other good qualities. The young savage chopping wood in the forest had become a real saint, and, after three years in the convent, she wrote the nuns a charming letter in which she begged to be admitted as a novice into their Order. The nuns would have been only too happy to receive her, but God ordained it otherwise.

As Agnes grew older and advanced in the knowledge of letters and in natural graces, her parents grew more and more tenderly attached to her. Amid her sweetness and polish and the ease with which she spoke her own and the French languages, no trace of her old character remained except her native energy and ardor, and with these the parents wished to adorn their wigwam for some time at least before she entered the novitiate.

Once in the woods again with her untutored playmates, Agnes became a little apostle among them, instructing them patiently and minutely in the teachings of Mother Church. She possessed a singularly beautiful voice, at once soft and musical from her convent training and thrilling with all the passionateness of the Indian wilds, and it was her wont to gather the girls and boys around her and teach them to sing the beautiful hymns she had learned. A number of Indians and Frenchmen sought her hand in marriage, but all of them she modestly rejected. She desired but one Spouse, and that was Jesus Christ in holy religion.

Everyone regarded her with the deepest love and veneration. Her amiability and devotion were an example which they strove to imitate, and her mature advice was often sought even by her elders. She was soon, however, to become their patron in Paradise.

At fifteen years of age, Agnes was as strong and fearless as she was modest and devout, and this fearlessness it was which cost her her life. On a morning early in December, 1643, she, with some others of her own age, was paddling up the Saint Lawrence in one of the frail little Indian canoes. The river was rough with wind and ice, and almost any Indian maiden but herself would have felt afraid. She did not, however, and paddled bravely on until an unusually large wave struck violently against her canoe. This disconcerted her somewhat for a moment, and then another and another wave beat cruelly against her, till at last the canoe was completely overturned and poor young Agnes and the others were thrown into the ice-cold waters.

She promptly regained her presence of mind and, swimming

toward the drifting canoe, clung to it for support and helped her companions to do the same, in the hope of being soon rescued. Her brother-in-law, who had witnessed the accident from the shore. at once put out to save them and soon brought them, benumbed with cold, to land. Loving hands were eager to attend them, and everything was done to preserve the young lives so rudely threatened, but in vain for poor Agnes. The cold had penetrated too deeply, and she must die.

When those who attended her told her that death was near, she recollected herself for some moments, and then, drawing a deep sigh, only said: "Alas! I should dearly love to make my confession. I do not feel anything weighing on my conscience, but still I should love to be assisted by one of the Fathers."

As she was now with her parents on one of their great hunts many miles away from the French settlements, there was no chance of gratifying these ardent desires. She consoled herself by fervent acts of contrition for having ever offended God, and with sentiments of such tender piety that all the savages were touched. She constantly held her prayer-book and beads in her hands or before her eyes, now using the one and now the other in her dying moments; and so, just a few days before Christmas, her beautiful spirit was breathed out in the arms of Jesus and Mary.

Her parents, as they buried her, placed her book and beads in her hands as a sign of the love she had always had for our Lord and His Blessed Mother. On being asked whether they were not sorry at her death, they answered with true Christian sublimity : No; she died too lovely a death. We believe that she is happy. It would be wrong for us to grieve at her good fortune."

.66

CON

ONTRIBUTIONS to the shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs at
Auriesville, N. Y., received since September 1st:

Miss Kate Curry, Baltimore, Md.,

A Friend, Jersey City, N. J.,

$.50

2.00

The

League.

THE MOVEMENT OF THE LEAGUE OF THE SACRED HEART IN AMERICA

FOR THE YEARS 1886-7-8.

ITH the grace of God and the Church's approval through her appointed representatives, the League of the Sacred Heart, called the Apostleship of Prayer, has prospered very encouragingly, here in America, during the past three years.

70 Archbishops and Bishops of the United States have given their approbation for its establishment in their respective dioceses, many of their letters containing gracious words of encouragement and their episcopal blessing on the work.

444 Local Centres have been aggregated up to November of this year; that is, the American Head Director has signed and sent to various parishes and communities that number of Diplomas of Aggregation, with an equal number of Local Directors' Diplomas, -888 in all. Of these, 8 were for ecclesiastical seminaries, 20 for colleges, 48 for other schools, 2 for Sodalities of the Blessed Virgin, and 183 for convents. The 203 others were for parish churches, amongst which are numbered several cathedrals. The area covered represents 62 dioceses in 39 States and Territories.

The great majority of these Centres have shown by their reports. that the League is no idle work or mere "joining" society in their midst. They prove that just as the League is adapted to all places, so its practices may be taken up by all persons alike. Several Bishops even personally direct its working in their own cathedrals.

Among the different Religious Orders and Congregations of men, the League enjoys the labors, as Local Directors, of Augustinians, Basilians, Benedictines, Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans, Fathers of the Holy Cross, Jesuits, Lazarists, Fathers of Mary,

Fathers of Mercy, Oblates, Passionists, Paulists, Redemptorists, Sanguinists, Fathers of the Sacred Heart, Servites, Sulpicians, Fathers of St. Viator. Also, the Christian Brothers, the Franciscan Brothers, the Brothers of Mary, the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, and the Xaverian Brothers are among the active Promoters of the League.

The communities of religious women where Local Centres have been established include convents of the Carmelite nuns, Sisters of St. Benedict, Sisters of St. Dominic, of St. Francis, of the various Sisters of Charity (of St. Vincent de Paul, of St. Augustine, St. Elizabeth, of the Blessed Virgin Mary), Franciscans of the Perpetual Adoration, of Sisters of the Good Shepherd, of the Holy Child Jesus, of the Holy Cross, of the Humility of Mary, of the Immaculate Heart, of St. Joseph, of St. Joseph of the Immaculate Conception, of Loretto Sisters, of Sisters of St. Mary, of Mercy, of Nazareth, of Notre Dame, of the Precious Blood, of Presentation Sisters and Sisters of Providence, of Ladies of the Sacred Heart, Servite Sisters, Ursulines, nuns of the Visitation, and others. Many of these communities, having their General Superiors in this country, have granted to the Holy League a full participation in all their merits, prayers, and good works. They have thus swelled largely the list of Religious Orders and Congregations which had already entered into this generous communication with our universal League.

The Promoters whose names have been recorded in the register at the American Head Centre, as having received the official Diploma and Indulgenced Cross, now number nearly 2000.

The monthly Rosary and Calendar Tickets are now issued for more than 13,000 Bands, that is, for over 200,000 Associates of the League who practise its Second Degree, and are in full communion of its union of mutual prayer and good works.

RECENT INSTANCES OF THE PROMISES.

MY

I.-BOSTON.

Y experience of the blessedness of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and especially of the fulfilment of the promise of our Lord to grant special blessings to those who keep a

statue or a picture of His Sacred Heart in their houses, prompts me to write you this letter.

I have no more doubt of the faithfulness of our Lord in fulfilling this promise than I have of my own existence. From the time I placed a statue of the Sacred Heart in my upper hall and a goodsized picture in our bedroom, and encouraged the devotion in my family, we have experienced the goodness of God in a thousand ways which it would be impossible to enumerate in the compass of a single letter, but especially in the blessing, so precious, so rare, but so much to be desired, of peace and concord, of fraternal affection and domestic piety among our children.

I am glad of the opportunity to give this testimony of our personal experience for the greater glory of the Sacred Heart. But I have been prompted to write to you more particularly in consequence of having recently become acquainted with an instance still more striking than that of my own, in which this devotion was most blessed to a young family.

The wife had been well trained and was, up to the time of her marriage, a good and faithful Catholic. Her husband was also a Catholic, but for some reason had become careless and worldly, and even failed to assist regularly at the Holy Sacrifice on Sundays and holy days of obligation. Unfortunately the wife, as is too often the case, grew tired of expostulating with her husband, and gradually fell into the same careless, irregular habits in regard to her duty. But she was not happy.

After suffering the struggles of an accusing conscience for some time, she called upon one of her most intimate young lady friends, who was a fervent Catholic and devout client of the Sacred Heart. She opened her heart fully and frankly to her and asked advice as to what she had better do.

Her friend explained to her the devotion to the Sacred Heart, especially the promise to those who should keep a statue or picture of the Sacred Heart in their houses. She then told her to go to a certain priest, make a full and free confession, and tell him what she had been recommended in regard to the devotion to the Sacred Heart.

She met a most cordial reception from her confessor. He warmly approved of the recommendation of her friend, and told her to procure a statue or picture of the Sacred Heart or both, to commence