Memoir | Page 3

wonder it bore marvellous
fruit as conducted by him. At each station this holy servant of God did
not content himself with reading the usual prayers: he gave expression
to heavenly thoughts inspired by his own burning love of his crucified
Saviour, producing a mysterious and lasting echo in all hearts. The
church was always crowded on those occasions. To prepare children for
their first communion, he devoted six entire weeks of instruction each

year. His capacity for work was immense; and while hurry never
appeared in his actions, he managed to glide through them with a
masterly ease far out-stripping the speediest progress of ordinary
mortals. A supernatural light seemed to supersede the necessity of
recourse to the usual slow and laborious process of reasoning in seeing
one's way, and to endow him with an intuition excluding all doubt, and
with an instinct ever ready in performance. Thus for everything he
found ample time, because no particle of his time was lost. He was a
living, palpitating, breathing, vocal, acting temple of the Holy Ghost,
and this Divine indwelling was, in a manner, visible to all. At the altar,
during the holy sacrifice which he daily offered, it seemed to
transfigure his countenance so as to impress his heavenly citizenship
upon all beholders. In administering the sacrament, in instructing the
people, in his incessant endeavors to keep or win them from sin, and to
provide for all their spiritual wants, the same irradiation of holiness
imparted the most extraordinary efficacy to his charity and zeal.
So palpable was this impress of sanctity in his every-day-life, that no
one could come in contact with him without perceiving it and feeling
its inherent power. Such being the rare effulgence of Father Vincent's
sanctity as seen amid the dust and darkness of the world, one can more
readily realize the transcendent perfection and purity of his soul as
nurtured and revealed in his divine communing in his own beloved
cloister. No wonder, then, that when this admirable servant of God, fall
of days and merits, was called away to his reward on the morning of
New Year's Day, 1853, all felt that they had one intercessor more in
heaven. No wonder that miraculous cures wrought through his
mediation began soon to multiply. Nor was Father Vincent's reputation
for sanctity confined to Catholics. Even Protestants not only
acknowledged the heroism of his virtues, but also sought to possess
some earth from his grave, and one of them, J. H., still living, was
restored to health and usefulness by the application of this relic to his
diseased and disabled limbs.
The next Prior of Petit Clairvaux was the dauntless and holy Father
Francis, whose advanced age obliged him in 1858 to resign his office
into the hands of the sweet Father James, a native of Belgium, and a
religious eminently qualified for the position. Such was the success of
his administration that in 1876 the community was raised by Pius IX of

blessed memory to the dignity of an abbey--an abbey, which, with its
forty-one fervent religious, now wisely governed by the worthy Abbot
Dominic, presents an example of heroic abstinence, mortification and
prayer, well calculated to put the characteristic dissipation, effeminacy
and dissoluteness of the age to blush, and to bring home to our minds
that "the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." (I Co. 3,19).
JOHN CAMERON, _Bishop of Arichat._

MEMOIR
OF
FATHER VINCENT.
[Some account of what befel Father Vincent de Paul, Religious of La
Trappe, with observations made by him when in America, where he has
spent about ten years, with the permission of his Superior, in obedience
to whose orders he writes the following:]
The reverend Father Abbot, of La Trappe, Dom Augustin, (De
Lestrange) foreseeing that Bonaparte would seek to destroy the
communities existing in Europe, resolved on sending a party of his
religious to America, in order that they might establish themselves
there and preserve their monastic state.
In 1812, I, in company with two other brothers, was sent by him to the
United States, there to found an establishment of our Order. We left
Bordeaux on the 15th June, and on the 6th of the month of August we
arrived at Boston. We had with us one of our Trappistines, whose
object was also to found a community; with this intention she had
preceded her companions, but now found herself alone, as passports
were refused to the other sisters. We were welcomed by the worthy Mr.
Matignon, parish priest of the town, who coaxed us to remain in the
diocese of Bishop Cheverus. However as we had received orders to
establish ourselves near Baltimore, after a few days rest I started for
that town alone, leaving my brothers and the nun in Boston, intending
to