Page:Life and life-work of Mother Theodore Guerin Foundress.djvu/29

Rh standard, lifting up before the spiritual gaze a model of incomparable beauty, a sinlessness perfect and sublime! The idea was effective and, undoubtedly, became a strong moulding factor in the reputation for high integrity which the people of Brittany enjoyed, a reputation that even to the present day is claimed as one of their most precious heirlooms.

In the humble town of Étables where our interest centres with the closing years of the eighteenth century, though the revolutionary spirit had wrought direful changes, there were still many very good people; and as goodness cannot be circumscribed by cliff or wave, but, like truth, reaches from end to end mightily, so the influence then having birth on Brittany's billow-swept shore has travelled down the aisles of a century, losing never but gaining always by its continuous onward march. To-day's possession is yesterday's legacy, and the present success of St.-Mary-of-the-Woods, is, in the order of God's providence, an inheritance from that "land of sunshine and gladness, as of cross and shadow!" Lovingly, then, do we trace the path of divine guidance through diverse developments and countless evolutions, while a deeper interest draws us toward the quaint old town on the coasts of the north, as a result of its part in our narrative.

It would seem inappropriate to urge claims of noble ancestry for one whose spirit was that of humble retirement and renunciation of all worldly honor, whose ambition from her tender youth proved how enamoured she had become of holy poverty, a life of which is a direct though silent attack on the spirit of