origin
and mission more than in the care which she bestows on her children, the
adopted brethren of Jesus Christ, at the awful hour of death. She
reserves all her good things for this her last service to her children.
She sends her keys there, to the bedside of the dying man, to open to
him the gate to the calm and peaceful walks of justification. She sends
her oils thither, too, to anoint the Christian gladiator for his last
and final struggle with his powerful enemies. She sends her divine
manna, to strengthen him and sustain him for the trying and unknown
journey; and she sends the music of her sweet hymns and litanies to
cheer him on, and the light of indulgences and benedictions to guide his
soul, illumine his understanding, and shed the rays of their heavenly
reflection on the difficult passage that he has to traverse. And this
food, these blessings, gifts, and graces, she has ready for all
repentant sinners without exception, be they the inmates of the true
fold, or straying without the boundaries of the city of God; be they the
timorous souls who are already washed, or the negligent, who have
followed the hard ways of the world. If, in her other functions, the
spouse of Christ is "terrible as an army set in array," "fair as the
moon, and beautiful as the setting sun," in this, her last office at the
death bedside, she is all mercy, tenderness, and goodness. O, how cold,
selfish, and intolerable would life be, if the Catholic church was not
present, on all occasions, with the graces, blessings, and consolations
of Christ!

"O Lord, if it be thy will, deprive us of every thing--riches, health,
renown, pleasure; but never leave thy creatures, thy inheritance, thy
children, without the consolations of thy church! O Lord, the many sheep
that are here not of thy fold gather and bring in speedily, that there
may be but one fold and one Shepherd, as thou thyself hast foretold."
Thus prayed this pious priest of God, after having added another strayed
sheep to the fold of his divine Master; and his soul was at peace.

For two days the storm continued unabated, the whole country becoming
like an undulating ocean of snow. Drift snow, mountain high, was
accumulated in the valleys between hills; whole herds of sheep and
cattle were suffocated; and the bodies of several teamsters, whose teams
were overset, were dug out lifeless from under the drifts by the men who
had assembled with their ox teams and shovels to open the int