[wood] an URSULINE EPIC 87 



beheld the very birth of Life; and then not feel how the most modem 

 self transcends its wonted boundaries of time through all its endless kin- 

 ship with the immemorial past and illimitable future. 



Ee-enter now the high-throned Upper Town, girt like a giant armed. 

 Seek its heart once more. The sacred solitude does not chill you now, 

 as it did when you came here first, out of mere bustling curiosity. Your 

 feet no longer seem muffled in the dust of death. Greatness no longer 

 seems departed; but omnipresent, immortally alive. For here, in this 

 veteran cliapel, which has braved so many dread ordeals with the heroic 

 Ursulines, the twin renown of Wolfe and Montcalm becomes a shrine 

 of memory, where the pilgrims of all chivalry can find inspiration for 

 the exalting service of every age. 



One step beyond, within the cloisters, a living link brings this Val- 

 hallan past almost as close in the body as you have just felt it in the 

 spirit. Here is an aged nun who perfectly remembers the tales of former 

 days, told her so often by La Mère de St. Ignace, who saw Montcalm's 

 shattered corpse lowered into the grave after the Battle of the Plains. 

 While Mère St. Ignace herself heard the still older tales of Geneviève 

 de Boucherville, who saw the perpetual Lamp of Eepentigny first lighted 

 more than two hundred years ago, and whose father remembered the 

 time of Champlain, whose tercentenary of the fo'undation of Quebec is 

 being celebrated in this present year of grace. The combined ages of 

 these four human links already exceed three hundred and seventy years. 

 Long may this mighty span continue to grow with the life of the sur- 

 vivor ! 



A few steps more, and you are again in the historic garden, with 

 its intimate memories of La Mère , Marie. Here, between her interces- 

 sions to the King of Kings, she formed the statesmanlike resolve to per- 

 suade Canadians that,, if they would be steadfast through the appalling 

 devastation of famine, war and earthquake, they could make Canada the 

 Land of Promise for countless generations. And here the nuns still 

 come to reinvigorate mind and body ; and for the solace of the soul. Here 

 is a haunt of vancient peace, in w^hich to ponder great, still books of 

 meditation. Here is the old French cross, upheld by a pedestal made 

 from the original ash-tree, beneath whose shade La Mère Marie taught 

 and exhorted her faithful converts. Near by is the corner of wild garden, 

 as wild 1(0-day as when the little . Indian feet brushed so deftly through 

 its springing flowers, never treading one down because she loved them 

 all to grow there as God himself had planted them. And here, where 

 the very ground seems native to the Golden Age, the nun who passes by 

 in venerative mood might well apostrophize the first great Ursuline of 



