"One thing we fear, that when your friends in France hear of your distress, they will pray you so earnestly to return to them, that you will be unable to resist their entreaties, so we shall be in danger of losing you, and with you, the chance of instruction for our children. Have courage, holy Virgins, and prove that your love for the poor Indians is a heavenly love, stronger than that which binds you to your relatives. We offer you these two wampum belts, the one to attach you inviolably to our country; the other to found anew a house for Jesus, where you can pray, and teach our children to do so too." "We know you could not die happily, if at the last hour you had to reproach yourselves with having loved your friends so much as to give up for their sakes the souls once dear to you in God, and destined to be your eternal crown in heaven." It cannot be doubted that the sympathy of the Hurons must have been very gratifying to the Mothers, and have tended to cement the already strong tie which bound them to Canada. But the tie was a Divine one, formed by, and wholly dependent on the will of God. "If the Almighty decreed that we should return to France," the Mother of the Incarnation wrote to her son, "I should go back with the same tranquillity as I came out. To go, or to stay, is a matter of indifference, provided only God be glorified." In describing the events of the terrible night of the 29th December, she tells him that looking on the disaster as the punishment of her sins, she accepted it with perfect equanimity, only wishing that the chastisement were confined to herself, since she alone deserved it, and beseeching God to spare her innocent Sisters. She says that amidst the horrors of the conflagration, she enjoyed most profound interior peace, undisturbed by a single emotion of regret, sadness, or uneasiness. That closely united in heart with the will of Him who had permitted the blow, she desired that it might be accepted by all in the spirit of the saints both of the Old and New law, who with humble and contrite hearts blessed God under the heaviest afflictions and severest temporal losses. This imperturbable tranquillity was founded on her perfect confidence in God. Tracing all human events to His ordinance or permission, she sometimes wondered how it was that men should try to reject His hand when it sends adversity, and submit to it willingly only when it bestows prosperity, both being equally His gifts. The calmness of soul thus solidly grounded, must necessarily have been very steady but in addition, the Mother of the Incarnation had, as we know, received from God Himself a special gift of His own Divine peace.