JOAQUIN MILLER ON ST. ANNE'S, BEAUPRE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 33, 14 December 1883, Page 19

JOAQUIN MILLER ON ST. ANNE'S, BEAUPRE.

(From the San Francisco Chronicle.') Quebec, July 30, 1883.— Were I to tell you only what I saw at St. Anne 8 with my own eyes, I fear I should not have 80 much to tell of modem miracles after all. The fact is we must take some things on faith. For example, lam not certain, or at least I cannot absolutely prove to you, that the sun will rise to-morrow. But I know it has risen regularly through many seasons, and so I believe truly it will rise to-morrow. Well, for more than two hundred years these miracles of St. Anne's have been taking place in a quiet way and in an nnfrequented quarter of the world, and so these people here know that they have been, are, and will continue to transpire. During my month's residence here in Quebec I have talked with mauy good men, lawyers, able jurists, literary men (and understand there is a university here, while this city has long been famous for its schools and scholars), and I have found none among them all who pretend to doubt that there is some singular efficacy in the prayers of those making pilgrimages to St. Anne's. The remarkable cures, or miracles as they are called here, are as singularly chosen as is the location of this remote and out of-the-way spot. It would be reasonable to expect that some of the rich, noble and influential of the land might be most forward in their appeals for help ; but through all these years it has mainly been the poor and friendless, ignorant and dull who have been relieved, and so the church has struggled on in poverty there, and even up to this day the walls are merely plastered and the seats for the multitude are of the most primitive kind. A. record of all the miraculous cures is kept by the priest, and you find on inspection that now it is an old man. who has lost the use ot his limbs who has been suddenly healed ; a stupid old man, who has not any gift of expression" and can only swing the axe arjd use his restored back in hard labour as he stops between the strokes of his axe and stares at you. Then, again, I found an old woman who drove a cart who had bean able to walk as well as any one, after years and years of lameness. The cnres, however, which excite the interest of science are those of a more malignant order of malady. When a man is cured of cancer we may well exclaim "A miracle! " Of course, as I indicated before, I cannot say that I saw such cases healed, or anything of the kind. I can only assure you that I am assured that not only only one or two, but mauy, very many such cases are on record here at the shrine of good St. Anne of Beaupre. Neither did I with my own eyes see the blind restored to sight. But from the lips of Mrs. G, Tit. Penuee, an English lady from the Isle of Wight, I heard the account in detail of perfect sight being given to a little girl of near ten years of age who had been blind from birth. A prettier or more pathetic tale Tdo not know. I only know it is true. Mrs. Pennee is of a good English family, a par»» ticular personal friend of the greatest living poet, and has a brother who is famous in the world of letters. She is an elderly lady who makes her home at the Convent of St. Anne. This lady took ub into the little chapel of the humble convent here one day. It is a garret. The sloping Toof makes you stoop very low if you pass to the right or to the left of the main aisle. For they are very poor here, you must know. Away back in one corner knelt a little nun itt^ black. She was entirely blind, and had come many hundred miles to pray that she might once more see the light of day. She is here on her knees from morning till night, and is only led away to her meals. " And will she receive her sight ?" "As certainly as we see her kneeling there," answered the good old English lady, as she led us out and went on telling me of the wonderful things she hag witnessed at St. Anne's. On my first visit here I waß struck by the number of cripples making the pilgrimage. ladeed I was surprised tbat this healthy conntry could produce among a hardy people fio many sufferei-s. But the truth is, we at home do not see all the halt, the blind and the suffering in all sorts of ways as we do here. For there they keep in doors : here they all go forth to pray for help. Even idiots are taken by their parents to the shrine of good St. Anne of Beaupre. I saw on.his first pilgrimage a little English lad, well clad and comfortable. He even had a silver-mounted crutch to take the place of the withered and distorted leg that hung helpless at his side. His mother was with him, watchful and kind, but not unhopeful of help. I met this gentle couple, only yesterday here on the Btreets of Quebec. But the poor little lad had not left his crutches on. either of the two pyramids of crutches there. On the same occasiofl. there was a dark and low-browed French peasant with a fright-

fully swollen hand. He was suffering great pain, and I tried to talk with him, but he was sullen and silent. The same day I saw him washing his hand in the fountain before the church door. He was crying like a child. In fact it was his demonstrations of joy and delight at being thus suddenly healed that attracted the crowd about him, and led me by chance to see him. On this same day 1 saw an old man feeling his way down the great aisle of the church, over and around the numbers of men, women and children kneeling there. He, literally, was too feeble to use a crutch, and would drag himself forwari by holding on to some one of the sides of the pews. No one was near him or tried to help him, nor did anyone attempt to stop him or interfere with him. Yet his conduct seemed strange, and he seemed very much out of place. Still he kept on till he came to the statue of St. Atiue, which stands out before the altar and almost between the two pyramids of crutcnes which have been left there by restored crioples. Here the poor old creature laid hold of the railing at the foot of the mother of the Virgin where candles burn perpetually, and lifting his face began to pray. As I had not gone there to pray, but to see, I, unlike the others, noticed this man closely. In fact he seemed so withered, so utterly as if he were dead and unconscious, his face so like that of a corpse, that I found it impossible to take my eyes off him from the time I saw him feeling his way along the aisle. The bony hands of the withered old peasant held hard ©n to the altar. His lips moved and he prayed inaudibly, with his ghastly face lifted for a long time. I decline to enter into detail further here. It seems like profanity. Let me SWnply say that I saw that old man restored to health, if not to youth. I followed him to the door and saw him pick up his bundle and his staff and strike off up the road with the step of an athlete. Ido not think he had ever entered thst church before. I followed htm a little way till I met a priest who lives here, and this priest told me he was a stranger and from Ms peculiar dress he should say that he lived a long way ofl in the mountains to the north. But how absurd it seems that I,, the old miner of the Sierras, the rover and the rhymer, who never knew any kind of religion or ever had time to pray, should find myself recounting and taking an interest in these things ; telling them to the reader and pledging my word of honour and all that is sacred for their cold and absolute truth. But it is truth. I know, that miracles credited to Saint Anne, Honne bainte Anne de Beaupre, are genuine and that whether there were miracles of old— and there were—there are miracles to-day. lam quite aware that I have recounted nothing here of my own absolute knowledge of a very striking- nature. But I have not told all, nor shall a ■ °\T ? ood and P oS3ibl y provoke unjust derision and bring undesirable notoriety among the vulgar to these very sincere and simple people. And yet, to be very frank and truthful, I must here say, that 1 really saw nothing so very much more remarkable than what I bave here written down. I saw enough, however, to convince me— and I think those who have followed me in my journeys about the world will be slow to admit that I am too easily persuaded to anything.