Page:Life and life-work of Mother Theodore Guerin Foundress.djvu/17

Rh God." Truly the lesson of Calvary was well understood by this spouse of a crucified King! It must needs be that rich endowment of supernatural favor was her recompense.

This is the age of hidden saints. A bloody persecution may not be sending victors to the eternal courts, but the sword of trial is as sharp as the blade of the executioner; and though a martyr's triumph is not proclaimed from the Church's altar, a martyr's palm is borne by those sequestered Servants of God who now "follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth."

The diocese of Vincennes, now Indianapolis, holds an enviable place in the history of the Catholic Church in America, having been one of the earliest Sees formed in the West and graced by the exalted virtues of its primal Bishop, the sainted Simon Gabriel Bruté, whom but to name is to bless. The transfer of title is no abrogation of dignity, and memory will ever hold dear the associations that cluster around an honored name and a privileged people.

Not the least glory encircling the diocese was its possessing such a magnanimous pioneer Religious as we find Mother Theodore to have been. She was distinctively a diplomat in religious organization, and eminently a teacher. Many are the lessons to be learned from her life; the Religious, the priest, the laity will find them.

Not to anticipate, only two or three gems picked up here and there along the wayside of the narrative are selected for mention. An idea developed with uncommon perspicacity, a teaching promulgated with insistent emphasis was that of personal co-operation