Page:For Remembrance (ed. Repplier) 060.jpg

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her presence without having been made braver and better. To know her was to understand the supreme worth of character when it is moulded by religious faith and love. She was as ready to sweep a room as to plan the foundation of a great convent, and whatever she did appeared to be the right thing to do. Occupied for nearly the whole of her life with financial affairs and the government of the houses she had established, she kept the fervor of her early piety and a novice's scrupulous fidelity in the observance of the rule. One felt that her wisdom and strength came from within,—from a soul that dwelled in habitual loving communion with God. Apart from Him she understood that no good could possibly come to her, and that as He was the end so was He the principle of her being.

At the age of sixteen, in the flower of health and beauty, she had seen the vanity of all that comes to end, and had turned with resolute will from her happy home and the promises of the world to give her whole heart to the service of the Blessed Saviour, and for sixty years, even unto death, she followed after Him with a courage that never failed and a love that never grew cold. Her body lies in France, but her spirit is here,—a living force to cheer and strengthen, to uplift and guide. Her life and example have become a permanent possession, and we can never think meanly of ourselves while we remember that she was our sister and mother.



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