the patient and swing the incense, the relic is elevated, a bell rings, and the congregation kneels. This is the supreme moment. No time is lost, however, on a busy day, and when it is seen that a miracle is not forthcoming, the poor fellow is bundled into one of the sixteen lateral chapels, where other saints are venerated; his place is taken by another far-gone pilgrim, or perhaps a batch not so grievously afflicted are beckoned to the rails and the relic passed from lip to lip amid the prayers and sobs of five thousand onlookers. No one asks, with the skeptic in the temple of the seagod. Where be the offerings of them that have perished? if only a single miracle be announced during the week or recorded in the monthly Annales.
The golden age of miracles in French Canada dates from the arrival of the Recollets and Jesuits, 1615-'25, and may be said to have terminated about 1860. The Church possesses many relics besides those of Saint Anne, some among the most precious in Christendom,[1] and has had local martyrs and confessors whose ashes repose here. Nevertheless, the stream of miracles outside Beaupré has gradually dwindled and dried up, and those of Beaupré are losing their old characteristics.
In the early days Saint Anne cured all manner of ailments with an untiring hand. The Relations des Jésuites for 1667 contain an account of the chief miracles wrought down to that time—the cure of Elie Godin of dropsy; Marguerite Bire, of fracture of the leg, Jean Adam, blind of both eyes; Pradere, a French soldier, of paralysis and une apostume dans l'estomac, and other wonders to which Laval bore witness. Saint Anne never raised the dead to life, at least not in Canada, nor gave a limb to a one-legged client as Saint Anthony of Padua did, but over and over again she cured heart disease, cancer, apoplexy, and consumption. She interfered to save pious persons from death in the forest, when they had been pinned under a falling tree, by inspiring neighbors to go to their aid or a faithful dog to carry a piece of blood-stained bark to the nearest settlement, and snatched many from ice jams, bush fires, and Dutch men-of-war, in the last case resorting to the
- ↑ At the celebration in 1874 of the second centenary of the erection of the Diocese of Quebec over five hundred relies were exposed. The list is given in Le Deuxième Centenaire, an official account, bearing the imprimatur of Cardinal Taschereau. Among them were relics of the vêtement depourpre de Jésus Christ, crèche de Jésus Christ, colonne de la fagellation de Jésus Christ, sainte épine de Jésus Christ, table de la dernière scène, terre où Jésus pria, pierre sur laquelle Notre Seigneur s'assit et mangea avec ses apótres, vraie croix de Jésus Christ, etc. Also, apparel of the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph, fragment of the rock struck by Moses, lock of hair of Saint Mary Magdalen, portion of the cloth of the head of Saint John the Baptist, fragment of a wooden altar served by Saint Peter, and of the block on which Saint Paul was beheaded, bones of the Holy Innocents, of the chief disciples, of Saint Stephen the first martyr, etc.
