The novice embraced the cross of religion with holy ardour, and bore it with persevering fidelity. Cordially despising the world which had well nigh betrayed him, he renounced it thoroughly, and directed all the affections of his heart to God alone. Looking on religious perfection as the only object worthy of his ambition, he pursued the one great end with a fervour and an earnestness which ensured his rapid progress. His success in his vocation, and the diminution of his mother's trials, all along kept such equal pace, that she might safely have judged of the one by the other. Hence, when obscurity again enveloped her soul, she inferred that some obstacle to his profession had arisen, and so the event proved. The difficulty being happily removed, he was permitted to seal the irrevocable act of his consecration to God by the solemn vows. After his promotion to the priesthood, he was appointed to some of the principal offices of his Order, and his humility taking the alarm, he wrote to his mother of his regret at being compelled to emerge from his dear solitude. "Do not say, my son," she replied, "that you prefer an obscure life to a higher sphere of action. Love the duties of the latter, not because they are more important in the eyes of men, but because they are in the order of God's will for you. It is well that you should be impressed with your nothingness, for on that foundation it is that the Almighty will erect the edifice of your perfection; but content yourself wherever He places you--there for you is sanctity. Whether your position is a high one or a low, be humble, and you will be happy." After having rendered important services to his Order, and contributed to the reformation of several abbeys, Dom Claude Martin died in the odour of sanctity at Marmoutier, on the 9th of August, 1696, aged seventy-seven. He survived his holy mother over twenty years, and after her death wrote the history of her life, employing principally as material her own relation of a portion of God's wondrous dealings with her, and her voluminous correspondence with himself.[Footnote: This history, with that of Père Charlevoix, forms the foundation of all the existing biographies of the Venerable Mother. Dom Claude Martin likewise published two volumes of her letters, the one the spiritual, the other the historical; her explanation of the Christian Doctrine ("Grand Catéchisme,") and her Retreats. For recent reprints of all we are indebted to the Abbé Richaudeau, a distinguished ecclesiastic of Blois. The Ursulines of Quebec possess, and prize as treasures, different articles once belonging to the son of their saintly Mother; among others, a silver reliquiary containing a precious particle of the true Cross.]