AN INDIAN GIRL APOSTLE.

AGNES, URSULINE PUPIL, DIED CHRISTMAS WEEK, 1643

The Ursuline nuns of Quebec have many a pretty story to tell of the thousands of pupils whom they
have trained in the ways of God for the last two hundred and fifty years - some as entertaining as the
pages of any romance, some affecting even to tears with pictures of sadness, all of them at once
entertaining and edifying. The following we cull from pages away in their pioneer days, when the
most of their children were savage young maidens fresh from the wild woods.
One day in August, 1639, Father de Quen, a Jesuit missionary of the neighbourhood, was walking in
the forest when he suddenly beheld an Indian maiden, about twelve years of age, chopping wood for
the fire. As soon as she saw the Father, she threw her hatchet aside and, running toward him, cried
out: Teach me, Father! teach me to be a Christian!
She did this with such a grace and earnestness that the Father was sensibly touched, and to satisfy her
earnest appeals he soon afterwards brought her and two of her young companions to the nuns at
Quebec to be duly instructed. They were apt scholars and at next Easter all three of them had the
happiness of receiving holy baptism.
Our little heroine was given the name of Agnes, whichas it signifies a lamb - the nuns said suited
her exceedingly well, for she was truly a lamb in sweetness and simplicity. She made rapid progress in
all her studies, not only in the knowledge of the sacred mysteries, which of course she prized above
everything, but in good manners as well, in reading, playing the violin, and a dozen polite
accomplishments. Her holiness of life, however, far surpassed her 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 ardour, 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 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-inlaw, 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.