A CANADIAN TALE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 16, 17 April 1902, Page 23

A CANADIAN TALE.

Reader, have you ever been in the old church of the Kiviere Ouelle ? In one of its side chapels is an exvoto which was placed there many long years ago by a stranger who was miraculously preserved lrom death. It is a very old picture, full of! dust, and of no artistic value, but iti recalls a touching story. 1 learned it when very young on my mother's knees, and it has remained as fresh and vivid in my memory as when I first heard it.

It was a cold winter evening, long, long ago. The snow was beating against the window-sashes, and the icy north wind howled and shrieked among the naked branches of the great elms in the garden. The whole family had assembled in the salon Our mother, after playing several airs on the piano, allowed her lingers to wander restlessly over tho keys — her thoughts were elsewhere. A shade of sadness passed over her brow. 'My dear children,' said she, after a moment's silence, ' see what a fearful night this is , perhaps many poor people will perish before morning from cold and hunger. How thankful we ought to be to God for our good food and warm comfortable beds ! Let us say our rosary for tho poor travellers who may be exposed to such clangors during the night.' And then she added, ' If you say it with devotion. I will tell you all a beautiful story Oh ! how we wished that our rosary was finished! At that age t he imagination is so vivid and the soul so impressionable Childhood possesses all the charms of the golden dawn of life ; enveloping every object in shade and mystery, it clot las each in a poetry unknown to any °W^ gathered around our mother, near the glowing stove which difused a delicious warmth throng out the apartment and listened in a religious sort of silence to Ik sweet and tender voice 1 ■ think 1 hear it now Listen with m Toward%t° middle of tho last conturv a missionary, accompanied >> several" Indians, ascended the m", h The missionary was one of tho trepid pioneers of faith and cv.li .- S whose sublime hguies a mm ° S t übhme aW He Shorn we are folwill an inexhaustible sti engt'i large, expansive forehead destined souls.

The leader of the little band was a few steps in advance. He was an old Indian warrior, who, a long tiime before, had been converted to Christianity by this holy missionary, and who, from Unit tune, became the faithiul companion of all his advenLtiruiih v anci'ot nigs.

Tho travellers advanced slowly on their ' raquettes ' over a soft, thick snow It was one of those superb December nights, whose marvellous splendor is entirely unknown to tho people of the South, with which the old year embellishes Us waning hours to greet the advent of the newcomer. Innumerable stars poured their light m silver tear.s o\er the blue firmament of heaven — we might say tears of |oy which the glory of the Sun of .Justice draws from the eyes of the blessed. The moon, ascending through the diftcient constellations, amused itself by contemplating in the snowy mirror its resplendent disc Toward the north luminous shafts radiated from a dark cloud which floated along tho horizon. The aurora borealis announces itself first by pale, whitish lets of flame which slowly lick the surface of the sky, but soon the scene grows more animated, the colors deepen, and the light grows larger, forming an arch around an opaque cloud it assumes the most bizarro forms In turn appear long skeins of white silk, graceful sw/ui plumes, or bundles of gold and silver thread, then a troop of white phantoms in transparent robes execute a fantastic dance. v Now it is a rich satin fan whose summit toucHs the zemth, and whose < dges a;e fringed with rose and !•>--> tV on tjiits ; f.nallv. it is an jmm iTl to (■.•g-u., >v 'II 11 pearl and ivory pipes, w uch oi ly awaits a celestml musi;uin in it to-ie the sublime hosannah of nature to the Creator. The strange crackling sound which accompanies this brilliant phenomenon completes the illusion, for it is strangely like tho si"-hs which escape from an organ whose pipes are filled with a powerful wind. It is the prelude of the divine concert which mortal ears are not permitted to listen to. The scene which presented itself below was not less fascinating m its savage beauty than that of the sky a The cold, dry atmosphere was not a»ita.ted by a single breath, nothing VWS heard "but the dull, monotonous i oarmg- of the gigantic river, sleepmo under a coverlet of floating ice, which dotted its dark waters like the spotted skin of an immense leopard A light white vapor rose like the l.reath from the nostrils of a marine monster. Toward the north, the blue crests of the Laurentides wore clearly defined, from Capo Tourmente 'to the mouth of the Siguonay In a southern direction the List slopes of the Alleghanies stretched along coveied with pines, Sirs, and maples ; almost the entire shore was densely wooded, for at the remote period which we dosci i be those vast clearings along the banks covered with abundant meadows wore not to be seen, nor the pretty little whitewashed houses grouped in villages along the shore so coquettishly a person could easily compare" them to bands of swans sleeping on the river banks. A sea of forest covered these shores A few scattered houses appealed here and theie, but this was all.