them to do violence to their natural vivacity, while they slowly communicated to their old parents and grand-*parents, a part of what they had learned; and the chiefs would rise at the dawn of day, and sometimes in the middle of the night, to exhort their people to weep over their sins.
I have spoken of their faith. How pure and {283} above all, how confiding it was! The first idea, necessary to impress on their minds was, that the goodness of God is not less great than his power, and they were so convinced of it, that they begged God to perform miracles, as they would beg their daily bread. They were told, that the sacrament of extreme unction had the power not only to purify the soul, but to restore health to the body; it did not occur to them to doubt of the one more than of the other.
They have great faith in the sign of the cross. They are accustomed to make it at the beginning of their prayers, and of all their principal actions. Not satisfied with making it themselves, their children can scarcely pronounce a word, before they teach them to articulate the words of the sign of the cross. I saw a father and mother bending over the cradle of an only son, who was about to die. They made their best efforts to suggest to him to make the sign of the cross, and the child having raised his little hand to his forehead, made the consoling sign and immediately expired.
A woman, sitting near the grave of her only daughter, was conversing with her little boy, whom she had that day presented at the baptismal font. "See," said she, "my child, how {284} happy it is to die after being baptized! If you should die to-day, you would see again our little Clementia." And the pious mother exhibited such a calmness in her tone of voice and countenance,
