous, laïques, aimoiLs à 

 signaler que cette grande servante de Dieu est venue la première arborer 

 sur nos plages le drapeau de l'éducation chrétienne, et que cette éduca- 

 tion, perpétuée par les imitatrices de son zèle, fait les femmes fortes et 

 chrétienn.es dont notre jeune pays se glorifie. Très-saint père, c'est au 

 nom des mères chrétiennes qui ont donné leurs fils avec tant d'amour 

 et de générosité pour la défense du saint-siège, que nous demandons avec 

 instance la béatification de la Mère Marie de rincamation." But tlie 

 following is a curiously telling appeal, coming as it does from the cabinet 

 ministers of Her Britannic Majesty for the' Province of Quebec: 

 " L'action bienfaisante de son œuvre se fait encore sentir de nos jours, 

 et est pour toute la province une source de biens incalculables à tous les 

 points de vue Chargés d'une grande responsabilité dans le gou- 

 vernement de cette province qu'habita la Mère Marie de ITncarnation 

 nous sentons le besoin de nous appuyer sur son intercession pour bien 

 remplir les devoirs qui nous incombent." In 1877, she was pontifically 

 declared ' venerable.' But for thirty years more the process for her 

 beatification — which the Quebec Ursulines longed for even before the 

 British conquest of Canada — has not been ended in her favour. Yet it 

 was known to be in its final stage of all in 1907. Xo wonder the faithful 

 Ursulines are on the tiptoe of expectation for the latest news from Rome ! 

 The process may have been wearyingly long; but what French- 

 Canadian, viewing her with the transfiguring eye of faith, could ever 

 have doubted the result? The impulse towards sanctification has come 

 spontaneously, and from the mass of the people, who still feel the exalting 

 touch of this most effectual mystic. No doubt she had a share of per- 

 sonal faults and human failings. An age like ours would not be lenient 

 in criticising either. But — unless all tradition, record and corroboration 

 be untrue — even our age cannot deny her a befitting eulogy. Her actions 

 and outlook were certainly bounded by the limitations of her Cluirch. 

 But, within those limits, she gave new lustre to the golden truth that 

 there is more variety in virtue than in vice. And we Canadians of 1908, 



